Get Kids Moving - Bubbles and (Inflatable) Battle Swords

I found an unopened package of safe, inflatable, Banzai Battle Swords while unpacking (left over gift-package loot from a couple of summers ago).  Combined with a couple of bottles of bubbles...

 ...they made for an excellent evening work-out.  The children (and I) took turn blowing bubbles...

...and wielding swords...

 ...trying to keep even one bubble from escaping.

It was an impossible task, of course, but as they got better with their aim, we upped the difficulty...

 ...by adding blindfolds.

 Use the force, young Jedi.

Use the force.

What to Do With All That Child Made Artwork.

 Every so often, another mother will ask what I do with all the pictures and crafts my children have made.

I actually keep an large, old shoe box, up on a closet shelf, where it is easy to get to, but still out of the way...

...so I can easily slip pictures into it, when I take them down from the fridge, or clear the table.  I take a quick second, and mark the back of each picture with the child's name and the date, or the season and year - if I can't remember the exact date the picture was drawn.

When the box is full, I go through it, and remove duplicate type drawings, so I have a nice sampling of each child's work, from each stage of development to keep.

After all, I loved those preschool drawn pancake people as much as any mom...

...but I don't really need every single one to remember, or to show the children later.

As to the bigger crafts, I might snap a quick photo of them for the box - then, I heartlessly dismantle them, recouping whatever pieces (googly eyes, feathers, craft sticks) that can be reused.  Unless the craft is also a toy, and then I leave it to be played with until it is either destroyed, forgotten, or outgrown.  At which point it can usually go into to the trash without causing its maker too much trauma.

How about you?  Any great suggestions for storing all that artwork?

Fruity Ladybug Bites

The girls (ages 9 and 10) helped me put together a quick, and healthy, ladybug snack in honor of the ladybug larva we found in the kitchen sink, released outside, and then spent the next hour trying to identify.

We finally decided it was likely either the larva a seven-spotted ladybug or a convergent ladybug, both of which we've seen in our yard recently.  There is a shocking lack of resources for ladybug larvae identification.  However there's a wealth of ideas for making ladybug themed treats.

We usually opt for cookies, to celebrate the spotting of the first ladybug of spring, like the convergent ladybug cookies pictured above.  In the stress and confusion of moving, we missed that tradition this year.  And now, well into summer, it seemed time for something lighter.

We started by scooping out a small ball of watermelon, with a rounded teaspoon measure...

...placed on a plate...

...with half a blueberry for a head...

...and topped with pieces of fresh Oregon blackberries...

...picked by my very own mother, and handed off to the Man of the House, when he dropped the older girls off there for camp.

You could stick a toothpick through the watermelon and blueberries to hold them together, and make small slits in the watermelon to place the blackberries into.  I'm not a big fan of toothpicks in food for children, so we just ate ours as is...

...in pieces.

7 Simple Steps to Successful Summer Science Exploration with Your Children

Summertime and science are such a natural pairing.  The weather is fine, children have extra time on their hands, and there's a entire world worth of discovery going on just outside the backdoor.

Don't worry if you're scientifically inept, or not a natural teacher, you don't have to pack the children off to an expensive summer science-theme camp (not that those aren't great, too) to squeeze in summer learning.  All you really have to do is follow the seven steps below.

1. Send your children outside.

There are plenty of scientific discoveries to be made inside too, but save those for rainy days, or the winter months.

Parental common sense applies.  Younger children should be supervised and older children should know not to eat unfamiliar plants, or try to handle unfamiliar bugs, or animals - think Kratt brothers' warning here.

2. Wait and see what they spot.

Whether it's a cool cloud formation...

...a rainbow in the sprinkler...

...or an unknown insect...

...children are naturally curious about the world around them.  You can feed this curiosity right from the start by pointing out special "wonders" to your toddlers, or simply being interested, and listening when older children run back in to tell you what they've found.

3. Take a quick picture of said discovery.

Weather changes in an instant, and birds and bugs are quick to fly (or skitter) away.  A couple of pictures (the clearer the better) can capture details that will help when it comes to identifying the discovery.  Plus, seeing that you're interested enough to stop everything and snap a picture of their find, is another way to let children know you think their observations are interesting and important.

4. Look it up online.

Books are great, but you really can't beat the Internet when it comes to information at your  fingertips. It's not always perfect, and you won't always find what you're looking for on a first try, but you'd be amazed what you can hunt down if you just keep at it.

As children get old enough to handle Internet access safely, teach them how to search out information, too.

Start with wide, general searches - such as "round, green spider in our garden".  

View images (with caution if little eyes are watching, too) to hone in on similar things. 

Then, from there you can move to more specific searches, such as "comb-footed spiders of North America"...

...or "candy stripe spiders in Montana".

5. Don't be afraid to of the Latin.

The official scientific names for animals and plants can be intimidating.  But, you don't have to read Latin to type the Latin name of an insect into a search engine.  Using the scientific name will lead you to more scholarly sites, where the information is often more specific, and usually more accurate.  Once you've searched out what your child has found specifically, you can go back to the common name, and search for a "kid page" for simpler information to pass on to your children.

6. Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

You won't always get it right.  That's okay.  Your children are going to learn something from the process, anyway. 

