http://youtu.be/J7E-aoXLZGY

Awesome – that’s just awesome! Thank you to all of the above named! Stephen recorded a podcast, Matt turned it into a kinetic typography animation, and Merriam-Webster posted about it on their Facebook page. And that is how I ran across it. And I am so feeling it. Totally.

Now, to be fair, I am sure that I will still occasionally correct my children. That’s kind of my job. And besides, hearing “It’s like having an English teacher for a mom!” warms my college degree-less cockles!

I think the foodie part is kind of hysterical, as my diet consists of very few foods, really. I’m kind of like a picky toddler. I’m working on it – and I’m adding plenty more veggies, so that’s good. But I’m still a picky toddler. I have, however, been involved with Sparkpeople.com for a while and trying to eat better and exercise when this owey foot allows. But with this in mind, I’ve found a lot of online friends that are into fitness and/or food and/or establishing a healthy way of life. And I talk to some of these peeps on both my @mrslisa and my @lisamariemary account.

But there’s also that ‘watercooler thing’ about Twitter, where we all kind of gather when we’re about to have lunch, thinking about what the heck is for dinner – or even while we’re eating!

But foodie, I am not. Unless you want to say that I’m a ‘Picky Toddler Foodie’. Hahaha!

That other thing – obsessed with books? Who me? Couldn’t be.

And I love all the “happy” words associated at the bottom!

And look what who else is down there with those happy! It’s The Bacon Dude!

One – Use Flashcards With Text and Pictures

One of the best things you can do to help increase your child’s early reading skills is to purchase or create flashcards which incorporate both pictures and text. By reinforcing your child’s recognition of pictures with the word that corresponds to it, you can help them to better understand that words mean something – that they represent something more than squiggles on a page.

Two – Make Reading a Family Event

With all of the new toys on the market these days that will read to your children for you, it’s easy for parents to forget that their children need to actually be read to on a repeated basis by a live person.

Not only should you make a point to read to your child on a regular basis, you should also get your whole family involved in the process. Taking a family outing to the library is a great way to get your child excited about reading.

Three – Start Early Teaching Them to Write

Even though your children may not yet understand the purpose of letters, it’s never too early to start teaching them their alphabet. Children love learning to write their names, so teaching them to print early is a great way to enhance their reading skills.

Even if they don’t understand the full concept of the letters, they are easily able to recall the fact that certain letters mean their name if you work with them long enough. Children will begin to develop their writing skills on their own.

Most children will start pretending to write long before they actually understand what letters are. Once you notice your child doing this, it’s a good sign that he or she is ready to start learning to write their name.

Four – Teach Your Child Phonics

One of the biggest mistake that parents, and even some teachers, make is failing to teach their children phonics. Teaching phonics is actually a much simpler process than many would have you to believe. It’s no more than teaching your child the sounds that individual letters and letter combinations make.

By teaching your child what each letter sounds like, and teaching them to sound out words as they read, you will be giving them a tool which will help them throughout each level of their education.

Five – Be Consistent

If you’re serious about increasing your child’s early reading skills, then the most important thing you can do is remember to be consistent. Children need repetition in order to solidify the sounds of words and letters in their heads, as well as the concepts that words create.

By making sure that you make reading a part of their daily life, you are helping to reinforce these concepts in your child’s mind, and allowing them to grasp more difficult concepts earlier than their peers who do not experience this repetition.

Above all else, the most important thing to remember if you want to increase your child’s early reading skills is to make the reading process fun. If your child sees that you enjoy reading, both to them and to yourself, they will take a greater interest in the process and learn much more quickly.

And let’s never forget, of course, that….

Readers Are Leaders!!

Or….

maybe not!

LOL!

How to Choose Fun and Easy Halloween Recipes For Kids

Halloween is in the air. People are preparing their costumes for the numerous Halloween costume parties that they will attend. Young children will soon start knocking from door to door shouting “Trick or Treat!” Your kids are probably getting excited about the Halloween atmosphere. If your kids are bouncing off the wall and the Halloween is still a few weeks away and you have run out of ideas on how to keep them busy and occupied, why not prepare fun Halloween foods with them?

