Looking for something fun to do with kids of all ages this summer?

Fenway News Online reports that Design Squad, the PBS engineering reality competition series, is offering kids a chance to get in on the action this summer.

The 2010 Trash to Treasure Competition challenges kids, ages 5-19, to recycle, reuse, and re-engineer everyday materials into out-of-the-box inventions. Three winners will win a trip to Boston to see their designs built and appear on an episode of Design Squad.

Twenty-five finalists will be featured on the series website and will receive a Design Squad t-shirt. Entries will be accepted through September 5, 2010. For more information go here.

Photo by PBS.

And guess what?  YOU can win a set of them!   Just click on the image above and follow the instructions for the giveaway.  Hope you win!

And the Award Goes to…..LEARNING AND LAUGHTER WITH LOUISE!

BEST BACK TO SCHOOL PRODUCTS AWARD – 2010

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT PRODUCTS RECEIVE LOUISE’S 2010 LEARNING AND LAGHTER AWARDS!

Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! & Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

Applauded and approved by parents, kids and educators for ages 2-8, these award-winning, state-approved books are perfect to get kids ready for Kindergarten and First Grade!

Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten!

Teachers at home and in schools love it! It’s not a storybook or a workbook; it’s a book that covers the curriculum: the alphabet and numbers in and out of sequence, left and right, shapes, colors, high frequency words, positional words, opposites, rhyming, let’s read a story and so much more. It’s all in one engaging book illustrated with Mrs. Good, the teacher and six adorable Cedar Valley Kids that you simply read to children to learn.

Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

Follow along with Ms. Best and six new Cedar Valley Kids and Yodie the Coyote who makes learning vowels and consonants, vowel sounds, compound words, contractions, the solar system, counting money, measuring, fractions, adding and subtracting and more exciting for everyone!

To learn more visit these mom-created, 100% made in USA books, visit: www.cedarvalleypublishing.com

Prize: 1 set of books: Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! & Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!
Sponsor: Cedar Valley Publishing
# of Winners: 1
Start/End Dates: 7/14/2010 – 9/30/2010

Click Here to Submit Your Entry

Summer is here and many of you will be traveling with your babies and toddlers. Thought you would enjoy this article.

15 Tips for Traveling with Your Little Ones

If you are planning a summer trip with your baby or toddler, make sure to plan ahead. Here are fifteen sure-fire ways to make traveling easy and fun.

1. Before your trip, visit the dollar store and stock up on coloring books, paint with water books, and age appropriate toys for your toddler. And save them for a trip.  There is nothing better than something new!

2. If you have a small video player, stock up on age appropriate movies for your little one. Baby Einstein has some great videos for a younger baby.

3. If you can plan your plane schedule around your child’s nap-time, your trip will be a breeze.

4. When traveling on a plane, feed the baby while the plane is taking off and landing. This keeps the Eustachian tubes open so the baby’s ears won’t hurt.

5. When traveling on a plane with a toddler, it’s sometimes difficult to sit still during take-off and landing. Give him a sippy cup and some goldfish crackers and play a counting game with the crackers. It will be fifteen minutes of fun, instead of fifteen minutes of tantrums.

6. Always take a change of clothes, extra diapers, wipes and socks for your baby or toddler. Spills happen in the blink of an eye.

7. Remember to take a change of clothes for yourself on the plane. There is nothing worse than meeting the family smelling like formula.

8. Bring lots of healthy snacks for your toddler whether you are traveling by car or plane. Buying them at convenience stores can get very costly.

9. Bring extra formula for your baby when traveling. One spill could result in lots of tears.

10. When staying in a hotel, bring along the lullaby CD that you play at home. Most hotels have CD players or you can request one. There is nothing more comforting than the sounds of home.

11. And don’t forget to bring your toddler’s favorite lovey and bedtime book along.

12. Try and stick to your bedtime rituals while away the best you can. Consistency makes everything easier.

13. If your toddler has a difficult time falling asleep in a different crib or bed, let him listen to your Ipod. He will be snoring away before you can count to ten.

14. If you are staying in a hotel and are going to hire a sitter for the evening, ask that she come and meet your children a few hours before you leave. It is worth it not to have that dreaded phone call to come back.

15. Don’t forget to bring along extra batteries, photo card for your camera and protein bars for you.
 
Have Fun and Happy Traveling!!   

