March is National Women’s History month. Many woman made significant contributions to our world in science, literature, math, politics and much more. One writer that I have loved sharing with my children is Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her writing style is very engaging and easily holds the attention of children. She lead a very adventurous life that your children will enjoy learning about.

The life of Laura Ingalls Wilder is so different than the life out children know. What my own children found unbelievable is that what their own grandparents were children Laura Ingalls Wilder was alive. Knowing that really helped my kids understand how much and how quickly the world has changed.

Here are some activities based on the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In play, children expand their understanding of themselves and others, their understanding of the physical world, and their ability to communicate with others. In play, we learn the bases for a great foundation in all areas of life. Play teaches the basics that every person needs to know for the real world, things such as:

-You don’t always win

-Good Sportsmanship

-Take turns

-Colors

-Reading

-Strategy

-Math awareness

-Cooperation

-Memorization

-Creativity

-Self Confidence

-and many more!

Some of these basics are hard to just teach a child. How do you teach a child to have self confidence? Or teach that they won’t always win? Playing games such as board and card games can help with these essential basics. It can help show them that learning can be fun (and they won’t even realize that they are learning.)

Incorporating play into everyday of life will not only help the child, but the family unit. Did you know that the ‘average’ family family spends less than 30 minutes a week in face-to-face personal interaction away from the TV or computer. And on average the American parent spends less than 15 minutes a day in actual with their teen?

Take the Challenge: Just 30 minutes 3X a week can do wonders for your family. Play a game with your children (including your teenagers) it will give you the opportunity to get to know your child better and keep you ’in’ on their lives.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. – Plato

Verlina’s Favorite Quote on Play:

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  -George Shaw

Some great game ideas, From Simply Fun!

For the toddler: Crazy Mixed Up Zoo

For the Elementary age: Penguin Rescue

For the Middle-Schooler: Walk the Dogs

For the Teenager: Take Your Pick (three different decks available)

For the whole family:  Kayak Chaos

Happy Playing!

-Game Lady Verlina

I have been sending out groups of activities based on different themes for several months now to those that receive the Educational Toy Factory news letter.

I’m not sure why I did not think of it sooner, but I have now placed all of those past activities on one easy to access spot. These activities by theme are either inspired by a certain person or time of the year. I hope you enjoy this new resource. New themed activities will be added every month. Very soon I will be adding a fun group of activities about pumpkins!

If you want to be sure that you don’t miss these monthly activities sign up for the Educational Toy Factory News letter and receive a free animal alphabet coloring e-book when you sign up!

Talking and writing is a big part of building imagination. We all know that it is extremely important to read to our kids. When you share a book with your child be sure to talk about what you are reading. Can your child relate to the book? Does it remind them of anything in their lives? If it is a fact book, do they have any questions or do they know any more information?

Talk with your child about the pictures. Use the terms illustrator and author. Let them know that they can be an author and illustrator of their own books.

Help your child become an author by guiding them through the writing process. Here are some ideas on how to help your child write their own story and how to keep it fun.
Create a Story Book

This year my son is in first grade. One of the homework assignments that he has is that he needs to read at least 15 minutes every day. This is addition to any time that we spend reading to him. He is not a fluent reader yet. At first I was having him struggle through his beginning reader books, sounding words out and helping him along. What I notices was that he was getting very frustrated. I want him to enjoy reading and getting him frustrated at this early stage of the game was not the way to go about it.

Another option was to have him look through books. I had almost jumped completely over this option because I have such a strong desire for him to be reading. I have to remind myself that he will read and that I have to be careful not to turn him off by pushing to hard.

Well, we have had the book The Way Things Work on our shelves for quite some time now. The edition that we have was actually my husband’s when he was a child. All I can say is that this book is amazing. My son will sit an look at the pictures for a very, very long time. Not only does he look at the pictures, but the illustrations are so good that he is able to figure out how many of the different machines an tool work from those pictures. He will study one machine for a few day by continuing to go back to the same pictures. It seems that is all he talks about for those days until he has it figured out in his mind. There was a week where all he talked about were water faucets.

