Tips to stimulate a child's creativity

Creativity is a skill which can be learned and developed through practice. This talent can be encouraged among children with the some tips and tricks. These tips and tricks can dramatically accelerate child's personal growth and help sharpening their thinking skills as well as exercising their natural creative powers.

Bill Gates recently said that “Too few young people are acquiring the knowledge they need to use technology in creative and innovative ways.”

Bill goes on to say that, “We can all help address this issue. As parents, we must help our children appreciate the joys of learning and discovery. Teachers and educators must find ways to teach science and math so it is relevant and exciting.”

These 10 ways to stimulate your child's creativity are taken from 'About.com' and for detailed post you can read the full article at the bottom of the post. May be these all tips cannot be adopted but they can definately help you to train your child's creativity development.

1. Create A Magical Dress-Up Box
2. "When I Grow Up" Drawings
3. Cast The Kids In A Play
4. Create a Never-Ending Bedtime Story Starring Your Child
5. I Feel Like Dancing!
6. Plan A Garden Together
7. Make A Kite First...Then Go Fly It!
8. Let Your Kid Lead The Way
9. What's Cookin' Outside
10. Create A Musical Band

Source: Top 10 Ways To Foster A Child's Creativity

Related posts:

* Learn doodling to make you more creative

* 7 activities to stimulate creativity

* Games that stimulate creativity

* Crafts activities improve students learning skills

* Interested in inventions, innovation and creativity?-Let's explore!

Free e-book for parents -Beyond the Golden Rule

'Tolerance' is a skill which helps us deal with life matters. In simple words I think we can resemble it with 'patience'. This post is about a free e-book which you can download and learn how to teach your kids 'tolerance'. As a parents first we should learn it and then teach it to our young ones. First let's learn more about this term:

Merriam webster dictionary provides definition of 'tolerance': 'Capacity to endure pain or hardship'
Wikipedia says: Toleration and tolerance are terms used in social, cultural and religious contexts to describe attitudes and practices that prohibit discrimination against those practices or group memberships that may be disapproved of by those in the majority. Conversely, 'intolerance' may be used to refer to the discriminatory practices sought to be prohibited.

"Beyond in tract ability" explains: Tolerance is the appreciation of diversity and the ability to live and let others live. It is the ability to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards those whose opinions, practices, religion, nationality and so on differ from one's own.[1] As William Ury notes, "tolerance is not just agreeing with one another or remaining indifferent in the face of injustice, but rather showing respect for the essential humanity in every person."[2]

Intolerance is the failure to appreciate and respect the practices, opinions and beliefs of another group. For instance, there is a high degree of intolerance between Israeli Jews and Palestinians who are at odds over issues of identity, security, self-determination, statehood, the right of return for refugees, the status of Jerusalem and many other issues. The result is continuing inter-group violence.

Drawn from our handbook, Beyond the Golden Rule: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Responding to Prejudice, the age-specific sections here offer practical advice about the challenges and rewards of parenting

The ideas in this guide will help foster tolerance in yourself, your family, your schools, your workplace and your community. Some of the ideas are things to do. Some are things to think about. Some are things to remember.
This guide is not a sure-fire recipe for making the world a better place. These ideas are only some of the possibilities. The best ideas are those that work for you and your community.

- Download PDF version of parenting handbook: "Beyond the Golden Rule"
or go to this link to download from the site link.

Links:

Tolerance

Career Information for Kids

We often ask our kids 'What you are going to be, when you are grown up?' and sometimes we estimate about any profession which a child seems interested. Career selection is an individual choice and teachers or parents can definately help their children guide about the career they intend to adopt in future. If from the very early age our kids have an idea or target for the future studies or profession, they would be more passionate about their future goal.

Career information for kids is from Bureau of Labor Statistics, offering very useful links and information about many professions.

Web site for kids provides introductory career information for students in Grades 4-8. Most of the material on the site has been adapted from the Bureau's Occupational Outlook Handbook—a career guidance publication for adults and upper-level high school students that describes the job duties, working conditions, training requirements, earnings levels, and employment prospects of hundreds of occupations.

On the kids' site, wording and labor market concepts have been simplified and some statistical detail has been eliminated. In addition, the occupations on the site are categorized according to interests and hobbies common among students. The twelve categories and their corresponding occupations are shown at the end of this Teacher's Guide.
To help students continue their career exploration, each occupational description on the kids' site links to related information in the Handbook. The Bureau's Web site for kids is updated every 2 years with each new edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Because the kids' site is designed to give a quick introduction to a career, the information provided is general. For example, the most common way of preparing for an occupation is described, while other, less common, methods of entry might be mentioned only briefly or not at all. In the same way, the earnings figures given are representative and might not illustrate the variety of earnings found in an occupation. The Occupational Outlook Handbook gives more precise and detailed information.