Here are some tips on how you should choose Halloween recipes for kids

Choose recipes that are easy to do. They should have simple ingredients and easy to follow steps and procedure. As much as possible, try to choose a recipe that requires no cooking to prevent accidents related to fire or heat. But if you cannot find any, just make sure that it is only for a short time and they do not need to do something wile it is cooking. Make sure that you are constantly watching and guiding them while preparing Halloween foods.

The outcome should look fun and interesting. For example, you can bake cookies and your children can draw anything spooky on the cookies. You can also choose foods that look like human body parts or any Halloween symbols like black cats, ghost, witch, jack-o-lantern, and so on.

By doing these tips, you can be sure that your kids will have a fun and safe time preparing Halloween recipes for kids.

Are you ready to learn Halloween recipes for kids that you and your family can enjoy? Visit http://halloween-recipes.justnotmartha.com/ today!

Article Source: Great Articles for Moms: Submit Your Articles Today

* Utilize a deck of cards.
* Purchase the Leap Frog product which offers singing as a way for your child to count from 1 to 20.
* Use construction paper with crayon, and write the numbers on separate sheets.
* Use a variety of books which teach children to count.
* Utilize a box of elbow macaroni in teaching your child how to count.
* Use pennies to help your child to count.
* If you have stairs in your home, count them with your child as you go up and down.

Statistics today show more and more public school children are lacking in mathematical skills. This is why it is so important to teach children to count from the time they are infants. They do retain information, and with so many teaching tools available today, it is becoming clear that the earlier a child is taught to count, the better prepared he or she will be when it comes time to enroll them in school.

While learning is important, making the process an enjoyable one creates the atmosphere conducive to learning. It is a fact that babies learn more at an early age because they have the ability to soak up so much information. Therefore, beginning the counting process as early as possible, using creative means, can not only help your child but is an inducement for them to want to learn more as they grow.

Engage your entire family in teaching your child to count. Make it a fun and enjoyable experience. These 7 tips to get your child counting to 20 can be used or added to your existing methods. Utilize all of the tips outlined and add your own creative ideas as well.

Times have certainly changed since we were kids. Many of the methods and tools available today were not even part of our daily curriculum. Now, more than ever, we have more opportunities to teach our children the vital lessons they need to learn in order to achieve. It all begins with the number 1, and akin to when we were kids, you can still utilize the old with the new in ensuring your child can count, either by reading the numbers or by using his or her fingers and toes.

Article by:

Nicole Dean co-created www.kidsactivitycalendar.com to help her child and others prepare for Kindergarten in a fun way. To get your free sample lesson, stop by www.kidsactivitycalendar.com/letter-a-sample.htm today.

Image courtesy of DailyClipArt.net

I think I only went so far as Biology in high school. I really wish there had been someone around when I was a kid that made science as fun and as interesting as Steve does. Watching Bill Nye with my kids when they were little was what first turned me on to the fact that science is something that I can enjoy, too! And then we had “The Mad Science Guy” in Richardson, TX – who would put on demonstrations at the community centers. The kids and I loved to go see him. And guess what? My 13 year old daughter loves science! Awesome! That absolutely tickles me!!

I’m getting way off subject here, and way on my soapbox, let’s get back to those groovy gold pennies, shall we?

Is that superbly awesome, or what? I just love it! The pennies look so cool like that. And isn’t that interesting what he was saying about people trying to put them back into circulation and that when they’re like that they can’t go back into circulation? Can you imagine if someone handed you some as if everything was normal? Like maybe, the checker at the grocery store giving you change just hands you some …and then you see her cast a sideways glance at her coworker. And you and your kids are just standing there freaking out. And she’s saying, “What? What is the problem, ma’m?” And you can tell she’s trying so hard not to crack a smile? That would be so funny!

