Play & Learn: Museums Teach by Experience

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Annie Shultz

What is better than hands-on learning? Now that school is winding down, I am really looking forward to more time to be able to take my children to some nearby museums!

There are three main things I adore about museums:

1.Role play – When I was a child, I remember dressing up as a settler. As I watch my son, he can take any object and create an elaborate story line. Museums offer the role play in a very educational environment. Before I let them loose, I like to engage them in a little education – that way they can act out what they learned.

2. Tactile learning - Instead of merely learning facts or reading books, museums have learning objects they can pick up and play with and learn from! It is an entirely wonderful and new way to learn for them that I can’t do at home. The science museum near me has stuffed animals that are all based on animals from the habitat around our home. So educational and so fun!

3. Unforgettable – I still remember every single visit to the children’s history museum when I was a young girl. It is hard to forget the huge displays, the information I could see, feel and act out! I hope that learning from visiting the museum stays with my kids like it did with me.

Something else I am a huge fan of–unstructured learning. I know museums offer summer classes and day-camps – please take advantage of those! But I love to get down on the floor with my kids – interacting with them and showing them what they are playing with.

Natural learning from conversation happens best like this:

1. Encourage questions - As I sit down with them, I figure out what they are playing. I offer little tiny bits of information and make them ask me more. “This is carbon.” Then (in a perfect world) they say, “What is carbon, mommy?” It does not always happen, but as we play back and forth, they do interact and we do learn.

2. Create stories - It is through stories that they learn! At the history museum, I let them dress up and we pretend we are pioneers on the Oregon Trail. I make sure to try and keep the story line historically accurate and they learn bits and pieces.

3. Make them want to come back- We make it so fun that they want to come back. They play and grow an interest in the subject. The hands on play is planting a seed of love for a subject matter. I know for sure that it is easier to teach a child who wants to learn more about something! That is what museums do. They help a child to fall in love with a subject and want to learn more after they leave.

What about you? Do you take your kids to museums often? Or is it something you will do more now that school is almost out?

Gardening With Kids

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Tonya Staab

Create memories, flowers, and home grown vegetables in the garden this spring.

Here are some fun ways to get your kids out in the garden.

Planting seeds and seed bombs

All you need are pots with soil or a garden bed, along with seeds or seed bombs to get the kids started.

Use this planting time to hold a ‘garden classroom’. Teach them about what it takes to grow plants from a seed – from planting it in the soil, to watering it, and how the sun plays its part. They will love planting flowers that bring butterflies and birds to the garden.

Growing their own fruit and vegetables is a rewarding experience, not only will they be able to grow and care for their plant, but they will also learn where their food comes from and how it is grown. Kids are also more likely to want to try new fruits and vegetables if they’ve grown it themselves, so encourage them to pick it when it’s ready and teach them how to wash and prepare their food.

Gardening Kits

If you don’t have a green thumb (like me) and are looking for a simple way to get your kids into the garden, there are lots of gardening kits available that come with simple step-by-step instructions. Here are a few that you might want to start with:

Miracle-Gro® Kids Gardening Kits
Growums Garden Kits
Creativity For Kids Garden Crafts
Klutz Good Growing Kit
Gardening with Kids Kits
Potting Shed Creations Kids

Books about Gardening with Kids

These books offer lots of tips, advice and fun activities to encourage your kids to spend more time in the garden.

Gardening with Kids, by Catherine Woram
Kids’ Container Gardening: Year-Round Projects for Inside and Out, by Cindy Krezel
Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden, by Edith Pattou
The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown
Wildlife Gardening, by Martyn Cox
Organic Gardening for Kids, by Elizabeth Scholl
Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children, by Sharon Lovejoy
Grow It Cook It, by DK Publishing
Ready, Set, Grow! A Kid’s Guide to Gardening, by Rebecca Spohn
How a Seed Grows, by Helene, J. Jordan

The Latchkey Kid

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Melinda

Each day millions of children are left to take care of themselves after school . With government funding slashed due to budget cuts, fewer employment options and the extra cost of childcare parents are left with one option, leaving their child home alone.

