Common Sense Media's Essential Books for Kids and Teens

We are busily working to compile our 2013 Summer Reading Lists at Holy Trinity School... we promise, they will be done soon!  It's still April (for a few more hours) we have plenty of time...

The following guide landed in my inbox the other day, and it's tough to not be intrigued by a guide that promises: "150+ Chances to Get Kids Hooked on Reading for Life."  The fabulous folks at Common Sense Media sought to create a list that will engage, entertain, and maybe even enlighten young readers.

The guide is divided by age group: ages 2-6, 7-12, and 13-17, so there is something for everyone.

I found this list to be a great collection of timeless favorites... ones my own (now teenage) children have read and loved over the years... and well worth a look.   Enjoy!

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/guide/essentialbooks

Teach your Monster to Read

Lower school tech teacher Catherine Miller has been using Teach Your Monster to Read with some of our early childhood students, and they absolutely love it!   This engaging website would be a great resource to tuck into your summer learning stockpile for little people.

A Children's Book Guide to Travel

Once again, I had another blog idea in mind, but got sidetracked by something amazing that landed in my inbox. (really, I'll get to those keyboarding suggestions soon)

Once upon the time, our family had the chance to live in London.  Some of our fondest memories involve summers traveling through Europe with the kids... and often times the way to bring the history or culture alive for the kids would be through storybook references.  Like Paddington Bear, we wandered through Paddington Station in London, we marched the streets of Paris like Madeline (but not quite in two straight lines) and hiked in the hills of Scotland imagining the flying cars in Harry Potter were zooming above the Hogwarts Express.  We also made a pilgrimage to Doune Castle, where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed, and the kids had great fun clopping coconuts as they pretended to gallop into the castle... but I digress.

Pinterest for Summer Learning

My daughter introduced Pinterest to me last year as a site to pin fabulous fashion, design and travel ideas.  If you aren't familiar with the site, it's an online bulletin board, where you can post links to articles, photos, quotes and ideas.  It's SO much fun, and completely addictive.  So much so, that I had to give it up for a while.  It wasn't helping me get through my to-do lists.

Educators around the country have adopted Pinterest as a great way to share ideas, projects and websites... so the good news is, I now have an excuse to peruse Pinterest for teaching ideas.  Perhaps I can convince my higher-ups it counts as a teaspoon or so of professional development...

Article Alert: The Touch Screen Generation - How Children Use iPads (and a list of suggested Apps!)

My flight was delayed on the way home from Spring Break in Florida yesterday, so I set out to buy a pile of magazines to pass the time.  Though I was briefly tempted by People Magazine's account of how Kate Middleton's pregnancy is progressing, the cover story of the Atlantic magazine caught my eye as a slightly more useful read: "The Touch Screen Generation: How Children Use iPads," by Hilary Rosen.  It's a fascinating piece for parents of young children (and their teachers!)  The link to the article can be found here.

Rosen says: "Norman Rockwell never painted "Boy Swiping Finger on Screen" and our own vision of a perfect childhood has never adjusted to accommodate that now-common tableau. Add to that our modern fear that every parenting decision may have lasting consequences—that every minute of enrichment lost or mindless entertainment indulged will add up to some permanent handicap in the future—and you have deep guilt and confusion. To date, no body of research has definitively proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speak Chinese, or alternatively that it will rust her neural circuitry—the device has been out for only three years, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather research subjects. So what’s a parent to do?

DIY.ORG - Creative Adventures for Kids

For those of you who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I was one of those Girls Scouts who was obsessed with earning every possible merit badge.  Cooking, canoeing, sewing, photography - I earnestly worked through the checklists for them all... almost.  I fell short by three, which still haunts me to this day.  The daily checklist is still my constant companion, however.  

So, when I came across this new website called DIY.Org, which challenges kids to undertake creative projects to earn badges, I was instantly intrigued.  Then I started exploring the site.  Wow, I'm impressed.  On this Summer Learning blog I usually recommend websites, apps or books that keep kids inside.  This site challenges kids to be curious, active and wildly creative - and even occasionally get outside - while learning!   This has instantly jumped to the top of my personal favorites list.  Oh, and it' free, which is a plus.  (At some point, DIY plans to sell the embroidered badges, but this isn't an option quite yet.)