Blythe Lipman is the president of Baby Instructions. She is passionate about babies, toddlers and their parents. After working in the field for over twenty-five years, she wrote her third award-winning book, HELP! MY BABY CAME WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS which is available at  www.babyinstructions.com  and all major bookstores . You can hear Blythe’s weekly radio show on Mondays, 11am EST @ www.toginet.com  Blythe is available for in-home, video and telephone consultations. ©Blythe Lipman 2010

About Amy:

Parenting expert Amy McCready has been creating and delivering training programs for over 20 years in Fortune 500 companies and community organizations.

Amy founded Positive Parenting Solutions, Inc. in 2004 and developed the popular and successful Breakthrough Course that has changed the lives of thousands of parents through in-person seminars, speeches and online parenting training webinars.

Due to demand from parents around the country and abroad, Positive Parenting Solutions Online was developed in 2008 to give parents everywhere the skills, knowledge and tools to correct their children’s misbehaviors permanently without nagging, reminding or yelling. She speaks to them “one-on-one” through the most advanced and thorough Web 2.0 parenting course available today.

Amy McCready is frequently asked to provide expert parenting advice for print and online parenting articles. She is a sought after speaker, writer, parenting coach, trainer and most importantly – Mom!

Amy received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance from Penn State University and is certified as a Positive Discipline Parent Educator.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Amy at: Amy@PositiveParentingSolutions.com

For more information, please CLICK HERE.

Rebecca Zook is an online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase.

We’ve sorted the contenders from the pretenders and found five genuinely fun ways to help your kids learn math this summer. These unique technologies go way beyond the world of flashcards, and use surprising tools including rap music, adaptive technology, psychological research and wailing guitar solos.

They’re fun. They’re easy to use. And they aren’t lame.

Multiplication Hip-Hop for Kids

Have you ever wished your kids could learn their times tables by rapping? Well, the wait is over. A remix compilation like no other, Multiplication Hip-Hop for Kids sets the multiplication tables to popular hip-hop songs. Each track starts with an inspiring intro (e.g., five seconds in the style of Mystikal: “Too fly to slip and slide, because we don’t cry, we multiply”) before launching into a times tables rap.

Unlike any other math learning tool, Multiplication Hip-Hop for Kids includes not just one, but two rap versions for most of the times tables, so your kids can learn their 11s either in the style of Lil’ Wayne, or set to 2 Pac’s “How Do You Want It.”

And though many times tables learning tools stop at the 10s, Multiplication Hip-Hop for Kids goes all the way up to the 12s, which means your kid will be more prepared for multiplying dozens than you ever dreamed possible.

With syncopated rhythms and high production values, you and your kids will feel proud to blast these tracks this summer while cruising around in your spinners.

Price: You can download the complete MP3 collection for $24.95, which includes the study guide and 13 bonus multiplication video games. Or, download the MP3 albums individually from Amazon for $8.99 each.

Rockin’ the Standards

If your kid is more of a rocker than a rapper, try Rockin’ the Standards, the educational rock sing-a-longs created by veteran elementary school teacher Tim Bedley.

This ruthlessly kid-tested, surprisingly listenable MP3 album includes skip counting songs for the 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s, as well as succinct, memorable songs about math concepts like angles, perimeter, place value, and area.

Most of the tracks are set to familiar tunes, so your kid can skip count their 9s to a hard-hitting version of the “Hokey Pokey” or their 6s to a highly-electrified version of “Row Row Your Boat,” interspersed with air guitar-worthy solos.

Ages: 2nd through 6th grade.

Price: You can download the entire album for $2.99 from digstation. It’s also available from Amazon for $8.99 or iTunes for $9.99. Download the lyrics for free here.

DreamBox Learning

In this online program, kids choose from among 500+ math games while exploring a virtual adventure park full of pixies, pets, dinosaurs, and yes, pirates.

Even though it looks like it’s “just a game,” DreamBox learning works as a stand-alone math curriculum, unlike most math computer programs. Many of the games use colorful visuals to illustrate the concepts behind them, or let kids use on-screen manipulatives to build the problems.

DreamBox’s adaptive technology also sets it apart. Based on your kid’s answers, DreamBox adjusts the difficulty, number, and type of problems, as well as feedback, pacing, and hints to individualize the learning experience.

Ages: K-3 (4th and 5th grades in development).

Price: $12.95 monthly for one kid, $19.95 monthly per family.

KidCalc 7-in-1 Math Fun

Do you wish you could give your kids a talking calculator that animates whatever mathematical operations they enter into it? Or flash cards that, when you flip them over, use animation to illustrate the math problems on the other side? Were you hoping to spend only 99 cents? Look no further than KidCalc 7-in-1 Math Fun.

