What are all these pictures??

A GARAGE OLYMPICS of course!!!

Read all about it over on the SmartPlayBlog!

As Maria Montessori once said, “Play is the child’s work.”  Well, I either never fully grew up or am just about the luckiest adult ever, because Play, in one form or another, continues to be my work every day!  A former elementary school teacher, I now work at ThinkFun, the company behind Rush Hour and Zingo!, as head of Education and New Media.  Central to everything I do is the need to think creatively and problem solve on the fly.  These are skills every child needs to handle the challenges of tomorrow… and this drives the work I do every day.

As parents and teachers, we have endless opportunities to celebrate our kids’ achievements.  We cheer our children on at spelling bees, science fairs, on the sidelines at soccer games, and in folding chairs at piano recitals – celebrating the product of much training and hard work.  As important as it is to recognize end results, we need to highlight and honor the thinking processes along the way.

Parents and teachers today have a huge job to do – we must equip kids to tackle 21st century challenges, preparing them for careers that have yet to be imagined… pretty daunting!  As Daniel Pink so articulately says, “We need to prepare kids for their future, not our past.”

So how the heck do we do it?!  To tackle what lies ahead, the most valuable thing we can teach children is how to be creative thinkers and problem solvers… and what better way to build these 21st century skills than through play?!  I launched SmartPlay to connect with like-minded thinkers, like the Carissa here at GoodNCrazy.com, who believe that learning should be FUN!

I’m thrilled to be a part of this community!  Let’s get the dialogue rolling and have some fun… we just might learn something along the way!

Charlotte Fixler (@SmartPlayBlog) Is the author of the blog ThinkFun.com/smartplayblog. She calls herself an expert in FUN! Aren’t you glad you now know who to talk to about your summer time boredom issues! Hurry, she’s waiting to answer your questions…

Here are some suggestions she gave me when I asked about Summer Science ideas:

She said…

I’m no science buff, (I am a former teacher!), but here are a couple ideas that come to mind

• Exploring Gardens – learning the parts of flowers -lots of fun crafts you can find for this– leaf rubbings, taking inventory of plant colors (kids have a sheet with 5 colors listed, make a tally each time they spot a color while taking a neighborhood walk)
• Weather -  (collecting rainfall, graphing daily weather patterns, temperature, learning about clouds, weather forecasting, etc)
• Animals – Zoo visit, research project, paper mache models, masks, safari Rush Hour (from Thinkfun.com of course!)

It’s summer time FINALLY!

We had the coldest spring I’ve ever known. Heck it snowed only 2 weeks ago!
(I so wish I was kidding.)

Along with school vacation comes the dreaded mom conundrum of

What to Feed the Kiddos All Summer Long!

Especially at snack time, it gets hard to keep them from eating a lot of junk.

I was looking for ideas and found a couple articles by Dr. Joanna Dolgoff perfect for moms looking for healthy eating ideas this summer! First she has a whole article dedicated to helping your kids eat well even when sending them off to camp. But even for kids not at camp I LOVE her suggestions.

Top 10 Healthy Snacks

1. Hummus with fresh carrots, celery and peppers for dipping.
2. Peanut butter spread on rice cakes.
3. 2 cups of air-popped popcorn.
4. Trail mix made of low fat and low sugar granola, assorted nuts, seeds, raisins and craisins.
5. Non-fat plain yogurt topped with fresh berries.
6. 1 cup of edamame.
7. Apple slices and low fat string cheese.
8. 1 small whole wheat pita stuffed with 2 turkey slices, spinach leaves and fat-free cheese.
9. Baked sweet potato chips.
10. Your favorite flavor Fiber One bar.

Her next article is about organic fruits and veggies. When should you buy organic? I’ve read a lot about this but I think Joanna makes it super clear, the reasons and the times when it makes sense for you and for your kids.

Take a look at this list of 15 items ordered from most to least pesticide containing.

1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Domestic Blueberries
6. Nectarines
7. Sweet Bell Peppers
8. Spinach
9. Kale/ Collard Greens
10. Cherries
11. Potatoes
12. Imported Grapes
13. Lettuce
14. Imported Blueberries
15. Carrots

Apples? Really? And celery tops the list? I didn’t know that? The fact that imported grapes and blueberries are on the list is interesting too? Does that mean local ones are okay I wonder? We eat a lot of several of these items. And I once heard a suggestion to take a look at the top three items your family eats the most of and try to at least buy those in organic. Especially when thinking about kids.

