Welcome to this week's issue of 4MomsAtHome!

1. Announcements
2. Featured Article - 5 Ways To Help Your Kids Do Math
3. Special Offers
4. Contests and Sweepstakes
5. Featured Article - Keeping Your New Baby Safe
6. Featured Recipe - The Sweet Potato vs.The Yam
7. Featured Article - Good Night, Sweet Perennial

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Uh oh.

Your kids arrive home with their school reports and it's poor marks from the math department. Now what do you do? You may not be a math teacher, but thankfully there are ways you can help your kids improve their grades. Studies have shown that children are much more likely to perform well in a subject that interests them.

So, here are 5 ways to get your kids excited about math and actually looking forward to the next math class:

1. Inspire them.
Some kids don't enjoy math because they just can't see the point of it. Unlike reading or painting, all those mathematical symbols and numbers don't seem to mean anything.

What you need to do is show them how important math is in the real world.

Tell them stories about the great engineering feats throughout history. From building the great pyramids of Egypt, to the Hoover dam, to the latest space missions to Mars, nothing would have been achieved without mathematics, and mathematicians.

2. Get practical.
Involve your kids in some real world math away from the classroom. Find something your child is interested in and relate it to math in some way.

For example, do they like baseball? Terrific. During a game, ask them how many points the losing team has to score to beat the other one. And how many games do they need to win before they have enough points to win the league?

If they enjoy helping around the home then let them do the "clever stuff". Ask them to work out the sizes for that wood you're going to cut. Or get them to measure out the ingredients for the cake you're about to bake.

When you're in a store, ask your kids to add up the prices and keep a running total while you shop. Then ask them how much change you should expect at the checkout.

3. Take life "step-by-step".
Success in math - as in life - is largely about breaking large projects down into manageable, bite-sized pieces.

Many kids feel overwhelmed when they see a list of math questions, and it's at this point they may decide that math is "boring" or "hard".

Show them the magic of taking one question at a time, and breaking it into tiny steps that make it easy.

4. Encourage creativity.
Kids may become mentally "stuck" on a topic because they're only looking at it in one way. Perhaps they need to step outside the box and see it from a different angle.

Show them the beauty of alternative viewpoints. Help them to see situations from other people's perspective.

Get them into the habit of exploring different ways of solving a problem. Even something simple like tidying up a room can have several possible "solutions" or ways of approaching it.

Crosswords and lateral thinking puzzles are good for this kind of flexible thinking.

5. Be positive.
Eliminate negative statements like "math is hard" (even if you thought of yourself as a math dunce at school!).

Explain how everyone has a natural ability to do math and that solving math problems isn't so different from solving other kinds of problems in life.

Above all, inspire confidence in your kids. Teach them persistence and how there's always a solution to every problem.

We all perform better when we enjoy what we do, and getting kids interested in math is the real key to success.

They may not turn into mathematical geniuses, but they'll thank you in later life when they enter the world of work and start counting their salaries.

Now who said your kids couldn't do math?

'Fun With Figures' shows anyone of any ability the easy way to do mental math. Visit the site today and find out what you didn't learn in the math class. Click here ===> http://FunWithFigures.com/

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After all the baby furniture is purchased, you'll have to start thinking of baby safety supplies. Once your baby becomes mobile (and that's in a few short months), battening down the hatches is extremely important.

If you have stairs or open doorways leading to areas that you don't want your baby to wander into, you'll need to purchase some baby gates. Most are adjustable to fit a variety of openings and come in a variety of styles such as wooden, plastic and mesh.

Don't forget those electrical outlets! For some bizarre reason children love to stick metal objects in those little slits so get your outlets covered, including any powerbars you may be using. Another favorite "play toy" with toddlers is the toilet. A good toilet lid latch should help keep the plumbing working.

Electrical appliances, TV's, VCR's and household items will also need to be secured. It's amazing what children can find to pull down or get into. Plus, don't forget to pick up safety supplies for when you're traveling, even if it's just a short distance. Baby harnesses are a good thing to use once your toddler is walking. And don't forget to protect them from harmful UV rays with some sort of car window shade.

