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Parenting Press®Welcome to the June 2011
“News for Parents”
Dear Friends of Parenting Press:
Looking for project ideas? Books to read? Downloads for home, school, or youth group? At Parenting Press, we’re always generating material we hope you like and use.
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If you teach parenting education, conduct home visits or counsel parents and caregivers, click on through to our Parent Educator Corner and register for a complimentary information sheet. There’s one every month! Popular topics include how to get kids into bed, how to keep them there, and how to get them to sleep.
If you write for a newspaper or school, extension, or child care newsletter, you’re welcome to excerpt or reprint our information, as long as you credit us and send us a copy. Advance copies of selected stories from the next issue (see “Coming Attractions”) are available the last week of this month for excerpts in print publications. E-mail our media contact.
Looking for a conference speaker? Check our list of authors available for speeches and interviews, and the online media kits. Books, info sheets, teaching plans, kids’ activities: we’re always in a whirl at Parenting Press with dozens of ideas that we hope you’ll enjoy and find helpful. Many are described in this issue; others will be published in later issues (see Coming Attractions).
IN THIS ISSUE
- WHAT’S NEW?
- FEATURES
- POTPOURRI
- COMING ATTRACTIONS
- Determining Kids’ Strengths—and Parents’, Too!
- Summer Fun with Books about Letters and Words
- Disaster Preparedness for Your Pets
I. WHAT’S NEW?
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Summer Fun: Make It Together!
Summer is a fabulous time for exploring, especially when parents and children can try a new project together. If you’re all home together, it’s great to have a project to start in the cool of the morning, or to look forward to in afternoon, when chores are done. In many homes, the longer days mean you have two or three hours in the evening for projects, too.
City and suburban kids seldom know exactly how butter is made, so that’s the kind of tasty project you all might undertake for school vacation. Butter’s simple to make: you’ll need whipping cream, a jar and strong arms to shake, shake, shake the cream. For illustrated how-to’s, see Instructables. (Some of the reader comments are helpful, too.) Maybe you could divide the cream between your kids and see who gets butter first!
Most of us eat macaroni and spaghetti, but how many of us know how pasta is made? This is another easy project: flour, salt, eggs and a little olive oil, all mixed together with a fork in a bowl. Oh, and a rolling pin! How-to’s are on many web sites; the Edible Schoolyard shares a recipe that middle-school kids used.
Worm composting enthusiasts insist you can “host” a worm bin even if your only outdoor space is a balcony or patio. Your bin can be as small as a plastic tub or barrel, as long as you have a lid and holes for air circulation. (See Environmental Education for Kids). For kids who like dirt and critters, setting up a worm bin, acquiring the worms and saving vegetable scraps for the worms’ meals can be a novel parent-child project. If you already have a compost pile or worm bin, invite your children to help you screen the well-decayed contents for potting soil. A simple sifter requires only a wood frame and 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch hardware screen. Or scout garage sales for a colander or food mill with large holes.
Two other shop projects that you can complete with almost no tools: a sundial and a rain gauge. You’ll find how-to’s for the first at “Making a Horizontal Sundial for 45 Degrees Latitude.” (Don’t know what latitude you’re at? Some of the cities at 45 degrees are Salem OR and Salmon ID, St. Paul MN, Traverse City MI and Bangor ME.) For the rain gauge, turn to “Kids’ Water Fun,” a Monroe County (NY) Water Authority web site.
Rather work with paper? Turn advertisements printed on heavy paper into colorful paper airplanes. Fly them when the weather’s fair—or create a “fly zone” in the bedroom by suspending them from the ceiling.
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Make It Together: Family Tree
Click to enlargeIf you need an indoor family project, create a family tree, using branches that your kids crayon or with older children, a genealogy chart. You might even have a family tree centerpiece: a bare branch stuck in a vase, with paper leaves attached for every family member you’ve found. Another possible background: a map centered on where you live, with lines drawn from where family members started out.
Get the basic information one day, and then continue to scout photo albums, atlases and online archives for photos, maps, advertisements for family businesses, and newspaper stories that you can all add. Some small libraries have bound copies of old local newspapers; you’ll find scans of many others online at web sites such as news.google.com/newspapers, which starts with 164 issues of the newspaper “A Propos” and goes all the way to the 171 issues of “Yukon World” published in 1904-05.