I grew up a latch key kid. I literally had a shoelace with a hanging key tied around my neck, tucked into my uniform so no one could see. After school I was told to go straight home, lock the door behind me and entertain myself till my parents came home.

Each day I did just that. I called my mother to say I was home and was alone for another 2-3 hours.

As a girl I always found myself in front of my mother’s vanity and big walk in closet. I played dress up in her high heels and twirly skirts. I mastered the art of applying three complementary colors of eye shadow and dance around the house putting on a fashion show for my imaginary audience.

As working parents, about eight years ago we had to leave our oldest alone each day during the week. We were able to drop her off at school in the morning but then she was home alone for about an hour till we came home that night. The walk from the bus stop was short and there were several families on the block to keep an eye on her. It was the right decision at that time for that child.

Today child care costs keep rising while flexible work schedules are tougher to find. Long days in the office are taking the place of once welcomed and encouraged flex-time schedules. Parents are having to take jobs at a further distance or with different shifts in order to provide for their families.

Before you decide to go the latchkey kid route, go over some safety tips and rules to ensure your children are dependable and mature enough to handle the responsibility.

Check your local and state regulations. Many states say children should be at least 12 years old to be left alone.
Go over the house rules. Make sure everyone is clear about what is and is not supposed to be done while the child is home alone. This can cover computer time, phone conversations and homework.
Stay connected. Make sure your child has access to emergency phone numbers for you and other friends and family. Keep your child updated if you are running late due to work, traffic or other situation.
Protect your children. You may trust your children completely but take the step to lock up alcohol, prescription medications and firearms. This would be an ideal opportunity to research protection against online predators, spam, identity theft and malware.

Make the decisions that work for your family. If you are unsure and nervous about leaving your child home alone it probably isn’t the best answer. Connect with other community families and try to work out a shared care program. Discuss with your employers if a flex schedule would best suit your needs one or two days a week. Research school and government programs that may offer free activities, lessons, tutoring or sports in lieu of child care.

key image courtesy of NomadicLass via Flickr

Take a Trip to the Library

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Melinda

Weekly field trips are easy ways to introduce your children to culture, science and animals. Museums are chock full of fun and learning for any subject matter that comes to mind. Checking out your own community will produce lots of interesting places to visit. But don’t forget about your local library.

Libraries are often forgotten about when it comes to finding new places to explore. Books are looked at as work and education from kids. My own son used to groan at the thought of reading before bedtime. He would much rather watch television or play a video game. It took introducing new characters and storylines to develop an appreciation of books and how they can make you feel.

Trips to the library are now treats for my children. They each have large bookcases in their own rooms, filled with books of all kinds but they get excited when it’s time to discover something new on a shelf.

Row and row and shelf after shelf of colors and words draws them in. They judge books by their cover and illustrations inside. If it doesn’t catch their eye they keep moving. I sit and wait until armfuls of books are brought back to me. We go through each selection together to make sure the subject matter is appropriate and interesting.

Lately audio books have been making their way into our bags. My son now likes to fall asleep to the rhythmic soothing voices of someone telling him a story. He may not finish a story that night but will just start over again the next night.

The library is a museum, a museum of stories of life before us and events that will never happen. The stories will open up your child’s mind and encourage them to create stories of their own or share the stories they’ve fallen in love with.

Next time when you are thinking of a new adventure to take with your children keep the library in mind. Yours may offers classes, story times, author readings and more. You may be surprised at what you find.

Bubble Themed Day

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Michelle

The weather is warming up and I am ready to have a little fun. I find myself scheming and planning our summer schedule already and have decided I just can not wait! So, we are going to celebrate our nice weather with some bubble fun and turned it into a Bubble Themed Day with a few activities and some great books.

Bubble Activities

Basic Bubble Fun

I don’t think I have ever met a child who does not enjoy bubbles, so keep it simple. Go outside and blow bubbles. Let them pop them, count them, step on them or anything else you can think of. I can still send my kiddos outside and they will keep blowing and playing with the bubbles as long as they have bubble solution available.