If you realize you were wrong later, correct your mistake though.  Children will be more likely to give research a try themselves, if they see it's okay to try and fail, try and fail.

7. Follow it up.

Once you've identified the bird, or tracked down the reason for the phenomenon your child has brought to your attention, follow-up with a trip to the library.  Track down a few books about it, or an interesting video - Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, or even the local video store is a great place to start.

Then, with books and videos in hand, consider working on a craft or themed-snack together, to really bring it all home. 

Ladybug Larva Cookies

That's optional, of course, but fun all the same.  And really, that's what summer science should be all about.

Summer Snowman Snacktivity

We've finally gotten settled in enough at our new house to start back into our summer reading/crafting.  The girls (ages 9 and 10) read volume 5 of Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series.

If you remember from our earlier posts, each of the books in the series has instructions for a craft at the back.  In the "Case of the Sneaky Snowman" - in which the sleuthful friends at first believe they are being "pranked" by a snowman, and then set off to solve the mystery of who is really behind the joke, the instructions at the back are for making a beaded snowflake ornament.

I thought about using yellow and orange beads, to make sunbursts instead of snowflakes, but opted to stick with the wintery theme, and make summer suitable ice cream, snowmen treats, instead.  One of these days we're actually going to make the craft as presented in the book.  In the meantime however, this turned out to be a nice compromise.

I prepped for the snacktivity by using rounded measuring spoons to dip out a tablespoon, a half tablespoon, and a teaspoon sized scoop of ice cream for each child.  I figured D (age 12) would want to join in the fun, even though he hadn't read the book.

I placed the small scoops of ice cream into a plastic container with a lid, and allowed them to firm back up in the freezer, before presenting them to the children with candy and cookie bits for decorations.  We used pulled apart licorice ropes, mini sandwich cookies, as well as cut up wafer cookies, mini Rolos (which ended up looking like Shriner's hats), mini chocolate chips, bits of orange gummy bears, and the tips of some old candy corn I found at the back of the cupboard.

I maybe should have checked the instructions for putting together ice cream snowmen, because it turns out...

...it's pretty difficult to keep them balanced and standing, while adding candy decorations to them.

We ended up knocking ours over, and decorating them flat on the plates, before rushing them back to the freezer to re-freeze.  They were melting about as quickly as you might expect on a warm, summer's day.

In keeping with the prankish plot-line of the story though, I waited for the children to go outside to play, and then snuck back to the freezer to reposition the men.

So, when the children went to retrieve them for dessert, after supper, they not only found their treats all on one plate together...

...but standing!  Not that they stayed that way that way for long.

Of course, I feigned ignorance of the whole affair, and was as surprised as the children to find the snowman standing in the freezer - not that they fell for my act, but they're good sports, and not the sort to blame a mom for trying, anyway.

Summer Writing for Teens and Tweens - Comic Fill-in-the-Blanks

To keep tweens and teens on their creative writing toes this summer, try challenging them with a set of fill-in-the-blank comic strips.

I copied some for my children off of Yahoo's comic page to my computer (if you were planning this for a group setting, you would need to get copy write permission).  Then I combined them onto a single sheet in "Paint", and used the eraser to blot out the original captions, so the children could fill in their own words to go with the pictures.

I had planned on saving it for later today, but my older girls (ages 14 and 16) discovered, and filled theirs in, during a late night kitchen raid, last night already.

They got quite a kick out of seeing how their dialogue differed from each others, but still managed to fit with the pictures.

I crammed quite a few comic strips onto one page - fewer strips per page would make for larger word bubbles, and might be easier for slightly younger children to fill in.

It might also be fun to leave the words, and erase the pictures, for the artistically inclined.

Or, for children blocked by empty word bubbles, you might start off with a matching exercise, by cutting out a set of word bubbles for each blank comic strip, so they could mix-and-match the original words with the pictures.

Encouraging Critical Thinking for Children in the Summer - Sidewalk Chalk Cryptograms

I snuck (or sneaked, for my non-American friends) out early this morning, before the children were awake, to chalk out a quick cryptogram puzzle for them to discover, and hopefully, solve later in the the day.

Who says we have to give up teaching thinking skills, just because it's summer?

I read an interview with a female engineer (I forget who, now) reflecting on the events in her childhood, that had encouraged her into pursuing a math heavy career.   One of the things she remembered most was a daily puzzle, put up by her father, on a chalkboard in their kitchen, for the family to race to solve. 

I  would love to do that eventually, but I haven't found the right chalkboard to fit with our new house, yet.  In the meantime, we have plenty of patio space here and there around the yard, the weather is fine, and I want the children outside, anyway.  So, a sidewalk chalk puzzle seemed like a natural fit for summer.

Kid Zone has a fantastic cryptogram maker.  You just type in your own message (or let the computer choose one for you), indicate how many clues to give, and it generates the puzzle for you.  I decided to start out with a familiar Bible memory verse for our first try.  I'm all about killing two birds with one stone.  If we can strengthen strategic thinking, and build better Bible knowledge at the same time - so much the better.

The book of the Bible is included at the end, but the chapter and verse are not (one final challenge for the children).

Can you solve the puzzle, and find the verse?