This iPhone and iPad app for kids ages 2 through 10 uses animated lessons, flash cards, and puzzle games to teach number recognition, number tracing, counting, and sorting, as well as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Your kid can choose between six themes including sports, springtime, outer space and birthday (with candles and cupcakes).

Unique one-touch age-based settings let you configure the appropriate skill level. Not to mention, it’s currently the only math app that lays out long division problems the way they’re taught in school. No wonder it’s been on the top 100 list of iPhone apps for eight consecutive months!

Brainology

While there are many computer games in the world, Brainology is the only one that’s been developed by leading motivation psychologists Carol Dweck and Lisa Sorich Blackwell. This interactive online program boosts kids’ math scores by dealing with their underlying mindsets about intelligence.

In the program, two cartoon characters, Chris and Dahlia, receive brain challenges from a floating, talking brain orb. Then, with the help of cartoon neuroscientist Dr. Cerebrus and his brain laboratory, they discover how the brain works.

At key points, the animation sequences pause and your kid gets a chance to conduct interactive “experiments,” reflect on what they’re learning in their e-journals, and play games that reinforce what they’re learning about the brain. At the end of the four-level program, kids attain the status of “Brain Master.”

It’s not specifically about math, but Brainology teaches kids basic neuroscience to help them learn what may be the ultimate lesson: We’re not limited by what we already know, because we can grow our intelligence!

Ages: Middle and high school.

Price: $99 per student for home use. Sibling and bulk discounts available.

Know of any other educational websites, apps, or downloads that are great for learning math? Share them in the comments below!

Hilary holds English and Education (Secondary English and Drama) Degrees from University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and advanced degree from Cambridge University, UK. Through her own family’s experiences, Hilary continues to find comfort in writing children’s books as a way to both heal emotionally and also to help other families going through similar situations.

Her first published book is Little Jake Learns to Stop a joint effort with Dr. Pamela Beyer, Psy.D.. Her second published book, Brecker Bunny Leans to Be Careful! she joined forces with the Wisconsin Alliance for Fire Safety. She is certified in The Virtues Project and speaks to various organizations and schools throughout each year. Her leadership, peer mediation and kindness programs have had amazing impact on both students and parents alike. Hilary currently lives in Central Wisconsin with her husband, Jeff, and three children, Breck, Jake and Faith. They take advantage of the Northwoods and water as often as they can.

Although the seeds of Inspired by Family were planted years ago, it was during Hilary’s own healing process after her oldest son’s severe scalding accident that she was led to find comfort in writing and public speaking. Often in sharing our stories we can find a sense of unity and acceptance. Through the enthusiasm and creativity of many friends, Inspired by Family was created as a forum to provide hope, courage, determination and peace to children, parents, educators, organizations and communities. Our services and products address a variety of issues from succeeding with ADHD to coping with severe burns to simply becoming a better parent, educator and global citizen. We are honored to be of service to you because it is only in service that we can fulfill our own true purpose.

For more information, please CLICK HERE.

The Professor Garfield Foundation www.professorgarfield.org learning portal announced the addition today of www.MrsP.com to its fun, interactive online environment where children can safely explore, learn and creatively express themselves. The agreement between popular storytelling site MrsP.com and Professor Garfield web site, one of the largest free learning portals on the Internet for grades K-8, was unveiled at the ISTE conference in Denver, Colorado, which is geared to learning and teaching through technology.

“The addition of Mrs. P to our portal seemed a natural,” said Bob Levy, a member of the board of directors for the Professor Garfield Foundation.  “We have similar missions to both educate and entertain, with the ultimate goal of helping to instill a love of reading in children.”  The Professor Garfield site attracts millions of visitors each month.
MrsP.com offers read-along options on its library of free videos, a feature which has proven beneficial to both young readers and ESL students. The site also hosts an annual writing contest and provides a host of games, activity guides and coloring sheets.  The site features TV star Kathy Kinney (“The Drew Carey Show”), who portrays Mrs. P and is also one of the creators of the website.

About Mrs. P Enterprises, LLC.
Mrs. P Enterprises, LLC, was founded in 2008 by Hollywood team Clay Graham, Kathy Kinney and Dana Plautz. After having built successful careers in television and New Media, the three creators of MrsP.com were brought together by a love of reading and a desire to help spark that same passion in young people everywhere. The company endeavors to expose young people to great books and stories through a celebrity storyteller and to spark their imaginations and creativity with on-line games and writing contests. Its production offices are located in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, California.

For more information, please CLICK HERE.

http://www.kidlutions.com/about.html

For more information, please CLICK HERE.