When describing projected job growth in an occupation, the kids' site uses phrases such as "faster than average," "average," and "slower than average." The "average" referred to in these phrases is the projected job growth across all occupations. These projections are developed by economists in the Bureau's Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections.

For every field which you have interest describes the possible careers and each career choice explains:
What is this job like? | How do you get ready? | How much does this job pay? | How many jobs are there? | What about the future? | Are there other jobs like this? | Where can you find more information?

site link:Career information for kids

"All Safe Sites" - A search engine for young children

As internet use is increasing worldwide, more sites and links are emerging to help our kids browse safely online. I have written few posts about few top search engines where parents, teachers or students can search safely for the specific stuff.
is a directory and search engine for yound children. It is designed with visual aid to make it easy for small chilren who find text based sites difficult to read.

Other specialities of 'All safe sites'

- It is free of ads, and the reason (according to them) behind keeping it ad free is that most advertisement programs are deceptive in nature and attempt to lure the user away to another web site that is often not suitable for children.
- It offers educational, fun and safe sites.
- Directory of the search engine is human edited. Each site in their directory is personally reviewed and recommended by an elementary school teacher.

Home page offers search for catagories: Educational, technology, fun & games, entertainment, random and top rated sites.
Site link: All safe sites

Related posts:

* Search at "Ask for KIDS" for educational stuff!

* Search for the kids sites at "Kinder Start"

* Study Sphere-providing learning resources

* A "Child and Family Web Guide" about child development sites

* Where to search for educational stuff?

* Famous Search Engines for Kids

Exploring the environment - A resource for teachers and students

"Exploring the environment" offers teachers interactive ways to teach students about weather systems. It is one of the sites which helps teachers explore environment issues with their students for grades 5-12 and each activity indicates the applicable grade level, though most lean toward the upper grades. Geography teachers can use this link for activity based teaching and suggest their students to prepare their

The homepage for modules and activites has a jigsaw puzzle graphic with pieces interlocking that compromise the topics, their grade ranges, whether they are an activity or lesson, and whether they are "Basic", "Comprehensive" or "Advanced".

The two "Activities" available "Strangers in Paradise" and "Mars Landing" are located on the homepage at the top of the jigsaw puzzle graphic. Both are for grades 7-12, and each emphasizes working with digital images, such as enhancing, saving, manipulating, etc.

Detailed instructions are provided, along with a bit of humor in each scenario. Each of the lessons involves a situation that students must solve.
Some of the lessons include:
- "Florida Everglades",
- "Water Quality", and
- "Tropical Poison"
There is also a "Glossary" provided in a link at the bottom of the page, specific to each lesson.

Students can start browsing from the page: Modules and activities

The "Classroom of the Future" and "Exploring the Environment" is collaboration between NASA and Jesuit Wheeling University, and they are responsible for this fine website that offers teachers unique ways to teach students about weather systems.

* Get access to teachers pages

Related post:
"Tox Town"- educating us about environment health concerns

Famous Search Engines for Kids

When we search for educational or edutainment sites from ordinary search engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN, there is chance to not get the specific information. Because there are millions of professional sites selling products and naturally it takes time and effort to search for the valuable stuff. This post would help parents, teachers and kids to search at specific search engines which provide safe and useful infromation for them. These search engines are user friendly enabling filters to bring out only reliable and safe sites to the family members.

Famous Search Engines for Kids

* Kindernet - Kindernet insures that the safest and most useful results are found for you and your children using the smart searching filters. Kindernet also allows for faster searching by making the keyword entry process easy. If you want to search for two words, just type in “and” between your two key terms. If you wish to exclude a word, just add a minus sign in front of it.

* Quintura - Quintura Kids is one of the most useful search engines for kids. Quintura Kids caters its famous “cloud search” specifically to the children, allowing them to search through various subjects with ease. It provides the users with categories or “tags” for their keywords. This allows kids to get very specific with their search and get accurate results just like the big-boys who use quotation marks, addition signs, and secret symbols in Google.

* GoGooligans - This is basically Google for kids. It has safety filters which prevent vulgar material from leaking out from the unsanitary cables and pipes known as the internet. GoGooligans also offers many search options, allowing kids to search through specific websites such as PBS, Britannica, Merriam Webster, About, etc. Also, once the search term is entered, users can then choose more specific results for their keywords, such as, Geography, History, Facts, Definition, and much more.

