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January 28th, 2008
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Welcome to the 5th edition of Carnival of Parenting Podcasts
It’s a place to share and find some new parenting podcasts from the podcaster and recommendations from those who listen to podcasts.
Top 10
Send in your favourite podcasts of the fortnight.
- The Parents Journal-038-Cindy Aillaud
Cindy Aillaud, author of Recess at 20 Below, shares tips about winter playtime in Alaska.
- Send in your recommendations to be included in the top 10 favourite podcasts of the
week fortnight.
What’s your favourite parenting podcast?
Send in your favourite one. Podcasters submit your favourite shows.
For more information see the introductory post.
If you like what you hear don’t forget to tell them about it. Subscribe to their podcast.
Next edition: February 11
That concludes this fifth edition.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Technorati Tags: Parenting, podcasts
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January 25th, 2008
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The weather here has been too cold to be out for too long so we’ve been tucking into play activities. Our current favourite comes from the archives of January 10th 2007. 11 fun kid activities to do at Grandma’s house.
Post it notes
* Draw a series of pictures or the entire alphabet on separate post it notes; the more the merrier. Do this with your child. Let them give you ideas or draw them.
* Walk around the house and post them at their level everywhere.
* Return to a central point- couch sounds a good place .
* Say, point, draw, show from a book, and ask them for one of the objects or letters. Choose what’s appropriate according to their ability.Where is it? They’ll hopefully tell you a place.
* Off they go and search for it. Up and down, in and out.
* This game can take a long time. I suggest you don’t mix things up too much otherwise you’ll be searching around for ages with your annoyed child trying to find it when they can’t.
* They bring you the post it notes. You compare drawings, picture or symbol to check it’s correct. This is a perfect game for cooperation. You can go and find all/some of the objects/pictures sometimes.
Guaranteed to wear them out if they can’t go outside to let off steam (because it’s a rainy day, too cold, apartment, too dark etc)
These are some new variations we like to play now in 2008……….
Variation: My children both got post-its with their initial on them in their stocking for Christmas. I go around the house and ‘plant’ 4 or 5 for the youngest and a bit more for the oldest, at their heights. They run around and try to collect just their initial. Easier for some than others….
In the spirit of cooperation the youngest will bring his brother’s so it’s not really a race much to the oldest annoyance. After all he knows at 4 what his initial is but the youngest is just trying to be helpful. 
Once found, they have been resticking them back to the pad for another day.
Variation 2: Add upper and lower case letters. We started with Aa on all post its but now we separate the upper and lower case sets. Sometimes we mix them and sometimes we just use one case. We started the upper case in the red stickies and the lower in the yellow. But once we got the hang of it we just use one colour. This one is much too hard for the little one to play. He just collects the red ones or the yellow ones……….or what he pleases.
There are so many more activities you can do the most important thing for us is to keep it simple, fun and to stop when we’ve had enough. It’s a great reinforcement activity if you are looking at the alphabet with your preschooler/ Kindergartener but we play for burning off energy, mostly with the added bonus of recognising parts of the alphabet or laughing at mum’s terrible pictures of objects.
Fun +laughter + learning = a winning combination.
**What post it note sticky games do you play? Always looking for new variations.**
Popularity: 13% [?]
Technorati Tags: play activities, post it notes, alphabet, play
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January 22nd, 2008
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Do you have what it takes to be a play ranger?
In the UK, the government is funding schemes that employ play rangers who play
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- Encourage children to make more use of parks and open spaces
- Reduce children’s fear of bullying
- Help children to feel that they have someone to listen to their needs and turn to for advice
There are three teams of two play rangers working in parks and outdoor public spaces which operates on an ‘open access’ principle meaning that children are free to come and go as they please as there is no registration is required. By being present in the park Community Play Rangers do their utmost to ensure children are kept safe yet at the same time provide opportunities for them to be challenged, take risks and have fun outdoors come rain or shine or even snow.
The project has over 200 children regularly attending the play sessions throughout the year achieving over 12,000 attendances annually. These children are learning social skills, being physically active and creative, being consulted and listened to and inputting into the planning and evaluation of the whole project.”
Source: Community play rangers
Imagine that; a chance for children to learn new skills, be challenged in a safe environment using the natural open spaces of your area by trained play professionals.
Why we need something like this in more communities?
- Children are playing less outside a great opportunity to use the large muscles and work off all that energy.
- Playing outside is free. Tumble tots, gym- is not.
- Children are not using open spaces and certainly not encouraged to take risks infact playgrounds are increasingly free of that tempting tree to climb on or activities that encourage risk taking safely. Is that an oxymoron? Risk taking is a skill all children need to master and be given safe opportunities to do that.
- If we don’t use our open spaces we’ll loose them
- Playing in nature gives children a unique experience of life that books and computers can’t give.
- Running around in a large open space is great exercise, increases stamina and encourages cooperative play and team games. Skills that are learnt overtime and not caught.
- As much as we don’t think we need professionals to teach our children how to play- after all no one taught us- right? Our children don’t have the same freedoms of movement ( for example, allowed to play out from dawn to dusk unsupervised, The perceived or real risk of abduction or molestation etc). Children play where we the adults are close but as parents many of us worry about the risk-taking behaviour, clothes getting dirty, the style of play etc but with a play ranger the expectations would be different? Children learn new skills that we did unsupervised.
We all know that around our parents we played differently from when they were present.
I find the Play rangers a refreshing way of encouraging the use of outdoor spaces by bringing groups of children together with skilled professionals. I feel it gives parents another idea in their arsenal of activities and takes us one more step away from popping in that DVD and instead gets the kids active, tired and involved.
What are your experiences of your open space?
Is this something you would want in your area? Find out how to set a scheme up like this one here.
For more information
The Pica Perspective: Wanted in the UK: Play Rangers
Children learn traditional games
Safe play for children
Practical examples of how to use play rangers
Free time play stategy document
Find out more about being a play ranger
News articles
on Play rangers funded through Lottery
and here
Popularity: 12% [?]
Technorati Tags: play ranger, play, parks, open spaces, children, social skills, physically active, creative, communities
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January 18th, 2008
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I stumbled upon Elizabeth’s blog last year and love to pop over and visit.
http://www.awildride.net/blog/
I particularly like the news and research section
Helping our boys succeed
Giving Disorganized Boys the Tools for Success
A wild ride is chock full of article, ideas and activities to make you think and show you new perspectives.
Don’t forget the main website http://www.awildride.net/
or the resources section.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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