School & learning, explained the way a teacher would at pickup
Is my child on track? When do kids actually learn to read, or tell time, or stop counting on their fingers? And what does that "new math" homework want from us? Short, practical answers for parents of Pre-K through 6th grade kids, written by two sisters, Emily and Samantha, who have taught and tutored this stuff for years. 100 articles so far, a new one most days.
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School Life & Milestones
What kids learn in each grade, kindergarten readiness, homework routines, report cards and everything else that comes with school life.
34 articles →
Reading & Writing
How children learn to read and write: phonics, sight words, spelling, handwriting and the jump from picture books to chapter books.
32 articles →
Math, Time & Money
From counting to times tables: telling time, money skills, math facts fluency and practicing at home without a battle.
34 articles →New this week
Reading a calendar: days, weeks, months and the 'how many sleeps' question
The jacket, the water bottle, the library book: a losing-things system that works
Letters and emails to grandparents: real-world writing practice
Bar graphs, pictographs and the class weather chart: data in elementary school
Long division: is it still taught, and how do you help without the old way?
They can read every word and still miss the story: reading comprehension explained
Even and odd, doubles and halves: the small ideas that make big math easier
Mental math strategies your child learns (and how to speak the language)
How to help with a group project without doing the project
If you only read six
- When do kids learn to read? A realistic timeline by age
- Is your child ready for kindergarten? What teachers actually look for
- Homework without the nightly battle: routines that stick
- Times tables: the order that makes multiplication facts stick
- When do kids learn to tell time? (And why analog clocks still matter)
- How to get real answers out of “How was school?”
Two sisters, one kitchen-table project
Mokifun started as a shared notes file between two sisters. Emily taught kindergarten and first grade and kept getting the same questions at pickup: is it normal that he still guesses at words, should she know her letters by now? Samantha tutored upper-elementary math and fielded the other half: why is 7×8 so hard, what on earth is a number bond, how do I help with homework I don't understand myself.
The notes file became a website. It's still just the two of us, writing in the evenings after our own kids are in bed, and we still argue about the Oxford comma. More about us and how we work →