Keeping your precious child safe is very important. There are so many little things in the household that, as adults, we take for granted. But to a child, they're new and exciting areas to explore... which can be very dangerous to them. As a new parent or even grandparent, get down on your knees and crawl around your house looking for all the temptations found at your baby's level. You'll be amazed at what potential hazards you will find. Secure your new baby's safety before it's too late.

Rose Smith is the author and publisher of Baby-Care-4u.com an online shopping and information resource for essential baby care products. For more information on baby care, visit: http://www.baby-care-4u.com

Now that the landscape is strongly suggesting the occasion of fall, you know it's only a matter of time before your garden perennials will decide to pack up and call it a growing season. However, some perennials tend to pack haphazardly, casting off dried leaves here and spent seed pods there, leaving your garden looking more like a compost pile than a flower bed. Many of us just raise up our arms in frustration and accept the fact that our gardens will just be a bare mess for the winter; after all, spring is only four to five months away, right?

Don't give up on your winter garden just yet; there are ways to avoid the Post-Modern Compost Style in your landscape. All you need is a free day and some essential gardening tools to clean up your perennial beds and keep them looking manicured throughout the off-season. By knowing which perennials to cut back, which ones to leave alone, and which ones that can still add winter interest, you can help your perennials survive the winter, and perform remarkably the next year.

Now, let's go over your garden tool checklist for your fall perennial cleanup. Bypass pruners? Check. Rake? Check. Garden gloves? Check. Shovel and spade? Check and check. You're all ready to hack back your perennials now, right? No! Before you take a pruner to anything, first you need to know what you've got. Each perennial plant is different; some should be cut off all the way to the ground, others should not be cut at all, and yet others should be cut some, and then cut differently come early spring. Once you know which is which, you can selectively prune your plants effectively.

Most perennials are of the herbaceous kind, that is, they die back to the ground every year. Some well-known herbaceous perennials are daylilies, hostas, and astilbes. During your fall cleanup, you want to prune the dead leaves and stems back to the ground level, and then tuck them into their beds with a layer of mulch. As a general rule of thumb, mulch shade perennials more and sun-loving perennials less, as the sun perennials are more prone to rot. The mulch layer will also keep the root system from drying out during the winter.

Another group of perennials are the semi-herbaceous bunch. These include plants like black-eyed Susans, shasta daisies, and goldenrod. These perennials shoot up long flowering stems that die back after blooming, but the crown of basal leaves at the bottom of the plant are evergreen. To winterize these plants, cut back the dead and dying flowering stalks and leave the green leaves. The plants use these leaves to photosynthesize throughout the winter, and they also help add some much-needed color to the winter garden.

The last group of perennials are the evergreen and subshrub perennials. Some evergreen perennials are candytuft and moss phlox, and some subshrubs are plants like butterfly bush, Russian sage, and artemesias. The only pruning you want to do to these plants in fall is the removal of dead plant material and leggy growth from evergreen perennials. You do not need to prune the subshrubs at all. Doing so might end up being harmful to the plant.

Some other perennials that you might want to consider leaving alone are plants that provide structural interest or seeds for birds. Many people leave ornamental grass to provide interest, and perennials like purple coneflower and sunflower provide food for birds through the winter. Leaving these perennials be will be much more rewarding than cutting them back to the ground.

All right, now you know the different types of perennials out there, and how to properly care for them during this transitional season. You can now know the difference between an herbaceous and semi-herbaceous perennial. You can now use that knowledge to properly identify your plants, and correctly prepare them for the winter. You now know when to mulch more or mulch less, and why. Now, you can clean up your landscape while still keeping your perennials healthy for next spring, and make your yard the envy of the neighbors. Now . . . now you're ready.

Carrie Paulk is the author of "Good Night, Sweet Perennial," which is part of the Tip of the Week program with Turf Tamer, Inc. She has written many informative landscaping articles. To learn more about landscaping tips and tricks, you can find the rest of her articles at http://www.turftamerinc.com/tip.shtm She can be reached at carrie@turftamerinc.com

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