Habit 3 | Put First Things First

Habit 3 Put First Things First

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey tells us that time management is a misnomer. Our challenge is not to manage time but to manage ourselves. Our focus should be on enhancing relationships and accomplishing results instead of focusing on things and time. Covey says that our activities can be categorized into […]


Habit 2 | Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 2 Begin with the end in mind

Begin with the end in mind. A simple yet profound idea. How many of us would start to build a house without having a detailed blueprint?  But many of us go through life without much of a plan. Begin with the end in mind is a habit to help us be more effective in our […]


Habit 1 | Be Proactive

Habit 1 Be Proactove

Recently I made a list of books that I felt had been pivotal in my growth as a leader. Needless to say, Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People made that list. In early 1989 my husband, Mark, came home one evening telling me he had been in a corporate training session that day […]


Ten Minutes From Overwhelmed To Overjoyed

ten minutes from overwhelmed to overjoyed

An article In The Harvard Business Review, How to Spend The First 10 Minutes of Your Day, reinforced my own practice of how I spend the first part of my day. Yeah!  For a while I’ve made it a daily practice to plan my day with worksheets that I keep in a notebook. These ten minutes planning […]


Articles for the Holidays

best gift for our children

Here are some Kids Talk articles that might be helpful for the holidays: Gimmee! Gimmee! ‘Tis the season to be jolly. If only our over-demanding children would stop with the demands for this and that, and this again. For a second, try to see the world from your child’s point of view and you might […]


Feeling Over?

Feeling over?

“I’m so over!” Jennifer said. “Overwhelmed.  Overworked.  Overscheduled.” As school leaders, the demands on our time, as well as our own tendencies toward perfection or procrastination, can create a situation where we are over our heads. How can we go from overwhelmed to overdrive, to feeling like we are cruising in the driver’s seat? Make […]


Questions About Multilingual Children

Questions about Multilingual Children

Today in my Understanding How Children Learn To Read webinar, I received this question about teaching young multilingual children how to write and read. I seem to be getting these types of questions frequently, so I thought I’d do a blog post about it. Maren, Wondering why age 4.5 is recommended for introducing a foreign […]


Overcoming Obstacles To Success

Overcoming Obstacles To Success

As we work with adults we often wonder why our expectations or standards aren’t being met. We believe in assuring success for children.    How can we assure success for adults? Success usually requires more of the following: Skills and training  Experience  Time to get the job done Support from others Materials  Confidence  Desire or motivation to […]


BOOK REVIEW | Hatching The Cosmic Egg

Nested Cosmic Egg

“Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality, and an answer to all questions.” Dr. Maria Montessori To Educate The Human Potential, page 5 Everything is perfect. As we flew cross-country in […]


BOOK | Understanding Montessori

Cover Understanding Montessori

Ten years ago I wrote and published Understanding Montessori: A Guide For Parents. Over the years I wanted to do an update, but there was always another project that called.  But this summer I went to work on the second edition and am now pleased to let you know about it.  The paperback and ebook have […]