Advanced Bubble Fun

Have a little science fun by adding different objects with holes to a shallow dish of bubbles and see what happens. For older children, have them search for items on their own and see what they come up with. You can use string, plastic lids with holes cut into it, use your finger and thumb in a circle (the O.K. sign) or anything else you can think of. My personal favorite is a slightly open fist and if I immerse my hand in bubbles, I can blow bubbles out the other end of my hand.

Bubble Art

Create bubble paint by adding water, tempera paint and a couple squirts of dish soap to a pie tin or cup. Take a straw and blow into the mixture to create bubbles. Then take a sheet of paper and touch it to the top of the bubbles to create a fun design. (Bubble paint = About 1/2-1 cup water, 1-2 T of paint per couple squirts of dish soap…not an exact science.)

Bubble Bath

An easy activity to do to end a Bubble Themed Day is to have a bubble bath, of course! My kiddos are always excited for a good bubble bath!

Bubble Books

And you can not have a Bubble Themed Day without some good bubble books. We went to our local library to see what kind of bubble books they have and found a couple fun ones. What will you find? Tip: When searching for books using their catalog, use “bubble” instead of “bubbles”. We did not find any children’s books with “bubbles”, but had plenty of options without the “s”.

Baby animals: teaching personal responsibility

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Annie Shultz

Spring – new flowers, new birth, new warmth and happiness! We have a farming supply store nearby. Every Spring they display their banner – “chick days” – and my kids point excitedly out the car windows as we pass.

Normally we go in and look at the rows and rows of new fuzzy baby chicks and ducklings. I allow the kids to pet them, and hold them. But this year, we decided to adopt some!

I said some. My husband interpreted that as a bunch. So we are now the proud owners of a dozen new chicks and seven ducks!

David, Lizzie and Lucy are showing a very active role in the care of the animals. They can tell what the different chirps mean – whether they are excited or anxious. They learn responsibility as they help us clean out their tubs. They change their water and pour the food.

But one of my favorite things they learn from the baby animals is relational. They realize how strong they are compared to the fragile babies. They learn gentleness and how their actions can calm them or cause them more anxiety.

Like the time 4-year-old David saw a baby chick jump out of the tub. It was separated from it’s friends and started to chirp high, loud, and scared. David was in the living room and heard the sounds, rushed over to the chick. He gently scooped her up and held her in the palm of his hand. “It is ok baby chickie. Here, you go back to your home,” he said and tenderly let it down in the tub.

In this world, our actions affect others. Answering cries for help means the chicks grow big and healthy. I smile, knowing my children are learning how to impact this world positively – that is the true definition of responsibility.

7 Journal Prompts to Inspire Writing with Details

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Julie Meyers Pron

Earlier this month, we discussed helping your child learn to use describing words and details in conversation as a key to improving writing skills. Below are writing prompts to help inspire children to write with details.

As you prompt children to write, it’s important to use the same techniques that we suggested for conversation: ask questions, discuss feelings and give them time. Children should be encouraged to go back and reread what they’ve written, adding, deleting and making changes. It also helps to put it down for a little while and come back to writing later.

7 writing prompts to inspire writing with details

Your school or neighborhood is going to host a carnival and you’re going to be in charge of one of the games. Describe your game. What supplies will you need? How will you decorate the area? What will participants need to do? How will you challenge them?

It’s Create a Monster Day! Write about a monster that no one has ever seen before using describing words that will scare anyone who reads it. Don’t forget to include how the monster affects all 5 senses.

Describe today through the eyes of your pet (or the pet you wish you had.) Think about how things are different from where your pet is. Does he call your mom “Mom”? Would does he smell the same things you smell? What does the world look like to him and what does he do all day? How does he feel?

