Hello, I’m Renee!
For the past 13 years, I worked as a preschool and kindergarten teacher at an elite private school in Columbus, Ohio. Before that, I worked as a kindergarten teacher at a public school in Raleigh, North Carolina. Through the years, I observed how children learn most effectively and I identified 8 Key Developmental Areas that contribute to school readiness and lasting success in school.
In March 2007, I became a grandmother for the first time when my daughter and her husband welcomed a baby boy into their family. Then, in December 2007, my son and his wife welcomed a baby boy into their family—making me a grandmother twice-over! 2010 was another exciting year for me, as my daughter and her husband welcomed another baby boy in January and my son and his wife also welcomed a second baby boy in March.
Shortly after I became a grandmother, I began quietly compiling a list of the most effective activities, ideas, and worksheets that I had created and used over the years with my preschool and kindergarten students. I would stay up at night after a full day of teaching, recording insights gleaned from that day in the classroom. With these ideas in mind, I created kindergarten worksheets and developed activities that I thought might one day help my grandsons develop critical school-readiness skills. I also created a kindergarten readiness test so my children could assess my grandsons’ readiness to start school, when the time came. At the time my grandsons were barely walking, but I hoped to one day be able to share with my children my thoughts on how young children learn most effectively, and empower them to work with their children through simple worksheets and fun activity suggestions.
In 2008, I retired from teaching to become, as I like to say, a “Full-Time Grandma.” This website is intended to be a dynamic source of information, ideas, and activities designed to help position children for lasting academic success. My hope is that parents (including my own children!) will be frequent visitors to this site, constantly learning new ways to help their children flourish academically. I hope that as new families discover this website, they will join our community, both learning from my experience and sharing experiences of their own.
When we’re not traveling around the country visiting our children and grandchildren, my husband and I live in Columbus, Ohio.
