Helping Hands

It is good for kids to learn to help out around the house. It teaches them responsibility as well as to take ownership. My mom used to make it fun for us to help around the house. Once in a while (usually on the BIG cleaning days) she would get out 2 plastic bowls. Then, while my brother and I were playing, she would cut paper into strips. On the papers she would write tasks for my brother and I. His tasks went into one bowl, and mine went into the other. Each of us would end up with around 15 strips of paper. 15 chores would probably overwhelm a child, but not all of our tasks were "work." For example, we might pick something like refold the clothes in your 2 messiest dresser drawers, but then the next task might be to give mom a hug. Often our chores would include dusting a room or two, picking up our own things, vacuuming, getting hugs, or maybe running around the house once. But it was more fun because you made it into a game. (We called it the cleaning game.) The idea of not knowing what will come next kept it exciting. Sometimes, when we were almost done, my mom would slip in a paper that said, "Go to Taco Bell for all of your hard work!) We would race to finish up everything from our bowls so we could go out for lunch! My mom got a lot of help out of us, and we enjoyed it.

11 Year Old College Graduate

Recently an 11 year old boy graduated from East Los Angeles College. I am including a link to the news story below. You would think that a boy who finishes college by 11 must not have any time for extracurricular activities, but he has won many national championships in martial arts as well. This article is a short interesting piece. I thought the end was interesting when he mentioned why he does not like to play video games.

To view the article click here.

Take a Twist on Old Road Trip Games

We've all played games on long road trips like the alphabet game where you race to find the letters of the alphabet in order. But try a new twist, such as finding the numbers from 0-100. It can prove to change things up a bit.

Another game is where you think of names of things like animals or people then you try to come up with another name from the last letter of the previous one given. For example elephant - tiger - rhino, etc. Make it more interesting (and educational) by thinking of different categories like state names, cities, landmarks, things on a map, etc.

Many traditional car games can be spiced up without much extra effort. If you have any suggestions or ideas feel free to share them with others in the comments below.

Website Review ~ ASLpro.com

Website: ASLpro.com

Appropriate for ages: all ages

Helps with: Learning American Sign Language

Review: Kids are interested in Sign Language. This is a great website to help them get started on the basics. It is not a website to take you from knowing nothing about Sign Language to being fluent in signs, but it will help you learn some signs that you can experiment with. When you first load the page, you will see an introduction. Scroll down; from there you will see links to area of the site. The site is grouped by categories of signs such as signs for babies, religious signs, conversational signs, etc. Click the link to start learning what you are interested in. Once you feel confident, you can even try to take a multi-choice quiz. The thing that I liked about this site is that it shows videos of each sign. This is much more effective for teaching signs than illustrations! Elementary age kids are often very interested in Sign Language. See if you can't experiment and learn a few.

Sort it Out

Sorting can be such a good exercise for younger children. Everything from a stash of old buttons to a small pack of M&Ms can help a child learn organizing skills. Encourage your child to sort their toys when they put them away, or sort Legos as they build. Many items, like the Legos, can be sorted in many different ways. Suggest they try to sort them in different ways, such as by size and then by color later. If your child is not naturally an organizer, make it into a game or an art project by giving them a large handful of Fruit Loops and asking them to string them according to a pattern that they come up with. Another idea is something that my grandmother did for me. She collected old buttons and saved them in a box for me. Then when I came over, she let me string them or sew them onto an old washcloth. When I was done, we would usually cut the thread and dump the buttons back into the box, but it was a lot of fun trying to find matching buttons and make patterns on the string and washcloth.

Book Review ~ Worth

Title: Worth

Author: A. LaFaye

Accelerated Reader (AR) Level: 4 (worth 4 points)

Ages that Will Enjoy the Book: 10-14

Movie Version Available: No

Review: This is a work of historical fiction that explores the feelings of belonging and fitting into a family. Nathaniel is working on his family's farm when he is involved in an accident. Due to this accident, he is no longer able to work on his family farm. An orphan train comes to town, and his family adopts an orphan boy to help with the tasks Nathaniel can no longer help with. Both boys have troubles adjusting to this new way of life. Nathaniel feels like he has been replaced, while John, the orphan boy, feels more like the help than a part of the family he longs for. The book follows the boys as they sort out their feelings and adjust to this new lifestyle. It is a nice book, and I think that kids can relate to feeling a little out of place and trying to find out how to fit in.

Fun Sand Art

Kids of course, like sand art. Make your next vacation into a memory by incorporating it into the sand artwork. If you stop at a gas station for a drink, the bottle you get could become the container for the art project. If you stop at a beach, you could get the sand and some small shells from there. Incorporate many small items in your sand art instead of just layering sand.
Some examples could be:

• dried flowers
• special rocks
• small souvenirs
• shells
• any thing from your trip or day at the beach that would fit in the bottle will work.