New kids’-activity site Kiddley wins my affection with a list of free or cheap activities for vehicle-obsessed toddlers. My son definitely falls into this category, and we have in fact done all of the activities mentioned. I’ll add one more activity to their list: visit a local fire house. Most firefighters I’ve met seem more […]
The Birthday Calculator is a fun little Web site you may enjoy trying with your kids. Enter a birth date and year, and it displays all kinds of information about that date, including the phase of the moon, dates of holidays that year, U. S. population statistics then, and the number of months, weeks, days,
It’s been raining a lot this week: Place two kitchen chairs, one behind the other. Seat your preschooler on one. Hand him or her a pie pan for a steering wheel and a vacuum-cleaner hose for a firehose. Instant fire truck. Minimalist? Perhaps. It was good for a whole 15 minutes at our house, though.
Here’s my latest rainy-day activity for a train-obsessed pre-schooler: Google Video, search: “locomotive”. You’ll find lots of short videos (many under three minutes) from around the world, showing all kinds of engines. Also works with fire trucks, horses, and pretty much anything else your child may be into. While there are good reasons to limit
Sometimes the reminders of invisibility leap up in unexpected places. My partner and I were dyeing Easter eggs the other day. We’d bought a kit with dye tablets, stickers, and shrink-on decorated wrappers. Yes, regular food coloring works, too, but we thought our two-year-old son would have fun putting stickers on the eggs. I pulled
It’s National Library Week, “a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support.” I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few suggestions for making use of your local library, beyond the obvious one of borrowing books. (I’ve focused on ideas related to kids
This one’s for all you moms with dinosaur-obsessed offspring. Increase your cool factor in their eyes by telling them the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus rex skull is now on display at the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University. (Thanks to PhysOrg.com for the sighting. Photos available through both links above.)
Technology site MAKE remembers the kiddies with links to a couple of homemade play dough recipes today. I haven’t tested these particular versions myself, but they sound similar to a recipe my mom used to make for me when I was younger. (Hasbro, makers of the “real” Play-Doh, even admit their secret formula contains mostly
It’s the first day of spring, and despite the lingering cold here in the northeast, I find my thoughts turning to branches and blooms. I’m looking forward to starting a garden with our son soon, bringing to life some of the ideas he’s read about in Planting a Rainbow and Growing Vegetable Soup. For those
Researchers at Cornell University have concluded a study that examined the experiences children have with nature and their attitudes toward environmentalism as adults. They found that kids who participate in “wild” nature activities such as “camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting” before age eleven are more likely to care about the
