KidZui: Safe Computer Fun for Kids

A friend of mine told me she once innocently ended up on a porn site while surfing the web with her six-year-old, so now she makes sure her daughter steers clear of the computer.

I told her about KidZui.com.

If you want your child to visit excellent educational websites that make absorbing lots of skills and information fun and painless; if you want to spark interests in everything from math, science, art, music, history, geography, math, literature, and anything else you can think of, take a trip to KidZui.com.

KidZui provides lots of free services:

• links to thousands of websites arranged by grade level, kindergarten through sixth, listed by subject and interest categories
  
• weekly emailed reports of children's online activity and graphs of Internet activity for a 30 day period.
  
• the ability to add family blogs and the website of your child's school to KidZui
  
• you can register multiple children on different grade levels and receive reports on each child's Internet activity
  
• additional services are also available for a nominal fee.

KidZui keeps your child safe from unsavory, inappropriate websites while it opens a new world of opportunities for learning and healthy playtime. On family trips to the zoo, museums or libraries, or just out and about, you'll be surprised at the interesting facts and ideas your child has picked up by playing computer games and watching cool video shorts.

If you have a great website for kids or anything else you'd like to share, leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Trish Wilkinson

Pencil Grip: How important is it?

Kids hold pencils in all kinds of ways these days. Truthfully, if the way a kid holds a pencil works for them, I don't think an unconventional grip is anything to worry about.

Most teachers still teach kids the conventional grip: pinch the pencil between the thumb and index finger, then use the middle finger for a "couch" for the pencil to rest on. The thumb, index finger and middle finger should form the three points of a triangle, or the fingers should form a tripod around the pencil. The remaining two fingers (ring and pinky fingers) relax in succession, or in a row, below the middle finger.

Since children begin writing in kindergarten, the muscles in their hands may not be strong enough to hold a pencil "correctly" yet. Getting primary grade kids, K - 2, with weak hands and wonky grips to write can be a challenge for parents. For young children, it can be literally painful and exhausting to write for any length of time.

If your child has difficulty holding a pencil using the "tripod," here are a couple fun activities you can do to build strong hands and develop enthusiastic writers.

1) Set up a place for your child to play with play dough and modeling clay on a regular basis. Any kind of molding and shaping makes muscles in the hand stronger. For added fun, have your child roll out and form the letters to spell new spelling words with the modeling clay. As the hands get stronger, the pencil will get easier to hold.

2) If your child already holds the pencil in some unconventional way, but it doesn't seem to cause a problem, don't worry about it. There are more ways than one to do most things, right? But if your child complains that writing is hard or boring or distractions come easily because writing is just no fun, use the magic of tape.

• Show your child how to hold a pencil with the thumb, index and middle fingers (the tripod).

• Then tape the two middle fingers together, side-by-side (they love this part!), to help remind them to keep their fingers in place. You may want to tell your child's teacher you are taping fingers at home and ask if she will do the same at school for consistency.
  

• If your child consistently holds the pencil correctly for 21 days, the pencil grip will change, and so will the writing attitude.

Note: The new habit may take longer to develop if your child forgets to change the grip at school, and you may still get requests for tape long after the grip is under control, just for the fun of it.:-)

If you have questions or experiences about pencil grip, or you have anything else on your mind about your kids' learning, please leave a comment, and I'll get back to you.

Enjoy the ride!

Trish Wilkinson

Green Light - Red Light: Getting Kids' Writing Going in the Right Direction

Recently, I met the conscientious mom of a kindergartner who told me she was concerned that her daughter wrote her name and simple sentences from right to left; that is, backwards.

Is it time to panic? Get the kid tested for a learning disability? Nah. Young children's precious innocence sometimes keeps them from getting things straight (Remember the pint sized sociopath from last month's blog that was convinced old people should be put to sleep like her beloved geriatric dog?). Some kids as late as second or third grade still write their letters a little on the cock-eyed side. Truth is, sometimes getting things going in the right direction takes a bit of fun and games with a family member or friend.

Play "Green Light - Red Light" to get writing going in the right direction.

• Remind your child that green means "Go."
  

• With a green crayon and a ruler, draw a heavy, straight vertical line down the left margin of a homework paper, or put a good-sized green dot at the beginning of each line on the page. The green dot or line is the "Green Light." Ask your child to begin writing, or GO, next to the Green Light.

Note: Use a crayon because kids can feel the wax; that is, it makes a tactile boundary, unlike pencil, marker or pen.

• With a red crayon, draw a vertical line down the right side of the page. Red means ... yep; it means "Stop." Say, "Red Light!" when the pencil gets to the red line to playfully remind the child to stop writing.
  For added fun, make car engine sounds for revving up, then driving, then squeak sounds for putting on the brakes at the end.
  

• Ask the child to GO, or start writing again, on the next line at the "Green Light" a.k.a. the green line or dot.

• For fill-in-the-blank or individual word answers on homework papers, put a "Green Light" or dot at the beginning of the space and a "Red Light" or dot at the end.

• As soon as you think your child is ready, put the crayons in that miniature hand to place all of the Green and Red Lights on the homework papers to start the game.

• For reversed individual letters, put a green dot where your child needs to begin writing a specific letter, and a red dot where forming the letter ends. Hint: get a crayon sharpener. Making dots with dull crayons is a pain in the neck (and a few other body parts).

For example, a lowercase b starts at the top line, goes down to the bottom line, up to the middle, and around to form the "belly," or however you want to describe that silly but ever so important letter.