You just found a large brown box with a big red bow wrapped around it. You opened it and inside was another box and bow. Then another… and another. Describe all the boxes shapes, sizes, colors, and wrappings as they get smaller and smaller until you finally open the last box. Then describe what was inside as you open the last one.

Go back to the box activity and describe your feelings as you open the boxes. Is it fun? Do your feelings and anticipation change as you open more? Are some more difficult to open than others? Don’t forget to explore your senses, too.

What’s your favorite movie? Describe the ending of the movie. Tell about the setting, the feelings and the characters’ feelings.

What was the last thing you ate? Write a description of it as if you’re telling someone who has never tasted it before. What did it look like? How did you eat it? How did it feel in your mouth and belly? Remember to include all of your senses.

Enter your bike in the annual Decorate Your Bike Parade. Write detailed plans of how you will decorate your bike.

How to help your child learn to describe

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Julie Meyers Pron

As children learn to become writers, one of the most difficult concepts for them to learn is to describe and add details. To help them develop this concept, it’s important for parents, teachers and friends to prompt kids in discussion to use more describing words.

The next time your child points to something and says, “What’s that?”, tell him you’re not sure what he’s referring to, even if you are. Likely, he’ll point again and say, “That! That thing… what is it?” Here’s the hard part: don’t tell him what it is. Tell him you still aren’t sure (perhaps your eyes are closed or there are a lot of things he could be pointing at, or you have incredible sun glare..) and that you need him to describe it using detailed words.

You might receive silence as a response. “Describe?” He’ll question. “But can’t you see it?” Perhaps he’ll have no problem telling you it’s large, greenish brownish and ugly.

Urge him on asking, “Ugly, what kind of ugly?”

“Well,” he might say, “it has brownish bumps all over it. And the brown bumps are kind of like circles, and then he has this skin that’s brown and white and green and tan. And it’s skin is kind of bumpy, too, but not big bumps like the brown bumps.”

Keep him going and say “really?” or just stay quiet and wait for more.

“Yeah. And he has two big eyes that are golden and green and almost glowing and he’s just staring at me with them. He’s barely moving but maybe his belly is moving in and out a little bit.”

“Interesting…,” you’ll reply. “You said he’s large? Large how? Like as big as our house?”

“No! He just seems big. Like… bigger than the ant that just crawled by. Maybe bigger than my hand. Oh! And his hands have 4 skinny fingers.”

Wait longer to make sure he’s done describing — both kids and adults tend to talk more when there’s no response. Then, when you’re sure he’s done, congratulate him, “That sounds like a frog to me. You did such a great job describing it I would have been able to figure that out even with my eyes closed!”

5 tips for prompting your child to describe

Use describing words in your conversations

Don’t just say “Over there, to your right, see it?” As an adult, you’ll need to model the desired behavior, so make sure you’re describing with more than the basic words.

Give kids time

Try not to jump in and give an answer, but count to ten after your child finishes his thoughts to make sure he’s really finished. Often times, when given quiet time to think about what he’s just said, he’ll think of more to add to the conversation.

Listen and question

Pay close attention to the way he is describing something, so that you have questions to ask for further discussion. Perhaps he uses the word “huge.” We know that “huge” is a relative term, so ask him what he means by the word or to compare the size to something else.

Discuss feelings

Sometimes the looks of an object give a child a feeling–the feeling is very much a part of the describing process. In fact, describing feelings is often more difficult that describing an object because feelings aren’t tangible. As children grow to be stronger writers, they’ll learn to tie together feelings and objects as they describe.

Practice describing words as a game

This is an easy game for waiting in line or in the car. Select an object and take turns describing it together without saying what it is. It’s even more fun to do this with a friend who can guess what you’re describing.

Composting With Kids

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Nadia “Justice Jonesie”

COMPOSTING!

Composting as a family can be a fun and easy green project that’s environmentally responsible. Not to mention economical- you’ll save on chemical fertilizers, garbage bags (you’ll be throwing away less waste) and soil! And those who compost swear by the nutrient rich soil that can be used in gardens or for planting flowers. Many say it’s the best soil they’ve ever used-producing the tastiest vegetables and fruits that they’ve ever had.

