My very first blog award – Fabulous Five

As I start to reach out more to other bloggers, I am excited to see other people coming over to my blog and sharing their thoughts in the comments. One wonderful blog writer Kristiana from I Love Orange Juice even passed me this Premio Dardos award “in recognition of culteral. ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing”, and I am excited to pass it on to the other blogs that I read and love. The rules of this award are as follows:

• Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
• Pass the award along to 15 blogs or the blogs you find worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

Since my time is limited, I have decided to limit the list of my nominees to 5. As the time goes on, I will publish more links to my favorite blogs. Here are my current Fabulous Five:

• The Wonder Years -  This is the first blog I started reading daily (outside of my friends’ blogs), and I just love the content of it. A lot of posts are devoted to science experiments with young children, the subject near and dear to my heart, and KC has a lot of materials for different age groups. She is also extremely nice in answering any questions that are asked in comments on her blog.
• All Things Possible - A blog of my friend Leanne who is raising a child Anna’s age. Zach was diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder, but he made tremendous progress due to her fight for early services. I have so much respect for her passion and her activism on behalf of her son that it’s hard to express in words. Please stop at her blog, read, and say that you care too.
• ABC and 123 Learning Cooperative is a great idea and a wonderful place where all educational bloggers unite. I joined them and wrote about them here.
• Chasing Cheerios - an awesome blog devoted to Montessori activities with multitude of links to other sources.
• The Mama Bee - I like this blog even though its direction is quite different. But it’s written by a mom like me – a mother who works full time in a corporate environment. With all my love for my other fellow bloggers who are staying at home with their children, life of working parents is somewhat different. That’s why, for example, I am always looking for activities that don’t require long assembly or thorough cleanup afterwards – I just don’t have time for this (especially with my love of blogging ). So if someone has specific “quick crafts” category on their blog, please send me a link, and I will be happy to check them out.

The Power Of Collective Mind

When I started to write my blog, I already had some following from the parenting forum I frequent. In a way, I had my online and IRL friends in mind when I shared the insights I gained from reading books and Internet articles. See, I am probably more of a theoretician that a practitioner in all areas of my life. I think of “what” and I need other people to tell me “how”. That’s why I enjoyed visiting other blogs and through one of my favorite blogs called The Wonder Years I came across ABC and 123site a few days ago just in time for their summer picnic extravaganza. ABC and 123 is also relatively new, but their idea of harnessing collective mind is positively brilliant. Heck, I wish I thought of this Anyway, I am writing this post as an introduction of my blog to their picnic, so I’d better get on with the suggested topics:

All about you and your family. You can learn basic facts but reading through “10 Fun Facts About Me” page

How did you come up with your blog title? I am boring. Couldn’t come up with something more engaging and I am really interested in teaching young children.

What types of activities do you most enjoy doing with your children? My daughter is 2.5 years old, but from the very early on we enjoyed reading together. It’s still something that we do every day. I also love going on field trips and help her discover the world around her.

What is your favorite picnic activity and food? We are Europeans, so apples, cheese, bagette and wine sound about right for a summer picnic. OK, make that apple juice for our daughter.

Favorite activity posts (I assume my own )

• Take your child to the library
• Board games for toddlers
• Every day is Earth Day
• Play is fundamental
• Toys that teach – nestling blocks

Useful Online Education Links – General Education

I have no time to blog today – a major deadline at work, preparing for a business trip. So I will some links that I “swiped” from a WonderBaby article that I stumbled upon using a StumbleUpon.com:

• General Education

1. ABC Teach:
   This is one of the best educational sites on the internet. Flashcards, coloring pages, book report forms, and other fun tools to keep your kids interested in learning.

 

School Express:
Fun activity worksheets you can download and print for free. PLus online jigsaw puzzles, flash cards, awards, and math help.

Dosity.com:
A collection of downloadable worksheets and fun educational games that you can play directly on the site. Our favorite is the Antonyms Memory Game where you have to match words with opposite meanings to reveal a fun picture under the cards.

Ed By Design:
Fun educational games. Learn to write your own story (and publish it online!), play problem solving puzzles, try the Harry Potter trivia, or play number puzzles. (Also known as math problems, but don’t tell your kids that!)

Learning Planet:
Play trivia, wordseach, or other educational games or search their activity database by grade level or subject.

Primary Games:
Great for unit studies. Pick a topic (like holidays, seasons, or planets) and you’ll find tons of games and activities to keep your kids entertained while they learn!

I only tried the first two so far (without my daughter). There is variety of material for each age, but I found School Express extremely unorganized. When I have time, I’ll try to look at them again, pick a couple activities that age appropriate for my daughter and hopefully review them here. Stay tuned

Brightly Beaming Preschool Cirriculum

Another resource that came highly recommended to me is Letter of the Week Curriculum. It’s too bad that the site is incomplete, but it has some great information for those interested in a formal homeschooling program starting practically from birth, including reading suggestions for parents, detailed lesson plans, etc. I have to admit that even though I have visited this site for ideas, I could never really get into the flow of “really teaching” my daughter using any sort of a curriculum or a plan. I believe more in the following her natural inclinations by reading very many books on very many subjects and answering her questions as we go. I did like the idea of a scrapbook for learning letters, because in my mind it combines nicely “academics” of memorizing something with artistic element of creating a page. I think we will revisit a scrapbook idea, when we are ready for writing, which I don’t see happening for a couple more years.