Education – Learning Together

Summer Dispatch 1: So Much to Do

And then there was One. Week. Left. We are a week from my daughter heading to second grade. The summer has flown by. Last summer, she enjoyed a week of Vacation Bible School, enjoyed the ocean for a few days, went to her first art camp, and fell in love with the world of HarryContinue reading “Summer Dispatch 1: So Much to Do”

Spring Dispatch 2: The Time-Traveling Truck

I wrote my daughter a book. Its hero is a third-grade girl named Harper Lee Williams, who travels in time with her grandpa to visit cowboys. I wrote one chapter a mystery called The Farm Sleuth. When I asked my daughter if she enjoyed it, she said, “It was like there were magnets drawing meContinue reading “Spring Dispatch 2: The Time-Traveling Truck”

Spring Dispatch 1: Spring Break 2023!

My daughter spent the first day of her spring break at school…only it was my school. She endured the fifty-minute-one-way commute, went to two different meetings, checked out books in the library, attended chapel, and grabbed lunch in the caf. Chilling in my office watching cartoons while I was teaching? Yep. Walking around campus inContinue reading “Spring Dispatch 1: Spring Break 2023!”

Winter Dispatch 3: Transformers

Here’s a parenting truism: my daughter’s not going to like everything that I like, and I’m not going to like everything she likes. My wife and I are culture hounds, so we want our daughter to dig good books, music, and movies. We’re seven years in, and she’s doing pretty well. She loved Charlotte’s Web,Continue reading “Winter Dispatch 3: Transformers”

Winter Dispatch 2: Tuesdays with Stories

My daughter and I have a new Tuesday routine. At 2:15 pm, I pick her and her cousin up from school, drop the cousin off at her house, grab a snack at our place, then head to the public library for a couple of hours. My daughter spends her time previewing new books, playing computerContinue reading “Winter Dispatch 2: Tuesdays with Stories”

Winter Dispatch 1: Basketball Jones

My daughter has been bitten by the basketball bug. Last week, she attended a girls’ middle school basketball game. The gym was beautiful. The play was not. My daughter didn’t care. The next day, she said she had to go to practice, loaded up her backpack, ran out to our back deck with a bouncyContinue reading “Winter Dispatch 1: Basketball Jones”

Fall Dispatch 3: Learning to Ride

When we got home from the state fair (the subject of a forthcoming dispatch), a bike was sitting in our driveway. My wife’s cousin had gotten it for our daughter. It looked cool. She was excited. There was just one problem: my daughter didn’t know how to ride a bike without training wheels. So sheContinue reading “Fall Dispatch 3: Learning to Ride”

Fall Dispatch 2: Halloween

Halloween has come and gone. What a difference a year makes. For the past several years, our daughter dressed up as a kind of cat: a tiger, an American short hair, etc. It was fairly easy. Face paint? Sure. But it was pretty low maintenance. This year, she only had one costume in mind: HarryContinue reading “Fall Dispatch 2: Halloween”

Fall Dispatch 1: School Pics

My daughter brought home her first-grade pictures yesterday. They already seem like museum pieces. Comparing her kindergarten pic and this first-grade one clarifies how much she’d grown. Her face is fuller and her smile more mature. She’s not a little kid anymore, and her pictures document that transformation. But even over the past month, myContinue reading “Fall Dispatch 1: School Pics”

Birthday Party – By the Numbers

7 – the number of years my daughter’s been alive 4 – the number of days after my daughter’s actual birthday when we held her birthday party 24 – people who attended said party, including the guest of honor and her parents (i.e. us) 7 – the number of Harry Potter books my daughter nowContinue reading “Birthday Party – By the Numbers”