Wondering how all these people are related? Parenting Press operations manager Homer Henderson offers this answer: if you share a grandparent but you’re not siblings, then you’re first cousins. If you share a great-grandparent, you’re second cousins. And if you can trace your family back yet another generation, you’ll know who your third cousins are! He refers us to Wikipedia for details.
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Trash into Treasure
Besides origami with junk mail and old magazine pages, kids can turn all sorts of other throwaways into art projects. Many are ideal when you unexpectedly have lots of children to entertain, or when extreme heat, hail or rain spoil plans for an outdoor activity. Depending on the age of the children involved, these projects may require some adult help or supervision.
Hairy heads. Draw faces or cut out a chain of paper dolls and add hair and beards with needle and thread, or for younger children, glue and fine yarn.
Paper bag princesses (and princes). Once the kids have heard The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch, help them create their own dresses and shirts with brown paper grocery bags. Need a crown? If your dress-up box doesn’t have a tiara-style party hat, wrap aluminum foil around lightweight cardboard.
On the runway with newspaper. Give each child a roll of masking tape, a stack of newspapers, and an hour, and you can look forward to wild and wacky fashion on an improvised runway! (No scissors allowed; the talent is in the tearing!)
Metal patchwork. Cut open empty soft drink cans (using old, old scissors), pound them flat, or cut into squares or triangles. Stitch them together with a rug needle and string. Kids with strong hands can use a metal paper punch around the edges and then lace the pieces together. (Caution: this is a project for older kids who can watch out for sharp edges.)
Paper patchwork. Press foil and plastic candy and snack wrappers flat, wipe them clean, and then cut them into squares or strips that can be attached to each other or a base with glue or stitching.
Creating with plastic. Cut round and round on a plastic grocery bag until you’ve made a long strip that can be knit or crocheted into a mat (indoor-outdoor carpeting for a fairy house, perhaps?). Or cut strips from bags of different colors and use them to introduce weaving, perhaps with a simple cardboard frame for a loom. Old cassette tape works well, too!
Dried flowers. Press tiny blossoms, clover leaves and other petals between sheets of white paper, and under a stack of heavy books, and then use them to decorate notes to friends and relatives. Or add the dried flowers to the top layer of a papier mache project.
Ideal for presenting gifts or showcasing little treasures like shells or bugs, origami boxes like these can be made with the directions in Trash Origami.
This open envelope, made with junk mail and the how-to’s in Trash Origami, is the right size for a gift card or a greeting that you hand-deliver.
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Celebrating June Events
Staying close to home this summer? You’ll find lots to celebrate!
Flag Day comes on the 14th, a perfect opportunity to decorate with stars and stripes you paint or color yourself, and a real flag if you have one. Kids who enjoy dress-up can pull on mob caps and white wigs to imitate Betsy Ross and George Washington discussing the first flag.
Remember the men in your life on Father’s Day, which is the 19th: dads, granddads, the guys who’ve given you fatherly advice, and those whose sons and daughters are far away.
June 19 is also Juneteenth, observed since 1865 as a celebration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Many African-American organizations sponsor festivities and programs; you can observe this at home by reading the Emancipation Proclamation. You’ll find the transcript and more information at the National Archives & Records Administration web site.
In the U.S. and Canada, many communities celebrate the summer solstice, June 21, as Midsummer or Midsommer as their ancestors did in Europe, with bonfires, concerts, and dancing around the maypole. If there’s no public bonfire near you, consider building your own in a park fire pit and singing around the fire as you toast marshmallows!
Start planning now for your Fourth of July celebration! Maybe you can enter your community’s Independence Day parade, or organize an ice cream sundae party for your block. (Every family could contribute a different flavor of ice cream or topping, and each of you can bring your own bowl and spoon.)
If you’re visiting family or friends, or vacationing away from home, check local calendars for festivals, farmers’ markets, concerts and other events in the areas you’re traveling to.
In Seattle, for example, we have free concerts on weekends in the Ballard neighborhood on the grounds of the Hiram M. Chittenden boat locks.
In Omaha, through mid-July, El Museo Latino has a Smithsonian traveling exhibition, “Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente.”
