Last updated 5/12/2021
Summer is here, and that means sunshine and outdoors and fun! Last summer, I offered you a series of fun math games to help keep your kids entertained while also sharpening their math skills. This summer, my focus is on reading. I know we could all use a break from school, and the last thing some of your kids want to hear is, “Time for READING!!!” But don’t cave in!! As a teacher, I have seen numerous children actually start the school year at a lower reading level than they finished at the previous school year. I literally see their report cards telling me the student finished “at grade level,” and yet they are unable to read through the exact same mini book they had mastered just a few months before. What is the cause of this unfortunate phenomenon??
A book-less summer.
Sad.
Maybe you want to give your child a break from working so hard over the school year and feel like reading is for homework and teachers. I hope you will try to instead see books as the gateway to adventure, imagination, and mental growth for your child! Summer is a great time to encourage your children to read (almost) whatever they want and to develop a love of reading. Allow them to just take pleasure in consuming books that will take them all over the world, into the future, or back in time. Many public libraries have great reading programs that encourage children to dig into books, so take a trek out sometime and see what strikes their fancy!
For every student who started off fourth grade at a lower level than they finished third grade, there were just as many children who entered fourth grade one or two reading levels higher than they finished third grade. It wasn’t because their parents sat by their side and read with them every day or sent them to tutoring programs. They simply had access to books and read them regularly over the summer! As I’ve shared before, simply consuming books at the right reading level is oftentimes all it takes to help young readers move to the next level in reading. So I urge you this summer to encourage your children to read. It could be the difference of falling behind, or starting with their best foot forward at the start of the next year!
Now that I’ve thoroughly hammered in that point, let’s talk about taking further steps to move your child to the next level. Maybe your child finished the school year a little behind in reading. Maybe they just barely met “grade level expectations.” Maybe you just want to continue to hone their love of reading and see where else you can take this.
6/19/2015: Congrats to Terra, the winner of the Bug Zooka giveaway!
There’s a lot to love about summer, but here’s one thing I always used to dread about the season: SPIDERS. Silverfish. Bugs. Ewgh! However, several years ago, I decided to look for a solution to this annual problem, and I came across the most amazing product: The Bug Zooka
- It totally works. Just push the button, and the device uses a spring mechanism that produces a vacuum, sucking the bug through a one-way trap door and into a clear catch tube. A dark grey catch tube is included for the extra squeamish (so you don’t have to look at the bug you just caught).
- You don’t have to get near the bug. It’s about 30 inches long, so you can stay a good distance away and avoid viewing your captives up-close.
- You don’t have to kill the bug yourself. You can remove the catch tube and let the bug free outside if you want. Or you can let the bug(s) die in the catch tube over time and then empty it (or let someone else empty it…) much later.
- Spiders don’t run away from it. When you try to kill spiders with a napkin or something, they always start running away just as you’re about to get them. It freaks everybody out. With the Bug Zooka, you can bring the tip of the catch tube right over the spider for optimal sucking and it won’t flinch at all! It’s like they can’t sense or see the thing at all, so it’s super easy to catch them.
- You don’t have to stand on chairs to catch spiders on the ceiling anymore. With the built-in extender, it can reach any place a human + chair can. This kind of goes with my second point, but I thought it deserved a bullet all its own. NO MORE BALANCING ON CHAIRS!! Isn’t that great?! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been afraid of getting startled by the spider and falling off the chair…
- You don’t have to use tissue to pick up crunchy dead spiders anymore. EW gross I shudder just thinking about it and hate the word crunchy in this context. But you know what I mean. Just suck it up, then forget about it. Whew.
It is hot, hot, HOT in the Bay Area this week! I was at the farmer’s market this morning and found myself sweating buckets before I finished buying my first bag of white nectarines! In times like this, I find myself mulling over which beverage I’d find most refreshing: Milk tea? Iced coffee? Fresh watermelon juice? Frappucino? Smoothies? Of course, ice cold water is probably the cheapest and healthiest, so I most frequently turn to my trusty Hydro Flask
But it only temporarily satiates the desire for something chilly, sweet, and delicious slipping down my throat. So whenever I am able to carve out some time, I love to treat myself and Ben and our friends to one of these delectable beverages! They are each a favorite in a different way, so I highly encourage you to give them all a shot sometime! Now for the summer drink roundup:
Guys, this is my fourth post ever in the “homemaking” category. I’m not sure whether to celebrate that or be embarrassed by it. You may not have even realized I used to have “homemaking” as one of my blog categories, along with education, parenting, food, and marriage. That’s because one day, I realized that I had dozens of posts pertaining to my other passions, but only three– yes, 3– on homemaking. And that’s when I realized I’m nowhere near expert at making homes. But HEY, I got my craftsy on today, and I made the home look brighter and fresher with these new envelope pillow cases!! Isn’t that a remarkable face-lift?!
