Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, March 1, 2008 10:19 am

Spring is in the air which means that seeds of all kinds will soon be sprouting: flower seeds, tree seeds…weed seeds. (Big sigh.)

Now is a good time to teach your little ones a bit more about seeds. I can’t think of a more lovely book for this purpose, than A Seed Is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long.

This book is packed with interesting facts about seeds. Each two page-spread presents a one sentence fact, followed by a short explanation. For example the first page says: “A seed is sleepy.” Followed by: “It lies there, tucked inside its flower, on its cone, or beneath the soil. Snug. Still.” The information is presented in a sweet, almost poetic way that makes it easily accessible and enjoyable for a variety of ages.

What really makes this book truly wonderful though, are Sylvia Long’s amazing illustrations reminiscent of old, botanical prints. Her colorful paintings are incredibly rich and detailed. Ms. Long has a real eye for seeing and reproducing the beauty and wonder of even the simplest natural objects.

We love this book so much, that next on my wish list is Ms. Aston and Ms. Long’s other collaboration: An Egg Is Quiet

Comments (0)

By Mom Unplugged, February 29, 2008 8:41 pm

What makes your pre-school or elementary-aged child shine?

“Bubblegum Books is asking kids to write about – or even draw – their most creative ideas for doing fun things during the week of April 21–27, 2008 [TV Turn-Off Week]. Submit fun and educational ideas about ‘what makes you shine.’ It can include an activity, person, adventure—or even something imaginary.”

Reminder: Deadline for the Bubblegum Books/TV Turn-Off Week Contest is March 14th.

For more information, please read my post: An Unplugged-Contest! “Show Your Shiny Side” or visit the Bubblegum Books contest page.

The contest is based on the book Something Shiny, Something Round, by Julie Goulis and illustrated by John Ferguson.

NEW INFORMATION: Bubblegum Books welcomes homeschoolers!

“Homeschoolers can definitely join in the fun too. The contest is open to all elementary-aged and pre-school aged children. Just specify what grade level your child is. Prizes will be awarded by grade level. Where it asks for school phone/address, etc., just include your home information. The organizers of TV-Turnoff Week and Bubblegum Books work with a lot of schools, so the form is probably geared more for schools. We hope you’ll be able to enter and show what makes you shine when the TV is off.

- Brad Hauber - Bubblegum Books”

So don’t forget…March 14th is the deadline. And if you win something, please let me know!

Comments (0)

By Mom Unplugged, February 26, 2008 5:58 pm

Santa gave the 4 Way Countdown Wooden Game to my 7 year-old daughter because he was hoping it might be a fun way to work on memorizing math facts.

The board consists of a simple square wooden box. Each side has ten wooden numbered bars that flip up and down. The object of the game is to be the first to flip up all your numbers. Players take turns rolling two dice. They can add, subtract, multiply, or divide the two numbers appearing on the dice in order to equal a number on one of their bars. They then flip up that bar. To make things a little more interesting, if you roll and eleven, you can of course flip up the 1 (6-5=1) or, instead, make another player flip all their bars back down. Fun, but beware: if you roll a twelve, then you must flip down all your bars!

This makes for a surprisingly entertaining game. What I like best about the game is how it can grow with your child’s abilities. Younger children can play by simply adding and subtracting. Multiplication and division can be added later as math skills progress.

I must also mention that even I like playing this one. Since many games aimed at children are deadly boring for grownups, I am always excited to find one that is at least tolerable, at best fun.

So, did Santa pick wisely? Yes! This game makes basic math facts easier to memorize and is way more fun than flash cards. Thank you Santa!

4 Way Countdown is also fairly practical as a travel game. The box is about 10.5″ x 10.5″ and 1.5″ thick, doesn’t weigh much, and the only loose pieces are the two dice. Dice are rolled inside the box, so are unlikely to escape during play.

Great math practice for 2 to 4 players (or you could even play alone). It would also be a great addition to a homeschool classroom.

PS. My daughter just saw me writing this post and wants to play 4 Way Countdown now. I’ve got to go so we can get in a quick game before dinner!

