- Awareness, Creativity, Culture, Family Travel, Parenting, Play, Slideshow, Southern California, Travel
Mummies: Secrets from the Tomb
I love history. And my children are quite interested in happenings of the past, too, so it’s turning out that we make a pretty good team of explorers. So this year as part of our social studies, I purchased the Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. Story of the World comes in four volumes: Ancient Times, The Middle Ages, Early Modern Times, and the Modern Age. We started at the beginning with Ancient times and kicked things off with cavemen. Recently though, we’ve been finishing up our lessons about Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs. I happened to check the website for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles…
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Dawn of the Croods: Now on Netflix
Our Winter break was busy. Full of family activities and finishing up last minute shopping. And of course we all got sick. We took advantage of our sick days by staying in our pajamas and watching television. Fortunately for us, Netflix released Dawn of the Croods, a new animated cartoon series by DreamWorks Animation, on Christmas Eve. Dawn of the Croods serves as a prequel animated series based on DreamWorks’ previously released animated full length feature The Croods. The animated series features the Crood family living their caveman lifestyle among friends and neighbors in Aaah! Valley. They juggle family dynamics with caveman era problems and humor lies at the…
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Tips for Raising a Reader
Next week I will be speaking to parents at a preschool about the benefits of reading aloud to your children, so I thought this would be a good time to write about raising readers. I think back to when my son was about 6 months old. How I would hold him and read board books in the rocking chair. He would have let me read to him all day. Today, he is a 7-year old book-aholic who reads everything he can get his hands on. I like to think that reading consistently to him beginning at an early age helped guide him to that path. Reading to young children, including…
- Awareness, Books, Creativity, Culture, Entertainment, Family Travel, Lifestyle, Love, Parenting, Play, Relationships, Slideshow, Spotlight, Travel, Writing
Celebrating Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month. A time for us to pay tribute to the ancestry and traditions of the first Americans. The people and culture of Native Americans were met with tragedy many times over as Europeans filtered into the New World, looking for riches and putting down flags, claiming the land as their own. The first Americans faced slavery and war, being defeated by guns and disease. But the traditions and culture of the first Americans remains to be an important part of history. Our history. And much of their heritage, beliefs and traditions teach us about respecting the Earth and using resources wisely. Something we often forget…
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National Bullying Prevention Month :: Tips & Resources
Image courtesy of Connect Safely.org National Bullying Prevention Month was founded in 2006 by PACER. It began as a week-long event intended to raise awareness about bullying and the long-term effects. After partnering with many education-based organizations such as the National Education Association and the National PTA, PACER has become a reliable source for parents, students, and teachers to get valuable resources about bullying prevention. The campaign has expanded to a month-long awareness event. Students, parents, and teachers are encouraged to take part in activities that educate and inform. Teaching our children and our peers about kindness, acceptance, understanding, and getting involved. According to PACER, 1 out of every 4…
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National Dictionary Day October 16th
On October 16, 1758, Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Very few people went to college in Webster’s day, but he loved learning. So much so that his family chose to send him to Yale in 1774 when he was just 16 years old. He graduated in 1778. Webster could not afford to continue on to study law, so he chose to become a teacher. Webster was unhappy with the books that were used in American schools as they came from England and spoke often of allegiance to King George. Webster wanted students to learn from American books so he worte one himself. In 1783 Webster penned A Grammatical…