Here is the list of materials you need for this experiment:

* 20 mL of 6 M NaOH
* 0.1 g zinc dust
* evaporating dish
* hot plate
* tongs
* 200 mL beaker of water
* penny
* Bunsen burner or a propane torch

And you can read all the details about the experiment on this page: Gold Pennies experiment at SteveSpanglerScience.com

Encouraging Your Child to Write
Written by Nicole Dean

How in the world do you get your child to write? This is the battle cry of many parents. A lot of imagination, with a little bribery (or praise) is all you need to get your child writing. We’ll supply the imagination. The praise and bribery is all up to you.

Grocery List: Enlist your child’s help in making the grocery list. Walk around the kitchen, naming things you need from the store. Ask your child to write everything down. Your child can also suggest foods you might need from the store and he can add those, too.

Old Checks: If you’ve recently switched banks and have checks that need to be destroyed, first let your child play with them. Give him some envelopes and he can pretend to pay bills – while getting him to do some writing. Of course, destroy the checks afterwards. If you do not have checks available, you can just give your child some blank pieces of paper and he can make his own checks.

Cards: If your child is interested in Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards, then give him some index cards cut in half and have him design his own cards. Encourage your child to give the characters names and special abilities on their cards.

Fictional Journal: Sometimes it is hard for children to write in a journal. What is there to write about? Instead of a standard journal, give your child a fictional journal. He or she can pretend to be anything they’d like to be and write a journal as that person. Your child could write from the perspective of an Astronaut discovering a new planet, Prince or Princess on an Adventure, Archaeologist finding a new species of Dinosaur, Famous Athlete, President of a Country, Passenger on the Titanic. Your child could write from the perspective something instead of someone, a mailbox, an animal, a pen. The possibilities are endless.

Letter-writing: Have your child write a letter to Santa, the Easter bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. Or, your child could write to their favorite athlete, fictional character, or movie star.

Alphabet Game: Take a piece of paper and write the letters A-Z in the left column. Then, choose a category from the following or make up one of your own. Vegetables, Fruits, Animals, Musical Instruments. For older children, the categories can be narrower and more difficult, like Countries, Characters in Literature, Presidents, etc. Set a timer and you and your child both list as many of the items in the category as you can for each letter. The trick at the end is that you have to cross off anything on your list that your child has listed. (for instance, if you both have “apple” for an “a” fruit, then the parent crosses theirs off.) Whoever has the most words wins.

Character Game: Tell your child to pick a character from a book or movie that he’s familiar with, and you do the same. Then, ask several questions and you each write the answers to the questions on a piece of paper. When you’ve finished asking the questions, then have your child read the answers and try to guess who he was pretending to be. You do the same and see if your child can guess who you were. Whether you are pretending to be Peter Pan or Shrek, you and your child will have fun and your child won’t even realize he’s practicing his writing!

Visit www.ShowKidsTheFun.com and Free Online Preschool Themes for more fun ideas to spend time with your children.

When I was shopping for the goodies, though, I had trouble locating more ‘ladybug’ stuff. So I am going to phase that category out for a while – and there’s where your good deal comes in! I have two packages left of the ladybug category. So I decided to give two people a very special deal today! Right now, for today only, you can order one ladybug package (so just a one month subscription) for 20% OFF the regular price!

That comes to just $9.57 +shipping

Let me show you what your child is going to get with that package! The first thing, of course, is the letter to your child wherein I tell them about a super groovy ladybug book:

I snapped some quick pics with my phone of the craft package and the stickers so that you could get a look at them:

I took a close up of the instruction sheet so that you could see what the finished craft will look like. It’s pretty blurry, but, it gives you an idea:

I only have two of these packages left, so if you want this, order now! I will remove the Paypal button when they are both gone. And I do hope to add the ladybug category back into my list of topics. I’ll have to dig around for more supplies at a later time. So for right now, this is it!

UPDATE: Both packages sold! Maybe we’ll get those ladybugs back in here soon – they’re just too cute!!

Grab it now if you want it!

Thank you!

Newspapers are made from trees and trees grow… so it only makes sense that you should be able to grow a newspaper tree.

Hey Spangler crew – that’s just awesome!!