Dr. Dolgoff is a pediatrician who specializes in child obesity. She is amazing and is very active in social media. She answers twitter questions and is very approachable, find her @JoannaDolgoffMD. She wrote the book ‘Green Light, Red Light, Eat Right’, and I swear by it. I’m using her 100 calorie ‘light’ system myself this summer…

This spring has been cold. And by cold I mean… SNOW. In April. SNOW. In May! Apparently the ants are not very happy about it. (HECK, I’m not happy about it!) But the ants have decided to gather their friends and warm up in my kitchen.

One morning we found ants in our cereal. That was the final straw. I asked around and apparently TERRO is the best product to get the ants out of your cereal and back in the yard where they can freeze off their little ant butts with the rest of the cold critters!

I feel bad about the poison and all… But the whole thing made for the most interesting ‘experiment’. And right now I have a little boy who is ALL OVER understanding the world of science. He’s 6, and he brings home books from the library EXCLUSIVELY from the ‘project’ section (he calls it)… the children’s non-fiction area.

Everything is a mini experiment to him. Growing sprouts on the window sill. Constructing different options for his marble maze. And now… watching the ants form perfect lines and circles around the ant bait and to and from the tiny hole next to the door frame. It got me thinking about this upcoming summer vacation and the boredom that always tags a long…

This will be my third Beat the Heat, ‘Help! My kids are driving me CRAZY!’, summer boredom series. And we are going to focus on anything and everything SCIENCE related!

What better way than to start off with bugs and insects!

IDEAS For The Library
(a kid’s gotta research right?)

On Beyond Bugs: All About Insects (Cat in the hat learning library)

Don’t Squash That Bug! The Curious Kids Guide to Insects (Lobster Learners)

Besides watching ants trail in and out of your house…

Here’s a big list of fun and fabulous Bug inspired creations and activities!

• Try capturing potato bugs. Making an outdoor terrarium for the little critter. Help your kids think about what bugs need to be happy in a small bucket?

• Yucky Roach World

A whole world of disgusting on Discovery.com’s “Yuckiest Site on the Internet”!
Follow Ralph the Roach in a day in the life of a roach… YUCK!

• Ladybug Craft (doubles as a frisbee!)

Make a simple ladybug craft from a paper plate and a little red and black paint. If you don’t have the googly eyes just paint ‘em on!

• What sounds do insects make?

Make a Cicada noisemaker with instructions from FamiliyFun.go.com. With simple items from any store, swing the noisemaker around and start buzzing like a bee today!

• Order up a Butterfly growing kit!!

Head over to Amazon.com there are several different options from Insect Lore. This is SO on our list of summer fun things to do after our big family reunion road trip!

• Frog Mouths on your elbows!?

Have you SEEN these Amazing Hoodies from Mouthman.com? I am so in love.. (they make adult sized shirts… I might buy one for me!) These aren’t really bug related but I had to share anyway.. and frogs EAT bugs right??

• Paper Caterpillar Craft!
  

What a simple paper craft idea for little kids! Make this folded paper caterpiller from DLTK-Kids.com. My 9yrold little girl will love this I can already hear her creative brain whrrrring at the thought!

Disclosure: amazon links are affiliate links.
See all of the GoodNCrazy Summer boredom posts.
See only the Science Summer Series 2010.

Now I have to RUN off to piano/littleleague/dinner/homework/chores oh yeah.
And old lady basketball..
Dude. I should take my camera to old lady basketball night.. I could vlog that next week… (evil laugh).

Can you imagine anything happier or closer to heaven in a 6yrold boy’s world?

A backwards, up-side-down YTRAP!

I think my older girls had more fun planning and executing the whole thing… than the boys did playing and eating and bleeding.. (more on that later).

• Balloons taped to the ceiling upside down

(See picture at top)

• A bundt cake frosted and smooshed upside down onto a plate

• Little boys in backwards clothing (And Big boys too…)

We ran the whole party backwards. Invites instructed the kids NOT to bring gifts. Instead when they walked in the door they were handed a small dollar store wooden car kit, and ushered to the ‘wrapping station’, where one of the girls helped him wrap up his gift. (These were placed in a pile and they took them home after the party as their ‘thank you’ party gift!)

