With October starting this weekend, many of the topics of conversation in our house have started to orbit around Halloween. What should we wear? How are we going to decorate? When can we get a pumpkin? Which neighborhoods are we
Time for a Time Capsule
A “2020 Hindsight” time capsule can be a fun (and easy!) way to fill the summer with self-reflection and encourage intrapersonal growth/awareness in your children. Wash and dry an empty plastic or glass container with a lid that can be
You’ll Hit It Out of the Park with Me In Your Corner
One of the most critical vocabulary elements to “nail down” when learning American English (or any culture’s language) is the use of idioms. An idiom, as defined by dictionary.com, is a group of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from
References We Used As We Developed Kidzmet
Genesis of Kidzmet While we started building the current version of Kidzmet in late 2010, the inspiration for the idea actually came from Jen Lilienstein’s undergraduate senior thesis in 1994. Under the direction of Dr. Francesca Cancian at UCI, Jen
Sensory Sensitivities
Visit different outdoor environments—e.g. the playground, a field, the woods, school, your backyard, a community garden, the zoo, the beach—or even just the same one at different times of day with your child and tune into your senses. What does
Environmental Experiments
Set up a summer-long experiment to see how small changes in environment affect plants. Begin by planting identical plant seeds or young plants in 5 different containers (you can use cut off milk cartons or plastic bottles as your pots)
The International Language
Play a song in a language that your child doesn’t know in a style that appeals to him/her. What does it sound like the singer might be talking about? What is it about the music that makes him/her think so? The
Room Re-arrangement
Lots of “new” things are coming up fast… new teachers, new classmates, new school clothes, new learning material, new afterschool activities. Why not help your kids to get their outside-of-school lives better organized with a new bedroom arrangement? Starting with
Math Music to Your Ears
More than a quarter of a century after learning the states to the tune of “Do your ears hang low”, I still remember the states alphabetically in this way. And even though I’ve never had ANY use for the greek
Personal Soundtracks
I don’t know about you, but my favorite cassettes and CDs as a kid were the movie soundtracks. They were the ones that best “put me in the mood” for whatever it was I needed to get accomplished…or however I