In Cambridge IL, the Henry County Fair starts June 21.
Going to Pleasanton CA? The Alameda County Fair kicks off the 22nd.
July 14-17 is the National Sand Sculpting Festival at Revere Beach, only six miles north of Boston.
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Reunion!
Getting some or all of the branches of your family tree together this year (or maybe next)? Our readers have these suggestions for ensuring that everyone has fun at reunions, whether the event’s an afternoon or several days.
Plan ahead
If you’re thinking in terms of a simple afternoon potluck for local relatives, start the planning at least three months in advance. If guests will be traveling or if you’re planning a more complicated event, get started at least six months ahead.
Determine your purpose.
Do you all want the fun of attending a festival or sports event together? Is there a wedding, anniversary or special birthday? Are you looking for an opportunity to renew friendships? As you begin planning, think about whether you need organized activities or lots of time for casual small-group conversations.
If your purpose includes genealogy, include a table or easel where you can display photos you need identified, a list of ancestors for whom you need information or a family tree with specific questions about dates, occupations, and descendants.
Assess family members’ needs.
Will you be accommodating elderly relatives? Anyone who uses a wheelchair or walker? New babies? Lots of small children, or a dozen teenagers? Family members’ needs and interests will help determine the reunion setting, lodging needs, activities and pace.
Establish a realistic budget.
Just as family financial situations vary, so does the amount of money (and vacation time) that family members are willing to spend on reunions. If most family members, or those with the tightest budgets, are in one area, perhaps that’s the best location. Or maybe you can all head for a campground that accommodates tents and campers. Like most cruise lines, family camps, retreat centers and resorts often offer all-inclusive package pricing, so there are no surprises when it’s time to pay the bill.
Be creative in financing.
Some families use reunion events such as auctions to raise seed money for the next reunion (postage, location deposits, paper goods, etc.). Family members donate items—sometimes handcrafts, white elephants or souvenirs from the current reunion—to be auctioned off. Some raffle off such reunion decorations as photo reprints and family trees. Other possible fund-raisers: a kangaroo court or fees for bragging (a dollar donated to the kitty for each time you want to brag about your child). This helps ensure that reunion organizers don’t have significant out-of-pocket expenses.
Plan ice-breaker activities.
People will get to know each other better—or catch up on what’s happened since the last reunion—with games like “family bingo” or “people scavenger hunts.” Each participant can be asked to find people who meet specific criteria: “Oldest family member” or “Lived 30 years in Butte.” Add “Never eaten sushi,” “Visited Maui,” or “Speak more than one language” to include more people.
A variety of ice-breakers, things people can do on their own as well as the games, will help when family members who are shy or introverted. One example: picture displays. When Eveline Goodall’s family had its first large reunion in Calgary, Alberta (65 people ranging in age from 5 to 84), each family was asked to use a three-panel cardboard exhibit to show off its pictures. The reunion also kicked off with a contest to identify baby pictures from four generations.
Identify family members.
Name tags and a family tree will help people figure out who belongs to whom. In fact, you might combine the two: Fred Crary, Parenting Press’s webmaster extraordinaire, tells about how useful it was to have an abbreviated family tree on his name tag at a reunion of his wife’s family. A detailed, oversized family tree also makes for a great exhibit.
Many families use T-shirts as a convenient identifier: at Roseline Jackson’s reunions, each state’s families design their own shirts. Some families differentiate by color: every immediate family or each generation has its own.
Be creative in entertainment.
Some families attend concerts, fairs, historic sites, museums or sports events together; others hire bands or disk jockeys for an evening’s entertainment. The most interesting suggestions we received, however, were for family-created entertainment.
The most impressive was from Goodall, who spent months in advance of her reunion creating an interactive multimedia show about her grandparents’ family: as she showed dozens of photos of her grandparents and each of their ten children, a great-grandchild was invited to the stage to take on the role of a specific family member, complete with costume.
“My goal was to teach the family history to the younger generation in a way that would be real to them,” she told us, and she succeeded: almost everyone was spellbound by the 90-minute presentation, which was videotaped for family members.
Goodall said the other favorite activity at this reunion was a bus tour of the family members’ long-ago homes, workplaces and church. The trip took about four hours, with different relatives telling family stories as the charter bus traveled.
