Read, Write and Inspire Your Children

What could be better than reading with your children? Writing stories with your children, of course! Both are excellent activities for reading development but writing stories develops organizational and thinking skills while learning use of language and vocabulary. Sound difficult? Here is a wonderful online tool that can help. Storybird provides all the elements to engage and inspire you and your children, alike.

Materials Needed:

Go to http://storybird.com/ Click Explore to read hundreds of stories written by others just like you. Click Parents for many ideas and ways to share stories. Interaction is big part of Storybird. Making comments and suggestions engages writers and develops social skills at the same time.

What To Do:

Click Create to sign up for your free account. Start your story by viewing an extensive gallery of illustrations to inspire you to “unlock” the stories inside you. You and your children collaborate to develop story ideas that bloom through imagination. Type in your text online and drag the pictures into scenery boards that become the pages of your book. You can easily edit text and rearrange boards at any time. You work is saved as you go along and remains unpublished until you submit your final copy…but it can still be changed anytime after.

Your stories are saved securely online account to share on Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter. Snuggle up with them all on your iPad internet browser,

marking your favorites. All this is free, but you can also purchase hard copies of your books. Print stories on your own printer from downloadable pdf files or order published soft or hard cover books…perfect for sending to friends and relatives for presents. Write your own personal histories and save them in beautiful, professionally illustrated books.

How Does This Help My Children?

Read and write with your children for twice the learning! And because you are writing with online tools, you join a global community of writers, readers, and artists of all ages.

For more great educational activities visit Grandparents Teach, Too web page and listen to WNMU Radio 90 Learning Through the Seasons podcasts.

 

Photos: Storybird website

We Are Now on youtube -- See Your Favorite Activities!!

After a bit of practice and technical trials....you can view many of our favorite activities on youtube.

See live demonstrations of Water Play: Does It Sink or Float?; Making Play "Sand"; Make a 3D Travel Map; Safe Hockey; Making Bubbles...all activities that help children learn and expand vocabulary at the same time. Support children through your interactions, as you will see in our many examples that build confidence and self-esteem.

Hope you enjoy them all...send us your comments and ideas on any of these fun activities.

For more ideas go to our Grandparents Teach, Too Blog: http://grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com/ and listen to Learning Through the Seasons
http://www.wnmufm.org/learningthroughtheseasons.

Podcasts on WNMU Public Radio 90:

Enjoy all your special sharing times with your children and grandchildren!

Ever Wonder What To Do When Your Children Wonder?

So many questions: How does the sun work? Where do stars go in the daytime? How come you can hear me? Can people disagree and still be friends? There is a place you can go to find answers to these wondrous wonders and more or even post your own personal “wonder.” That place is the online community called Wonderopolis and it’s all free!

Materials Needed:

You just need an internet-connected device and the Wonderopolis web address: http://wonderopolis.org/

What To Do:

On the home page of the site you will find many exciting activities and events on the main page. You will also see a menu on the side that will take you to their treasure store of interesting ideas and information. You can view the “Wonder of the Day”; Explore “Wonders”; submit your own “Wonder”; vote for favorite “Wonders.” There is also an “Educator Sandbox” page that offers many great ideas and instructions for activities to do with your children.

A special summer event is being held online right now: Camp What-A-Wonder. It runs Monday – Friday, June 17 – July 26, with a new theme each week. Sign up to receive the Camp What-A-Wonder Bulletin to keep up with all the latest Camp updates. 

Once at the site, you can also use the “Follow Us” menu to receive daily “Wonders” on your Facebook, Twitter, or RSS accounts. You can also enter your phone number and e-mail address to subscribe to receive the “Wonder of the Day” right in your message inbox. There is also a mobile app rated Best Kid’s App by Parenting Magazine that you can add to your android or iOS device.

What Is a “Wonder”?

Let’s look at today’s Wonder of the Day: What Does It Mean To Agree To Disagree? There is an entire web page devoted to analyzing this question from a variety of viewpoints. There are pictures that symbolize the concepts, a video and an audio storytelling example. There are also Wonder Words to expand vocabulary in this area. There are interactive “try outs” and a quiz to engage your child.

How Does This Help My Children?
Everyone wonders...it happens anywhere, anytime. Encourage your children to be explorers on paths to new discovery. Since Wonderopolis started in 2010, it has been recognized as a fresh approach to wonder and learning, receiving many awards for organizations such as: Time magazine, Parenting.com, USA Today and Learning Magazine. The "Wonder" content aligns with current school curriculum standards, too. 

For more great educational activities visit Grandparents Teach, Too web page and listen to WNMU Radio 90 Learning Through the Seasons podcasts.

Photos: Wonderopolis website

Traveling with Young Children

  Traveling to family gatherings can be stressful, or it can be fun.  Snacks, drinks, a favorite blanket, drawing materials, books, storytelling, and games keep the family happy while riding along. 

What To Do:

  Young children love to hear about family member’s childhood.  It is their first exposure to history and stories of people they love.   Most important these tales are passed on and not lost.

  Think of some lessons of kindness, perseverance, courage and triumph over difficulty. Perhaps your grandparents told you some funny or scary stories you vividly remember.  Retelling the story with exaggerations, descriptions, and sound effects will make it come alive for your children, too. When you reach your  destination, children will rush in and tell all about what they heard on the way.

   Children can play Tic Tac Toe and Dots game with a hardcover book for a desk. To play Dots make ten rows and columns of dots equally spaced. Each player has one turn to connect two dots.  The object is to connect dots to enclose a square, put your initial inside, and earn another turn. The player with the most squares wins. Preschool children catch on to these two games quickly.

  You’re about an hour into the trip.  Now what? Take a few verbal games out of your bag of tricks.  One game is called “What Do You Know?”  The adult asks simple questions and children take turns giving their answers.  Questions are based on children’s age, interest, and vocabulary.  For example for the younger child, “How many colors do you know?  What foods are red? What do we call people who take care of us when we get sick?”

  For older children the questions could be related to geography or history. “How many states begin with the word New?  Now many bird names can you remember?

Can you name a holiday for each month?” 

   Another car game is called “I just saw it.” One person begins having noticed something just passed—for instance, a telephone pole. “ It was tall and thin. I just saw it.”  The others begin to guess.  If they fail, the person adds more clues until the object is guessed.

 “Colors” is played by naming a common color.  When two things are found you take turns switching to another color.

  How does this Help My Children?

  A recent study compared the vocabulary of children entering kindergarten from the 1950’s and 2009. It found that children in the 1950’s had DOUBLE the vocabulary entering school.  Family games and conversation help build vocabulary used for reading and success in school.

For more ideas about traveling with children go to our previous blog: Are We There Yet? and also check out our WNMU Learning Through the Seasons podcast about traveling. For more ideas check out the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons.” 

Illustration: Mark Nowicki
Photo: Photo: Norman, Steve. nat143.jpg. . Pics4Learning. 22 Dec 2012