* Ask Kids - This search engine is a easy to navigate and offers features which make searching less of an ordeal. Enter your keyword and you are presented with numerous different facts along with your search result. This allows the children to not get lost in the all the links, and it helps them to get their information quickly.

* Famhoo - it provides a clean and simple layout that is usable by even the youngest internet users. Famhoo is a family search engine with top notch filters.

Parents and teachers are suggested to bookmark these links and let their children start browsing from these search engines.

Related posts:

* Where To Search For Educational Stuff?

* Search at "Ask for KIDS" for educational stuff!

* Search for kids sites at Kinder Art

Food Safety lessons for kids

Teachers and parents can suggest these tutorial based food safety lessons to young children. Parents can get help from these easy lessons to help learn their kids about food safety.

"Iowa State University Extension" has arranges these lessons.

This food safety module is presented in four lessons:

Lesson 1: What's bugging you?
Students will get an overview of the importance of food safety and become familiar with common foodborne pathogens. Topics in this lesson include:

What is foodborne illness?
Who is at risk?
How does food become hazardous?
Why are microorganisms important?
What is the greatest threat to food safety?
What conditions encourage bacteria to grow?
What are the most common foodborne pathogens?
How can I handle food safely?

Lesson 2: What are Consumer Control Points?

This lesson focuses on the application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles to prevent foodborne illness in the home. Students learn the "Consumer Control Points" from purchase through preparation by working their way through the Consumer Control Point Kitchen.
Purchasing
Storage
Preparation
Cooking
Serving
Handling leftovers

Lesson 3: Where is the Danger Zone?
A hypothetical situation using cartoon characters explains the importance of time and temperature in keeping food safe.

Lesson 4: Who is FAT TOM?
An animated turkey, FAT TOM, explains the importance of factors affecting the growth of foodborne pathogens. Students learn the importance of these terms as they relate to food safety:

Food
Acidity
Time
Temperature
Oxygen
Moisture

Site link:

Food colours are linked with hyperactivity of your child

This post is a part of series about children having hyperactive or ADHD symptoms effecting their overall progress at school. I hope that this piece of information would be helpful for all parents and teachers who want to learn more about it.
Parents who are concerned about their child's hyperactivity or ADHD need to learn about the factors which are responsible for it. Definately, learning the causes for hyperactiviy or ADHD can help us save our child from the bad effects of it.

Hyperactivity is when a child is over-active, can't concentrate and acts on sudden wishes without thinking about alternatives. There is no single test for diagnosing hyperactivity. Experts think it affects 2 to 5% of children in the UK. The figures are higher in the United States. Hyperactivity is a general term used to describe behavioural difficulties affecting learning, memory, movement, language, emotional responses and sleep patterns. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more than just hyperactive behaviour. Research funded by the FSA has suggested that consumption of mixes of certain artificial food colours and the preservative sodium benzoate could be linked to increased hyperactivity in some children.

ADHD is linked to a specific pattern of behaviour, including reduced attention span and difficulties concentrating such that they affect the child’s ability to learn and function at home and at school. Children with ADHD often have learning difficulties and behavioural problems.

Important new research has shown that commonly used food dyes, such as Yellow 5, Red 40, and six others, are linked to hyperactivity, impulsivity, learning difficulties, and Attention Deficity Hyperactivity Disorder in many children. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of these dyes, many of which are already being phased out in Europe.

These dyes—petrochemicals, mostly—are often used to simulate the presence of healthy, colorful fruits and vegetables. But considering the adverse impact of these chemicals on children, and considering how easily they can be replaced with colorings derived from real food ingredients, it’s time to get rid of them altogether.

Download FREE 20 page pamphlet "A Parent's Guide to Diet,ADHD & Behaviour"
- Download link

* If your child shows signs of hyperactivity, or if on the basis of this information you have concerns, you might choose to avoid giving your child food and drinks containing the following artificial colours:

sunset yellow FCF (E110)
quinoline yellow (E104)
carmoisine (E122)
allura red (E129)
tartrazine (E102)
ponceau 4R (E124)
These colours are used in a wide range of foods that tend to be brightly coloured, including some soft drinks, sweets, cakes and ice cream. Parents may wish to check the labels of brightly coloured foods if they want to avoid certain colours.
For details: FSA advice to parents on food colours and hyperactivity

More useful links:

* Understanding e numbers

* The Hyperactive Children's Support Group helping ADHD/Hyperactive children and their families for over 30 years. The HACSG is Britain's leading proponent of a dietary approach to the problem of hyperactivity.

Related posts:

* Teacher's Ideas: Dealing With Students Having ADD/ADHD

* Hobbies, Interests and Activities helping children with ADD

* Tips to deal with your hyperactive child