Comments (16)

By Mom Unplugged, February 24, 2008 10:01 pm

This week’s Unplugged Project theme was Alphabet/Letters. All the usual ideas seemed, well, usual. Picking up on a hide-and-seek theme proposed by my 5 year-old, I invented an Alphabet Scavenger Hunt.

First we cut 6 and a half sheets of construction paper into fourths making 26 uniformly-sized pieces. Math project anyone?? Then my oldest wrote the alphabet on the remaining half sheet of construction paper. We counted out 13 letters and made a line between the two sections. Each of my two children (5 and 7) was assigned half the alphabet to write, one letter per rectangle.

The children then hid someplace else while I distributed the letters throughout the main living area of our house. I won’t say that I really “hid” them, although some of them were harder to find than others. I wanted this to be part memory game too. I explained to them that they would see a lot of letters while searching and would have to try and remember them so they would be able to find them easily later in the game.

Once everything was hidden, I called the kids back and gave them a letter to find. They searched until someone found it and brought it to me. That child got one point. I used the alphabet list previously written by my oldest to cross off the found letter. This game continued with much raucous laughter and high-speed running around while I cooked dinner in relative peace (all I had to do was assign a letter to find, cross it off, and record points).

The memory-game aspect seemed to work as planned since the children found the letters more and more quickly as we progressed through the game. They loved it!

We will definitely keep these letters and play this again. Give it a try with your kids. The game could be easily adapted for different ages by making the letters harder or easier to find.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So what did you come up with for Alphabet/Letters? If you joined us this week, please put your link in Mr. Linky. Mr. Linky has been a tad unreliable lately, so please leave a comment too, that way we will know where to find you if I have to delete him. I look forward to seeing what else is possible with Alphabet/Letters!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Next week’s Unplugged Project theme is:

Music

You don’t have to compose a symphony. It doesn’t even have to be anything we can hear. Just try and think of something musically-related (however remotely) and go with it. Dance, sing, use some old piano books for a collage. Hey…the letters A through G are even musically-related! See how loose the Unplugged Project is? The key is to just have fun with your kids. Anything goes!

If you are at all interested, please feel free to jump in and join our project next week. As they say, the more the merrier!

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, November 8, 2007 1:56 pm

I must immediately write about something cheerier than lead paint and toxic Aqua Dots in order to rid myself of this bad feeling. How about haiku?

If you haven’t been following our weekly Unplugged Projects, last Monday’s project involved haiku. I wanted to suggest some children’s haiku books but couldn’t find any at my local library.

A few people came to the rescue and I would like to share their recommendations.

+++ First I must send you over to cloudscome’s blog, A Wrung Sponge. As a professional children’s librarian, she is my most authoritative source. Cloudscome kindly took the time this morning to pull her favorite haiku books off the shelf and listed them for me on her blog. Here are her recommendations:

Today and Today, Issa Kobayashi

Cricket Songs, Harry Behn

Cricket Never Does, Myra Cohn Livingston

One Leaf Rides the Wind, Celeste Mannis

A Pocketful of Poems, Nikki Grimes

Basho and the River Stones, Tim Myers

If Not For the Cat, Jack Prelutsky

Wingnuts, Paul Janeczko

Baseball Haiku, Cor Van Den Heuvel

Dogku, Andrew Clements

Thanks so much cloudscome! If you have never visited A Wrung Sponge it is worth a stop. Cloudscome writes lovely haiku herself and also gives great kids’ book recommendations (she is particularly interested in multicultural children’s books).

+++ Jenny of Wildwood Cottage found one haiku book at her library that 2 year-old daughter CJ enjoyed. She also recommends:

One Leaf Rides the Wind, Celeste Davidson Mannis

+++ Heather of Homeschooling Fun found this haiku book at her library and liked it a lot:

Asian Arts and Crafts for Creative Kids-Haiku, Patricia Donegan

Thank you all for your recommendations! I’ll have to get busy with my Interlibrary Loans.