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Inspiring Kids from Space

By Asa

posted May 23, 2013

With his feet back on Terra Firma, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on Canadian Astronaut, Chris Hadfield’s, 146-day stint in space – and more importantly, the impact he’s had on us earthlings, educating us about science and life in space.

Unlike any other astronaut before him, Cmdr. Hadfield has managed to connect with the rest of us, making space cool and more accessible.

From his famous 5-minute David Bowie tribute, which has now been viewed more than 14 million times:

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Math Mammoth Winners

By Asa

posted May 20, 2013

Two weeks ago, in our May newsletter and through our Facebook and Twitter pages, we ran a giveaway with Maria Miller of Math Mammoth. We are giving away one entire grade level of her math workbooks to three lucky winners and this morning we did the draw. The winners are:

Yvette Carkin

Malini Shanbhogue

Annette Vellenga

Congratulations ladies!

We hope to line up regular giveaways in our monthly newsletter, so look out for our June installment.

If you aren’t signed up to our newsletter, and you’d like to, you can sign up on our homepage.

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Monolingual vs. Bilingual

By Asa

posted May 17, 2013

As I was surfing the web yesterday, this infographic caught my eye. In our family we're trying to keep up with my heritage and my daughter attends Swedish School every Saturday morning - I hear the deep sigh and groan from my daughter as I mention this to her. She likes the school when they put on special activities that follow our cultural calendar, but when it's just straight school, she finds it hard. We don't speak much Swedish in our home and the only time she gets to practice it is for those 2 hours per week.

Howver, there are advantages to bringing up your children in a bilingual environment, so perhaps I should put in a more concerted effort:

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Recommended Books for Small Screens

By K5 Team

posted May 07, 2013

Our resident book reviewer, Sheila Welch, has turned her attention to reading apps in this month’s book review.

By Sheila Welch

Your children can have access to stories on a number of devices (PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android) through a company called MeeGenius that markets a selection of retold classics and many new original titles. The format is very book-like, and the illustrations have no animation or whistles and bells. Children can read the stories themselves or listen to them being read aloud as each word is highlighted. All of these are short and will appeal to preschoolers up through third graders.

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Why do Schools still Teach Cursive Writing?

By Asa

posted April 25, 2013

Should flowing letters and fancy loops still be taught to students? Is cursive writing no longer relevant as we move towards an increasingly technological society?

Common Core Standards do not require cursive writing. Under the new standards, states are allowed to teach cursive if they choose, and many still do. The issue is hotly debated among educators and we thought we’d extract the positions from the two sides of this debate.

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8 New Summer Camp Ideas

By Asa

posted April 10, 2013

It’s that time of the year – again. Summer camps! In our family they are a must. My husband and I both work full-time and we need to find activities that will engage our child throughout the summer. The good news is that there seems to be more and more choices every summer, the bad - the most popular camps fill up immediately.

Rather than join the frenzy of parents scrambling to get their kids into the best swim programs, or best dance program, or best soccer program (you get the gist), I thought I’d spend a little time looking for new programs that will be fun, educational and take my child outside her normal activity “comfort zone”.

These ideas may help you look outside the box, so look out for them in your communities.

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Free eBooks for Kids

By Asa

posted March 29, 2013

Free eBooks Our daughter received a Kobo eReader for Christmas from her grandparents and since then she has been glued to it. Sure, we’ve bought some books, but mostly we have downloaded free Classics and borrowed books from the local library.

Yes, you should check out your local library. Many now have sites dedicated to lending eBooks and all you need is your library card.

We also found that the bookstore affiliated with Kobo has a listing of free eBooks, some of which we have also downloaded. The same goes for some of the other device providers.

If you own a Kindle, Amazon has a list of 100 free eBooks for kids:

Amazon 100 free eBooks

And there are lists of free “iBooks” for iPhone/iPads/iPod Touch:

Free iBooks for kids

And the same goes for the Nook (although I couldn’t find a way to filter the free Nook books, so this is a list of all their free books, kinds included):

Free eBooks from Barnes and Noble

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TED Talks Playlist for Kids

By Asa

posted March 25, 2013

We’ve talked about the TED Talks before on this blog. I don’t know if you have seen they compile playlists? These playlists are “collections for curious minds”. You should check them out for yourself when you have the time.

But for today, I want to highlight the TED playlist for kids. It’s a collection of 10 talks ranging from “Mathemagic”, evolving dance, science for everyone and how a boy became an artist. Lots of fun talks to inspire your kids and get their creative juices flowing:

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Adding Unlike Fractions with Maria

posted March 21, 2013

Frequently we know how to do something, but we are unsure how to teach it. This is particularly true for math instruction. We know how to solve a particular problem, but do we just show our child 'how we do it' or is there "a proper way"?

Do we teach our kids the trick or show them what lies behind it?

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Free Science Games based on the Biggest Science Discoveries

By Asa

posted March 19, 2013

Spring Break is upon us and, if you are like me, you have scoured the local paper, local events listings and sites for things to do with your kids. I was looking for some science experiments we could do in our kitchen, as well as online and came across the free educational science games offered by the official web site of the Nobel Prize. http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/

What parent does not get drawn in by the prospect of their children learning about the ground-breaking science that have earned its Laureates the most coveted science prize in the world: the Nobel Prize.

Nobel prize homepage

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