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2010/07/31
Love can be expressed in many ways. Often a love poem is the most popular form of professing one’s love for another. Chelsea Clinton was married today to Marc Mezvinsky in an interfaith ceremony on an estate, Astor Courts, a couple of hours north of New York City. After the exchange of vows and rings, the bride and groom read aloud a brief love poem, “The Life That I Have,” by Leo Marks, the late British codebreaker, according to the Associated Press. I’m sure this poem will become a popular love poem to be read during many wedding ceremonies or from one lover to another for Valentines Day or renewing vows to celebrate an anniversary…or the poem may even be read at a funeral in remembrance of a special loving relationship.
The Life That I Have
The life that I have,
Is all that I have,
And the life that I have,
Is yours.
The love that I have,
Of the life that I have,
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have,
A rest I shall have,
Yet death will be but a pause,
For the peace of my years,
In the long green grass,
Will be yours and yours and yours.
~ Leo Marks ~
May Chelsea and Marc continue to celebrate love in life and beyond.
2010/07/29
Online Coupon Savings
As we move through the halfway mark of the summer season, we can take advantage of the many savings opportunities that come with online coupons including summer clearance sales and back to school sales, often back-to-back and overlapping. Summer for many of us means completing home improvement projects for both inside and outside along with getting ready for the next school year. By planning and researching for both, we can take advantage of the savings found online.
Save with Coupons: Home Improvement
If you prefer to shop at the large home improvement centers, you can find their current savings offers online, such as Home Depot coupon codes, which will save you both time and money from the comfort of your own home. Projects don’t always have to be large and expensive. Top decorators recommend replacing a few inexpensive decor pieces such as throw pillows, lamp shades, picture frames, and curtains found which can be purchased from these retailers online. Also try rearranging collectibles into groupings. By doing these small changes, we can give both our home and our spirit a lift in a time of economic stress.
Save with Coupons: Computers
For back to school and home, too, computers are a must. Computers and their accessories make organization and communication much simpler with homework, email, filing, budgeting, and keeping in touch with family and friends. We also use our computer to keep in touch with our grandkids and to store family photos. If you search the Internet, you’ll find many offers on popular coupon sites such as Savings.com Dell coupons or Hewlett-Packard HP coupon.
By taking the time to search for online printable coupons and promotional discounts, you’ll save yourself money…which means more to spend on the grandchildren! Happy summer savings!
2010/07/26
Best Online Learning Websites for Kids
For some, summer is almost half over, for others…school will be starting soon. It is never too early or too late in the summer to review and strengthen skills learned in school this past year. It seems that over the summer weeks, kids let their brains take a vacation, too! I see all too often kids may know their math facts or know how to read, but they don’t know how to analyze and synthesize information or understand the importance of financial literacy. Critical thinking skills such as these can be enhanced in many fun ways. Here are five fun online learning websites that do just that with educational games, activities, and more!
Free Fun Learning Websites
Cyberchase on PBS Kids Go!
Vacation, camp, beach trips, and amusement parks are often part of a child’s summer break. But how can they keep from losing the math skills they developed during the school year? Cyberchase online offers fun episodes, web games and hands-on activities and events and free, fun resources to strengthen children’s math skills over the summer.
Visit Cyberchase online at www.pbskidsgo.org/cyberchase with your child or grandchild…or on Facebook, www.facebook.com/cyberchase… to access sneak peeks at the new episodes, fan events, exclusive behind-the-scenes videos, photos and more related to the Cyberchase Summer Challenge. Cyberchase Summer Challenge gives kids opportunities to get points and earn rewards three ways: make games for others to play, play cyber trivia, and do fun activities at home. Watch Cyberchase on your local PBS Station and visit the website, too, for summer learning fun!
Reading is Fundamental – Reading Literacy
A wonderful, interactive website for fun summer learning and continued fun learning throughout the year has been created by Reading is Fundamental, a literacy non-profit. The RIF website is developmentally age appropriate for babies starting at age 0, toddlers, and preschoolers. On the RIF website, parents and grandparents can listen with your youngest children to lullabies, songs, nursery rhymes, and stories along with appropriate reading games and finger plays. Preschoolers can be guided as they interact in reading activities, singing, playing, doodling, and exploring. The Grown-ups section offers advice, additional reading activities, and featured articles supporting children’s literacy.
“Motivating children to read throughout the summer is essential to building lifelong readers,” says Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s largest children’s literacy nonprofit. “And reading is the doorway to all other learning.”
At the end of the day, it all boils down to this: read. Read together, read separately, read aloud, read silently, read everywhere. Read signs, cereal boxes, advertising, comics, directions, magazines, too. It’s the surest way to make certain that your kids will start the school year off right. I love this site. I spend time on RIF.org with all of my grandkids each time they visit. We all enjoy it! The oldest grandchild (9) likes to help her younger sister (pre-k) and brother (toddler). (more…)
2010/07/18
Summer Time is Fun Learning Time
Summer is here and going too fast for me. As a teacher, I know how important it is to keep the learning momentum going throughout the summer. But, I also know how difficult it is to motivate the kids to spend some time on their studies when the temptation to ride their bike, hang out with friends, swim, or spend time on things they can’t normally do when they are in school. What makes learning special in the summer? It can be fun because it allows more time for exploration and discovery.