Then of course we ate the cake right away. (I love pudding/cool whip frosting BTW!)

I wish I had recorded the boy’s conversation while they were eating their cake. 8 little boys debating and discussing the various ways and ‘what-ifs’ of a world turned upside down. “What if the TREES were upside down?” Oh yeah… “What if our eyeballs were upside down”. And my favorite: “What if you were DEAD?! Then you’d be upside down for sure!” Is that a total 6yrold boy thing to say or what?? They seriously sat at the table and What-if’d for nearly 15 minutes!!

My girls created a Pin the Donkey on the Tail game and that was next. After wards they went out to the back yard (oh praise be for GRASS!) and they started an impromptu game of ‘freeze’ tag.. we couldn’t think of a really good way to play it backwards… so they played it normal fashion… (here’s  where the blood showed up..).

First one little boy came in the house trailing blood from a fat lip… and then my kid came in a few minutes later from a bloody nose. Okay I thought?? Freeze tag and 6yrold BOYS do NOT get along!!

We switched to ‘Goose, Goose-DUCK!’ Played normally except the kids walk around thumping heads saying Goose… Goose… Gooose… Goose… DUCK!!! And running for their lives. A whole lot less blood!

Then we ended the big event with the inspiration for the party: Otto Grows Down.

I promise, little boys LOVE this book. They sat riveted… their parents came to pick them up and couldn’t believe they were all sitting there… eyes glued to the story… (possibly imagining what if I Started Growing Backwards…)

Alive At 25 program…

Read my whole article on Blissfully Domestic

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BooHoo right? I shared a room basically my entire childhood, sometimes with 2 or even 3 sisters! And don’t they look MISERABLE??!

They shared a room back when they were little in our teeny tiny home in New Jersey.. they’ve gotten a bit spoiled after moving to Utah and  then in our last rental house… their own rooms, their own messes…

We bought them really cute twin bunkbeds way back when they were sharing a room, but since then we’ve taken the beds apart 20 times I swear… (Do NOT ask me about allen keys, I might shoot someone!) moving beds here and there at this point they aren’t fit to stack back up again safely. The girls would soo-ooo love to have more room in their current shared space though.

Their solution?

Find  kids beds with a trundle!

They promise me (with puppy dog eyes) they will put that trundle away every. single. morning (nevermind they haven’t made up their beds in 79 consecutive days…).

For kicks.. I’ve been looking around for beds that would fit their tween and nearly-tween lifestyle…

• How about this one…

What?? Not enough pink for them??
Oh yeah… they bolted out of the pretty pretty princess stage about 6 years ago.

• …or this…

Okay so it’s more the ‘austere’ style of furniture… they ARE girls after all even if they’re TOO OLD for PINK! They might think they’re being shipped off to military school.

• …getting closer…

Still maybe a touch too cutesy, too young, too ‘Hi I love all things iCarly’.

• …ahhh this one is PERFECT…

Not too frilly, the right amount of girly without the Hanna Montana vibe.. find a funky green bedding to match the green wall color they are begging for…I can see it…

Now??

Will they really put it away each day??

{Links in this post are from CSNstores.com}

I started out my talk/lesson with these fairly well known math/physics formulas:

E=mc²

A²+b²=c²

∏r²= ?

V=u + at

F=ma

The older girls recognized most of them, maybe didn’t understand them, but had the basic idea. I was surprised to see the younger girls totally recognized the physics formulas? We talked a little bit about each one and what the symbols stood for.

I handed out a sheet with the Wikipedia quotes. I divided it into 6 different categories with quotes for each one.

• Knowledge of Self
• Experiential Knowledge
• Secular Knowledge
• Spiritual Knowledge
• Worldly Knowledge Pop Culture | Current Events | Politics | Natural Disasters
• Familial and Fraternal Knowledge

I asked the girls to read the quotes and then share with me which ones they liked the best and why? A couple I liked:

Knowledge of Self

“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu

“We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.” – Blaise Pascal

What beauty in those statements… We talked about making any decision. Big or Small.

• Choosing a candy bar amongst a giant wall of multiple varieties?
• Going to college, what to study, where to attend?
• Dividing your time wisely between school work, after school activities and down-time ‘hanging out’ with friends?