I’ve never thought of myself as much of a grape person, but when my friend Hanna told me about this recipe, I knew I had to try it. Because I will pretty much do anything Hanna tells me to do. She has never steered me wrong.
Plus, it seems grape sorbet and I were fated to happen. You see, one Thursday, I was at Costco, and this sample lady kept calling out, “THE SWEETEST GREEN GRAPES YOU WILL EVER TRY IN YOUR LIFE! HAVE SOME GREEN GRAPES! THEY’RE THE SWEETEST GREEN GRAPES YOU WILL EVER TRY…” So of course I had to have some.
Maybe it was the clever packaging–they were called Cotton Candy Grapes–but seriously, when the juice squirted into my mouth, I felt like I was transported to a carnival. It may have just lasted for a second, but I swear the cotton candy taste was there. It made me very suspicious of the grapes, actually… but since they said ORGANIC and I happen to trust Costco very much, I picked up a basket.
Good decision, JoEllen. Because that left me with plenty left over to eat, even after tripling the green grape sorbet recipe.
The sorbet was bright and refreshing and would make an excellent palette cleanser. It was also very easy to make. I thought my grapes might be sweet enough without the extra sugar, but something about freezing foods makes them taste less sweet, so I’m glad I kept the sugar in the end.
HELLO EVERYONE!!!
I am SO EXCITED!!! I am just finishing up the last tidbits of my blog’s new look and feel, and I am SO PROUD OF IT! Not sure if you visited the actual blog page much before, but it used to be a darker background of grey with black headers and red highlights. It wasn’t at all what I had imagined when I originally selected “Sorbet” (yumyum!) as my blog theme, but it took me this long to get around to updating things.
And I love it!!
Now, thanks to a theme I bought on Etsy, a brilliant computer science husband, and a generous friend with an eye for design, I have a completely new look and feel. Oh, and I finally added a photo of myself, in case you were imagining that I was Caucasian all this time. Because according to Google image search, “joellen” is a predominantly… non-Asian name.
“The couple that plays together stays together.”
This quote conjures images of smiling, happy, sunglassed couples hiking green mountains together, biking together, and having adventures together out in nature. I picture my elderly neighbors down the street, who often work out in the front yard gardening together. It’s so cute. I think about my engineer friends with their gamer wives that team up together and regularly play Starcraft or WoW together. (Nerd points for anyone who knows what WoW is!). This quote probably even applies to the couch potatoes who have a routine of vegging together after work, watching Netflix or Hulu or whatever you call TV these days.
Ben and I do few of those things. He enjoys programming. I cannot. I enjoy baking. He… eats baked stuff. He enjoys biking. I love team sports. I enjoy going out, but he’s one of the biggest (extroverted) homebodies I know.
According to conventional wisdom, it appears that we are doomed.
Wanna know what the best thing I ever baked was?
A little bun in the oven! And for the last few months, I have been very, very busy “baking up” another one! That’s right, we’re due to have a BABY BOY in October! 😀 We just had our big ultrasound yesterday morning, so you’re some of the first to know!
These lemon bars are by far the most requested item I make. My friends love the buttery-tart combination and recently, I was asked to make a whole bunch of them for a wedding! Since I had to mass-produce these guys, I decided to go with… bottled lemon juice, something I hadn’t done for nearly a decade. However, in so doing, I discovered that bottled lemon juice is the key to making these lemon bars consistently tart and perfect in consistency!
Do your best.
It was a mantra repeated to me again and again throughout my upbringing. Before piano recitals and exams (and I had many), my mom would smile encouragingly and say, “Just do your best!”
I remember asking my mom one time, “What would happen if I got a B on my report card?” I peered over at her with wide eyes, trying to gauge her reaction.
“As long as you did your best, that’s fine,” she said matter of factly.
“Really?! What if I got… a C?!”
“As long as you did your best, that’s fine.”
“So, if I came home with a D, you wouldn’t be mad?” I pushed.
“If you really did your best, then no. But I also know what you’re capable of and it’s usually better than a D, so if that happened then maybe you didn’t do your best.”
I sat, pondering this silently.
I can’t say I’ve always lived it out. By high school, I was the do-what-you-need-to-get-the-A student, and that oftentimes took a lot less than my best. When it came to things I really cared about, though–a basketball game, preparing a presentation in front of peers, leading a club–I gave it my all, my 100%. It was like I didn’t know how to slack off or tone it down when it came to these things, and I often pushed myself long and hard into the night to make sure everything was done in excellence.
Meet JoEllen
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