Fun Summer Learning Tips for Parents and Grandparents
| Take a fun approach to learning and you and the kids will enjoy your time together. Children learn best when they enjoy their activities. Don’t you? And, as I’ve said many times before, fun activities together help create a closer bond and create long-lasting memories. |
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Fun learning activities also build self-esteem and self-confidence when they are well-planned for success at your child’s level of learning.
Ana Homayoun, author of That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week – Helping Disorganized and Distracted Boys Succeed in School and Life (Penguin, Jan. 2010) – (www.thatcrumpledpaper.com), offers interesting tips and tricks to keep your kids stimulated and on their mental a-game this summer as they unwind and get prepared for the next school year.
- Detach your kids from the video console and live in a non-virtual world as much as possible.
- Stop overscheduling – an overscheduled kid can feel that there is never enough time to re-energize, regroup, and have unstructured free time. Downtime is critical for kids today and it’s vital that a child is actively engaged in things they’re passionate about, not just time fillers that cause burn out and stress.
- Nutrition: more water, more calcium, more SLEEP. Summertime is the ideal time to rejuvenate.
- Lemonade stands – it’s OK to work over the summer and be independent particularly outside of any family business.
Tips to Keep Your Kids Engaged and Learning (in a fun way)
Ana Homayoun is also the founder of Green Ivy Educational Consulting (www.greenivyed.com). Exclusively for my readers, Ana has contributed the following fun learning tips to help you help your children:
- Working on Penmanship and Fine Motor Skills – Have them create a comic strip.
- Works on artistic creativity, humor, fine motor skills and writing skills.
- New technology does not always give kids the ability to practice their hand/eye coordination. Writing skills and activities like these can make a big difference and help them get engaged in a fun way.
- Plan a Weekly Outdoor Outing – Visit your local library or go online.
- Have your kids get online or use guide books to plan a weekly place they want to explore.
- Set aside a half day and have them work with you to plan the journey – you will be amazed what happens once kids get engaged!
- Have them pick places (if you have several kids, they can each rotate a week) and get involved with all stages of planning – getting directions, finding ticket prices, planning lunches, etc.
- Get them into the Kitchen – Plan and prepare a meal.
- This summer, have your kids pick their favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner and learn how to make the recipe.
- Pick something challenging but not overwhelming. Their goal should be to make it on their own (with parent supervision if the stove or oven is involved!).
- They can also create a recipe box for themselves with all their favorite creations. If they love spaghetti sauce, have them learn how to make it from scratch. Pancakes and smoothies, same thing.
- Again, if they write it down, it encourages them to practice their handwriting in a fun way!!
My next post will be Summer Learning Fun, part 2 – additional fun summer learning resources – free and inexpensive.
2010/07/15
Life is stress. That’s the definition of life I heard somewhere at a time when I didn’t understand what it meant. But now with the economy in a rut, the environment going down hill faster than we can correct the wrongs, plus personal stressors…life is definitely “stress.” And we do need stress relief more than ever!
Ways to Reduce Stress
Whether it is debt relief, your career, a relationship, raising your grandchildren, or illness that is causing you stress, you need to find ways to reduce the stress you’re experiencing. Woman’s Day (February 1, 2010) has a list of 10 simple, inexpensive ways we can help ourselves achieve stress relief so the stress doesn’t get the best of us.
- Listen to slow tunes. This first bit of advice is one that I do during my often stressful 45-minute commute to and from school where I’m a high school special education teacher, which is stressful in itself. Slower music tunes are shown to lower heart rate and blood pressure.
- Give yourself a time out. When I can’t find a quiet spot to spend 5 minutes of “down” time, I go out to my car or take a short walk outside. The sunshine alone helps boost my mood.
- Burn a scented candle. One fragrance that helps me is lavender. I can’t burn a candle at school, but I can use a lavender lotion which calms the nerves – actually lavender reduces the the activity of genes normally elevated in stressful situations. Other fragrances that are reported to do the same are lemon and mango. (Try using a lemon scented cleaner or air freshener in the home, too.) I also keep some lemon drops in my bag and car.
- Laughter is the best medicine. A good laugh increases your heart rate and blood pressure. After the laugh, they are lowered and you feel more relaxed.
- Lend a hand. Helping others helps us feel good. It also helps us put our own life into perspective. Cutting the grass, running an errand, cooking a meal, tutoring children, providing transportation, etc., for neighbors or friends can be small acts of kindness that have big results in relieving stress.
- Exercise with a friend. Exercise has the same effect that a good laugh gives you, only with more healthy benefits and longer lasting. Exercising with a friend helps you connect with someone so that you won’t feel so isolated. You’d be surprised how many others have the same stressful concerns.
- Lend emotional support. Call someone you know who is going through a difficult time and listen to her as she shares what’s going on in her life. It will help her by venting and you feel less stressed. It takes the focus off of your troubles.
- Chew sugarless gum. The repetitive motion of chewing is calming, putting the stress on the gum and relieving tension. It also may lower cortisol, a stress hormone.
- Distract yourself. I go on Facebook and play Bejeweled, trying to beat a friend’s points. When I don’t have access to my laptop, I take out my Sudoku book and challenge my cognitive skills. Games can be found also at WomansDay.com/braingames.
- Loosen up. Feeling stressed? Wear loose clothing. Pressure on your stomach or back can cause discomfort which causes tense muscles.
Take Care of Yourself!
The main point here is to take time out for yourself. Don’t lose yourself within all the madness that may come your way. Take care of you first and it will help you take care of what needs attention. If you’re not at your best, then you can’t do your best.
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