An Appreciation of Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?

May 18, 2009

Certain preschooler questions are so fundamental as to be repeated almost every single day . As in: Preschooler: “Where’s Mommy (or Daddy)?” Answer: “She (or he) went to work.” Preschooler: “What is Mommy (or Daddy) doing?” Grown-up: “Working.” It’s not hard to see why this exchange may recur over and over and over at your

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Explaining Work and Work Demands to Kids

May 19, 2009

For Mother's Day, my kids delivered a heap of wonderful, handmade presents. In addition to beaded necklace and earrings, countless drawings and sweet notes, my older daughter made a little "book" in which she told a story about me. Usually, we tell our children stories, typically about made up characters or baby stories about themselves. Until I

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Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? Best Tours for Meeting your Community Helpers

May 20, 2009

My oldest son is in 2nd grade and they've just finished up a unit on Community Helpers. Apparently, they had some people working with Junior Achievement in to help with the unit. And when we went to tour the school he'll start in next year, we found out that they also work with Junior Achievement. Learning about a community and what makes it

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Preschoolers Like to "Work" Too: Jobs Around the House for the Little One

May 21, 2009

Behold! One of the biggest perks of Gigi turning three is she always wants to help. It's wonderful especially when totally appropriate for her to do. At this age, Gigi is able to do a lot of supervised and unsupervised chores around the house and it makes everyone very happy. I get free maid-service, She feels good for contributing and helping

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Wise Words from Jonas Salk

May 22, 2009

We struggle to explain work to our preschoolers. In fact, it is really they who could be explaining work to us. They seek it, puffing up proudly after being given a job and relishing the next official job that waits for them. It seems a world-changing scientist shared their perspective.  According to Jonas Salk, "The reward for work well done is

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