Simple entertainment is also fun, especially when reunions are regular. Jackson’s family recognizes that year’s graduates, college, high school and even kindergarten, as well as the oldest and youngest attendees and those who have traveled the farthest. Some years there’s a take-off on a television game show such as “Family Feud,” pitting relatives from one state against those from another. Other ideas: your own version of “Jeopardy” or “American Idol”!
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Which Parenting Press Books Would You Choose If. . .
If you could select any two Parenting Press publications, what would they be? E-mail your choices to marketing@ParentingPress.com and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a $25 gift certificate that can be used on any purchase at parentingpress.com.
Be sure to include the complete titles of the books and the authors’ names, and your complete contact information, including name, preferred e-mail address, and postal address. If you have time to tell us why you’d choose these publications, and how you’d use them, we’d be delighted!
Important: put “Drawing” in your subject line and make sure we receive your e-mail before June 21, 2011. We’ll celebrate the start of summer by selecting an entry at random! If your name is drawn, you’ll have 10 days after notification to claim your gift certificate.
By entering this drawing, participants agree that their names and the cities of their residence can be publicized in an announcement if they are the winner. (Street addresses and e-mail addresses will remain confidential, seen only by the Parenting Press staff.)
Parenting Press gift certificates have no expiration date. They can be applied to the purchase of any materials published by the Press: books, card decks, posters, QWIK Books and Sheets, teacher guides, subscriptions to Parenting Education Practitioners Talk and back issues of Parenting Education Practitioners Talk. They can also be applied to the purchase of the How Much is Enough? Leader’s Guide. They cannot be redeemed in whole or part for cash, or applied to the purchase of books not published by the Press or to previous purchases. They are valid only at parentingpress.com, or with orders placed at (800) 992-6657.
II. FEATURES
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Tips for the month
Each Saturday, Parenting Press posts a new parenting tip and the previous week’s tip is moved to the archive.
As the academic year comes to an end, teachers may be commenting on your children’s social and interpersonal skills. If you have children who are starting preschool or kindergarten in the fall, you may also be thinking about how these skills can be encouraged. For June, we’ve selected four favorite tips that discuss getting along with others.
June 4 — Social Skills Development
June 11 — Building Friendship Skills
June 18 — Helping your child respond to teasing
June 25 — Making friends
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Family Fun Ideas — Your Version of Busytown
If you or your kids love Richard Scarry’s critters and how they wash windows, direct traffic, hang out laundry and bike up and down the streets of Busytown, why not keep the camera in the car so you can create your family’s own images of a busy town? Let the kids point out scenes they want in the book or take the pictures themselves. Be sure to snap photos when you’re commuting or running errands without them, too! These can be people at work, like the man changing the message on the billboard, the school crossing guard or the garbage truck with a commercial-size dumpster high overhead. Catch people at play, too: the water-skier, the line at the food truck, kids swinging at the park. For kids who especially like vehicles and vessels, you’ll want snapshots of fire engines, bulldozers, scooters, motorcycles with sidecars, ferries, police and fire boats from around your community or from places you visit this summer.
You can print the pictures at the drugstore or using your own computer and slip them into transparent page protectors that fit into a three-ring binder. The pictures will stay clean no matter how many times the book is used, and you’ll be able to add pictures whenever your family finds new scenes.
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Community Service — Changing Smoke Detector Batteries
Our goal with this column is to suggest ways that you can model the concept of sharing and giving back to your community. There are practical advantages to community service, too. Kids can use these projects to meet school or youth group requirements for community service and to start building resumes that they’ll use when applying for first jobs or college.
For June, let’s get fired up—about preventing deaths in home fires. FireSafety.gov points out that two-thirds of fatal home fires result from the houses that either have no smoke detectors at all, or having detectors that no longer work correctly. This is a fact that kids can publicize with posters and a table at the neighborhood sidewalk sale or farmers’ market where they hand out literature. Even small children can help by drawing pictures of houses in flames, to illustrate what happens in a fire. Teenagers can contact the local fire department to see if financial aid or free detectors are available for low-income families and possibly even go door-to-door in teams to ask residents if they have working smoke detectors.
III. POTPOURRI
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Special of the month — Fast and Almost Free!
This special has expired.
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