When Dr. Marie Allee began checking her daughter’s weekly preschool folder last school year, she expected to admire her 3-year-old’s handiwork. But tucked inside the folder among the vibrant finger paintings was something that shocked her: homework. “I balked at it,” recalled Allee, an Ellicott City resident who serves as a school psychologist at McDonogh [...]
Archive for August, 2007
The Value of Homework
Friday, August 31st, 2007Hot Dates in September
Friday, August 31st, 2007Pig out in Pigtown Running pigs, an “Iron Pig” BBQ cook-off and more make the annual Pigtown Festival one of the quirkiest around. The event takes place Sept. 8 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in southwest Baltimore’s historic Pigtown neighborhood near the 800 block of Washington Blvd. (close to the B&O Railroad Museum). In [...]
Making mealtime more meaningful
Friday, August 31st, 2007Experts and nutritionists offer the following tips for organizing family meals and making them a success: Be insistent but flexible: Make family meals a priority. But if someone has a soccer game until 6:30, for example, eat dinner at 7. If mom or dad are leaving that day for an overnight business trip, eat breakfast [...]
The Importance of Family Dinners
Friday, August 31st, 2007She has two busy teenage children and a nephew who live with her full-time, two teenage stepchildren who live with her part-time, a husband who is the CFO of a Baltimore company, and her own full-time job as operations manager at a company in Rockville. But most evenings, despite the abundance of hectic schedules, you’ll [...]
Bar Mitzvah Etiquette
Friday, August 31st, 2007Pick almost any Saturday morning and it’s pretty certain where you’ll find many of the areas young teens — no, not at the mall or on the soccer field. They’re attending a friend’s bar or bat mitzvah. For Jewish families, these rites of passage for 13-year-old boys and girls — the culmination of years of [...]
5 fun places to have a ball on your birthday
Friday, August 31st, 2007Party hats, pin the tail on the donkey and a round of musical chairs just don’t cut it any more when it comes to birthday party planning. Now, the prerequisites for the perfect party venue are unnerving. Kids want unique activities, cool goodie bags and enough action to leave guests raving long after the balloons [...]
Lunchbox caters to hungry children
Friday, August 31st, 2007Mothers at some private schools can pack away the peanut butter and brown bags thanks to a company founded by two local mothers, Stacy Brooks of Timonium and Marcia Krempasanka of Monkton. The moms founded Lunchbox — a catering company that provides lunches to area private schools that don’t serve hot meals — in 1998, [...]
Fun from A to Z at Winterthur
Friday, August 31st, 2007This September, families can experience the alphabet in a whole new way by exploring the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate from A to Z at its newest exhibit, “K is for Kids.” Winterthur, in Delaware’s Brandywine Valley, is known for its collection of American antiques and its library of American art and material culture. The [...]
Family Friendly Restaurants
Friday, August 31st, 2007Red Brick Station My beau and his four children, ages 16 to 3, and I visited Bill Bateman’s Bistro in Towson on a recent Saturday night. The family-friendly sports-themed setting was perfect for a relaxed evening out. Menu choices are equally as casual, from soups and salads to quesadillas, wraps, burgers, chicken, pasta and its [...]
Simple tips to reduce lunchbox garbage
Friday, August 31st, 2007Looking for ways to become eco-friendly? An easy place to make a difference is with your child’s lunch. Though juice boxes and individually wrapped ‘grab and go’ foods are convenient, they generate tons of trash. Each year the average student dumps 67 pounds of lunchbox trash, according to a New York Department of Environmental Conservation [...]