The way that he goes through this book is completely self directed. He picks something that looks interesting and it goes from there. One day he took the book outside and was sitting on the porch for a good hour reading away. This is one of those books that I think every house should have.

This book has been updated and this updated version has awesome reviews on Amazon.

Here is another YouTube video. This video shows a little girl playing with her felt board pieces and making up her own story. You can really see how a toy like this can be so valuable to children and their development. The video is a little rough and there is a bit of a strange noise going on, but I thought that what it shows is very important to see.

Because countries located around the earth receive different amounts of sunlight at different times of the year, in some places crops are grown, harvested, and celebrated in other seasons than just fall. In all cases, though, people give thanks for the food they have just gathered. Here are some harvest festivals still celebrated today in other countries just as they have been for years and years past:

• Japan has four festivals to celebrate the cycle of growing rice: a spring festival to celebrate planting the crop, a Lantern Festival in August to celebrate the ripening of the crop, a Moon Viewing festival in September to pray that the crop will be good, and a New Taste Festival in November to celebrate the harvesting of the crop.

• The Chinese also hold a festival for rice, called the Mid-Autumn Festival. During this time in late September, they celebrate the full moon and the rice crop they have just harvested.

• The Ashanti people of Ghana and the Yoruba people of Nigeria hold harvest festivals to celebrate their yam crops.

• In January, Hindus in India celebrate the end of one harvest season and the beginning of a period of rest before growing more crops with a festival called Pongal. They also hold a festival called Onam in August or September to celebrate harvesting crops at the end of the rainy season.

• Jewish people hold the festival of Shavuot in May or June to celebrate the times when their ancestors offered the first crops of a harvest to God. In autumn, they celebrate the festival of Sukkot to remember their ancestors’ search for a homeland and to celebrate the fruitful harvests their ancestors enjoyed once they found Canaan (modern Israel).

• In Britain, people still celebrate Harvest Festival in October as they have done for years. They decorate churches with fruit, vegetables, flowers, and wheat, and they bake special loaves of bread to look like sheaves of wheat. After a service thanking God, people donate a portion of the harvest to poor people in need. Similar harvest festivals are held in New Zealand and Australia in March, which is when crops in those places are harvested.

You can use this time of year to teach your child many things. I have put together four Fall Harvest Activities that I hope you enjoy.

A while back I was having an e-mail conversation with someone looking for reading comprehension help for their child. This is something that is very important to me because I also struggled with reading as a child. I know how frustrating it can be, so I was more than happy to help her out.

Not knowing her daughter it was not easy to make recommendations, so I pointed her in a few different directions and suggested that she talk to her daughter’s teacher about what would help her the most. The suggestion given by the teacher was to use the One Minute Reader program.

I check it out and it seemed to make a lot of sense. There are several different levels of program to choose from depending on your child’s reading level.  Your child reads the story alone and then reads along with a CD until they are completely proficient at reading the short story.  Each level comes with 7 books and CDs and there are 5 stories in each book.

There is a DVD that explains how to use the program and you can watch that with your child so that you both have a clear understanding.

Beatrix Potter is probably best know for her writing of Peter Rabbit, but did you know that she was a conservationist, mycologist, author and well ahead of her time?

She wrote 23 book filled with lovable animal characters.

This month I have put together 4 activities that were inspired by the works and life of Beatrix Potter.

Learning With Beatrix Potter

The familiar Mother Goose rhymes that we all love are a great way to teach children about rhyming and language. Although we often think of preschoolers when we hear Mother Goose the poems and rhymes can be used through a variety of ages.

Feel free to download this Mother Goose ebook, complete with pictures to color, ten poems and six activity ideas and share it with the children in your life.
Mother Goose Coloring and Rhyming