For kids with b and d troubles, a d begins just below the middle line, goes up to the middle line and around to form the 'doughnut,' then reaches all the way to the top line and down to the bottom line again. Getting your child in the habit of forming these two tricky letters as described will save a world of frustration, for both of you!

• If your child still reverses a letter while using Green and Red Lights, write the entire letter with the green crayon 21 times as neatly and consistently as possible.
  
  • Why 21 times? Studies show it takes 21 days to make a new habit, and I've found 21 repetitions works well for this game, too.
    
  • With your supervision, and your little one's car sounds, your child traces the entire letter going in the correct direction with a pencil. Remember: the wax from the crayon helps with tactile memory.
  
  

• Play Green Light - Red Light for several days in a row, and watch your child's writing transform!
  

The beauty of games: They usually have wonderful, unintended side effects.

Green Light - Red Light helps in learning directionality. TRULY understanding left and right is a HUGE help in learning to read, too. The game also gets little people to put their margins in the right places, so expanding into writing paragraphs, essays and stories comes naturally.

Enjoy the moment. They grow up too fast!

Do you have a story to share? A question to ask? Leave a comment!

If You Have a Spacey Smart Kid, Try This

Recently a friend of mine lamented that her daughter already knew most of the material the teacher presented in class and was spacing out during lessons. Her daughter didn't like school because she was usually bored. I said, "Try using a contract." Usually teachers use contracts to help unruly kids get their behavior in line, but contracts work great for smart kids, too.

Here's how it works:

• Find out the current classroom theme, and set up projects to go with the theme to do outside of class. This will help to keep your child engaged at school.
  
• Brainstorm ideas with the teacher on thematic activities that your child can do when other children are still working, and your kid is all done.
• Write it out. List activities and expectations on your child's skill level with a space for quick teacher comments.
  
• Ensure the teacher that you plan to make this quick and easy. The time crunch to fit in all the curriculum can be daunting without an added individual contract. Come to an agreement when your child can share finished projects with classmates, either in a small group or during an already scheduled sharing time, for example.
  
• Make a copy for the teacher to read and give input. She has professional expertise that will help you revise activities and make them work better. It's also important to get a teacher to buy in.
• If the teacher is overwhelmed and can't support the contract at school, go over goals and projects with your child at home after school or after dinner. Insist, diplomatically, upon having activities for your child to do if assignments are finished early while other students are still working. Idle kids get into trouble.
  
• Ask the teacher to allow your child to display outside projects in the classroom, whether the teacher can squeeze in the time for sharing them with the rest of the group or not.
  

Using a form I've come up with, my friend wrote out a contract with her daughter at home. Since the classroom themes are winter and nature, my friend and her daughter went on a nature walk where they collected items that represented signs of the season: a branch without leaves, a nut from a squirrel's hidden stash of food. The little girl glued them to a chart and added winter pictures she drew and photographs she cut from magazines. Then she sounded out the name for each item and labeled them. With her mom's help, she used a children's picture dictionary to correct the spelling of the words and made up her own spelling list. On her regular assigned sharing day, she showed her classmates the work she did at home. Her teacher found a spot for the chart on the bulletin board. When other kids are finishing up assignments, this little one practices reading sight words and winter words. So far, my friend's daughter is enjoying the projects, she is much more in tune with what goes on in the classroom, and she's much happier in school.

Share ideas you've tried to get your smart kid engaged in school.

For an example of a contract and a copy of the form, email me, and I'll send it along!

Kindergarten Nightmare

When our oldest daughter was in kindergarten, she told me she wanted to kill an old man we knew because it was time for him to die. After the initial freak out over raising a sociopath, I discovered this was a delayed reaction to the death of her beloved 13-year-old dog. Licorice had been in the throws of advanced stage cancer, so we'd put him out of his misery. If the pets we cherish get "put to sleep" when ill, why not people? Her daddy and I explained the difference between animals and people, at least as far as laws and society. It took some time, talking and tears, but our little girl eventually accepted that her black, furry snuggle buddy would never come home, and we can't choose when a human being's "time is up."

Sarai told me that her five-year-old son, normally a mellow boy by nature, started off this kindergarten year by smashing a banana into another boy's back. He ended up in the principal's office the first week of school! An only child, her little one spends most of his time with adults. Please and thank you roll off his tongue, and he gets a kick out of helping with family chores. But other kids can be so frustrating. They sometimes don't answer his questions, or they push their way in front of him in line. His mommy, daddy and the teacher met with him to set some ground rules and teach this little guy elementary school etiquette. Sarai worried she was a terrible parent, so I told her about our kindergarten nightmare - and she laughed.

Share a favorite story, so the rest of us might giggle a bit in remembering that kids do strange things, and it's not the end of the world.

Start Your Engines: Breakfast the body's morning fuel

Did the kids have a rough time rolling out of bed this morning? Sometimes that morning rush means skipping breakfast. But humans need those calories to get their brains and bodies in gear, to turn the key and put a foot on the gas. A study in Bloomington, Minnesota found that eating breakfast in the morning before school meant fewer visits to the school nurse, less behavior problems, greater attention span and higher student achievement.

So make sure your children throw something down, even on crazy mornings -- maybe a cup of yogurt or a Cliff Bar on the run.

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199903/03_pugmiret_breakfast/

Higher test scores from adequate sleep

"Mom, I wan't to just watch this show!" Don't listen. A recent study shows test performance can improve as much as 23% when children get adequate (8 hours or more) sleep a night. Tuck 'em in now.