About Time4Writing...

My third grade writer is now more than half way through her "Extreme Paragraphs" course on Time4Writing! So far she likes it and has been able to fly through and stay on track even though we took a few days off while we were out of town. Her kind teacher, Mrs. Jennifer,  has offered good feedback to help J write the best paragraphs.  So far she's practiced writing topic sentences, supporting details, and  closing sentences. She has also learned about using good sentence structure, transition words and adjectives.  Her favorite thing to do is write stories from her imagination. Stay tuned for the full review as soon as she's finished!

Teaching your kids to ride a bike...the easy (and cheap) way.

So after having tried all kinds of methods and after many tears and crashes, training wheels, no training wheels, running with little biker,etc...we've finally learned the secret! 

I was recently searching on line for the best ways to teach children to ride on two wheels and learned that bikes with no pedals, which are often quite pricey, work amazingly well. My hubby also heard that the best way to teach adults and kids with special needs is to just take all the pedals and training wheels off. 

We had kids "bike" by pushing with their feet in big "walking on the moon" steps. We made it a game to see how long they could balance without touching their feet to the ground. A few short weeks of practicing and they were balancing for about 10-20 seconds without touching the ground.

We put the pedals back on, and just like magic they all took off riding!

*Note:When removing the pedals, the left pedal is usually threaded differently than the right pedal to avoid unintentional unscrewing during riding. The LEFT pedal is RIGHTY-LOOSEY (clockwise), LEFTY-TIGHTY (counter-clockwise).