These things intrigued me, so I decided to give composting a try in our house.

However, before the organic materials could break down, I needed to break down what to do…

Learn what you can compost. Composting consists simply of organic materials that naturally decompose. There are green and brown materials. Some examples of green materials are: grass clippings and kitchen scraps like fruit, veggies and coffee grounds. Examples of brown materials include: brown, dried leaves and dried grass. The best composition is four parts brown to one part green.To increase the composting process, it’s best that the materials be small in size because they will break down faster.

Decide how you’d like to compost– indoor or outdoor, or both?There are many articles and books written on the topic of composting. Don’t become overwhelmed. Keep it convenient to what you’ll be composting most. If it’s mostly kitchen scraps -then start with a small to medium kitchen composter with a lid to reduce odors. Note: You will need some outdoor space for your outdoor composter and access to water. And in addition to your composter- you’ll need a pitch fork, shovel and cart.

Give everyone a job. Someone will need to dump the indoor composter into the larger outdoor composter. Everyone will need to take turns mixing your outdoor heap with a pitch fork. Mixing will help to keep the browns and greens in balance,distribute moisture, and add essential air (oxygen) to the mixture. Water will need to be added from time to time. While composting can be simple, it’s important to know what will need to be done to effectively compost, and what role each family member can play.

http://www.gardeningwithkids.org/composting.html

http://thegardenofoz.org/composting101.asp

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/kindergarden/kidscompost/cover.html

School Morning Makeovers

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Melinda

Spring Breaks are over for most kids right about now. That means it’s time to get back into our everyday routines after some lazy days. This can be a challenge even for us parents. I know I indulged in sleeping till 8 am when there were no big plans for the day. But the time has come to get back in gear for busy school days. This is also a good time to introduce an improved routine to avoid wake up whines, missing school work or breakfast melt downs.

My kids get up at different times and require different lengths of time to get ready to head out the door. In order for everyone to get out the door nourished and fueled for the day establish what foods make the best choices and have them on hand at all times.

The first thing everyone eats for breakfast is their yogurt. We have Greek, low fat and flavored options but also have fresh fruit and granola on hand to bulk it up. Milk or orange juice is served up along with whole grain waffles, eggs, peanut butter toast or cereal to create a balanced meal. Hot breakfasts happen once or twice a week depending how easily the rest of the morning goes. This could mean oatmeal or pancakes. Wake ups and getting dressed has to happen with ease though, oh and Mom has to get up a bit earlier too.

Getting dressed is sometimes a battle. My youngest is sharing her opinions about what she wants to wear these days. The evening before school I check the weather and we work out what is to be worn. Footwear is included as she sometimes doesn’t understand sandals aren’t appropriate for cold mornings. My son will wear whatever is on the top of his piles so on laundry day he’s learned to rotate his tees so he isn’t wearing the same 5 each week.

Wake time is usually the same time each day. This gives us enough time to get all the things needed done such as feeding the pets, making beds and brushing teeth. I have a cushion of 10 minutes to allow for dawdling or extra chatter or taking care of extreme bed head.

Each evening the kids look over the school menu and decide if they are buying or packing lunch for school. If they are packing then sandwiches are made and snacks are put into lunchboxes and water bottles are set next to the fridge. Doing this in advance helps make sure you aren’t missing things like spoons or napkins. It also makes you look at the meal in entirety to ensure its balanced.

Dining room chairs aren’t the most ideal place for back packs and jackets, but it works and we never have to hunt them down. Folders and assignments should always be checked the night before so that things can be addressed in a timely fashion. Have a spot set aside for things due at a later day and establish a system for checking it on a regular basis so deadlines aren’t missed. Family calendars or a memo board can come in handy for this.

All of these steps might seem like alot of work but you are doing them anyway. This system just encourages you to be more organized. A morning makeover can do wonders for the attitudes, meltdowns and tears that can happen when the family is rushing to get out the door.