Knowing yourself first will help you learn to make decisions that will help you find happiness in the short and long term.

I KNOW I prefer chocolate and peanut butter in the same candy bar. So Yay for me! Helps me narrow my choice to one third of the candy bar aisle. Saving me time and increasing my overall enjoyment! (not to mention my waist)

Choosing which college was right for me was simple. I knew I wanted to study biology and affordability was a high priority. I was NOT cut out for BYU (wow that’s a whole blog post) and the University of Utah had a much better science department complete with the research I craved. Oh.. and a scholarship came through from the state school. No brainer. I knew myself and I knew where I was headed.

Worldly Knowledge

From the Bible:

“I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” -  John 17: 14-17

And from an Elder in the LDS church

“There is a familiar phrase (Mormons often use): to be in the world, but not of the world. Our mortal existence is necessary to fulfill the plan of salvation. We must therefore live in this world, but we must also resist the worldly influences that are ever before us.”

This concept is generally shoved down the girl’s throats, so we skimmed over it.
But it’s true isn’t it? It’s hard living IN this world; and so much harder not being OF the world.

Used by it.

Trampled by it.

Addicted to it.

Influenced by it.

Resisting the worldly influences that are ever before us is exhausting work. It’s amazing to watch young kids who get this and shine. Who refuse to let the so called norms of the world dictate their values. (And my 12 year old daughter is one of the youngest of this group, learning and absorbing all the truly fabulous examples from the older girls!)

After discussing some of the quotes and what they meant I wrote this on the board:

K x S = T + W

They quickly guessed K= knowledge… but I had to help them with the rest.

Here’s my thinking. Knowledge is great and all, but clearly what you DO with your knowledge will shape and define you as a person, especially as a spiritual person. In my equation S = SERVICE. I figure if you don’t give away your time and of your self and your knowledge in the form or serving others… what’s the point?

Since we are talking in terms of chemical reactions. The ‘stuff’ on the left is what you put INTO the reaction. The items on the right are what you get out for your effort. Your reactive “products”.

So what do you get when you fold knowledge and service into a young girl and you heat up the ‘reaction’ by supplying opportunities for both? In the form of babysitting a neighbor’s kids. Raking their grandma’s yard. Baking cookies for a friend who’s had a hard time… Helping them with homework, and supplying a strong expectation for them to do well in school and continue on to college.

T= Testimony

They will learn great lessons about giving and sharing and learning. Gaining understanding by giving away what they KNOW, will yield a strong belief in themselves and of those things they have learned. By sharing their time and their skills a seed of faith will grow.  Maybe they will gain a testimony of the love their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ already have for them.  Helping others quickly turns back and benefits them.

I added the W as an additional product. Kind of like a by-product absorbing all that excess energy produced when a young energetic kid combines knowledge with service. Any guesses what it stands for?

Wisdom

The Moon and the Cap

See more at memetales

Memetales is a great new website where parents and children can connect and read and create and share and …so much more!

What is it?

Memetales is THE online marketplace for picture books. It is a space where people who love picture books come together to share and create around the books. Creating a community of common interest surrounding every book is indeed the best marketing tool.

I had the opportunity to meet the Creator and all around amazing woman behind the scenes: Maya, in October. I had already virtually met her and knew I loved her. And now watching her little start up go from brilliant idea to Fabulous Product has been amazing to watch!

Take a minute and click over to Memetales.. tell me what you think of the site? Share it with your kids and imagine ways to interact and share and create around the theme of your favorite book! Do you know any children’s book authors? Tell them about this new resource and way to get the word out about their book.

I keep thinking how great this resource will be for teachers and librarians.. and what about homeschool moms?? Maya tells me an iPhone app is on the way, and I say HooRay! We have an iTouch and I would so love to have some of these books downloaded for the upcoming LONG family drives this summer…

ONE

• If you want to talk more about children’s books, I’ve been invited to share my passion Tuesday night (3/9) at #GNO (Girls Night Out on Twitter.com). I’ll be a guest panelist and you can join in by RSVPing on MomItForward.com! And don’t forget: enter to win the #GNO giveaway!

I have not been compensated for this post. I was simply asked to join in on #GNO this week on a topic I love!