Parenting & Grandparenting

Article

Grandma's Boxes: Letters from 1918

Roberta McReynolds writes: "I suppose you'll hear all kinds of reports about influenza so I'll tell you what I know. The doctor claims it is real and spread from that dance last week. I don't know how many cases and something like 15 in town, 2 new ones this morning." I carefully folded the last letter and slipped it back in the envelope. It felt like I had picked up a snow globe and peered into a life that had been frozen in time.

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure

 

Article

Rose Mula, Nancy (Drew, that is) and Me : The blue roadster has certainly bitten the dust by now. She could be driving a Mini-Cooper unless cataracts have curtailed her driving altogether. And Mr. Drew have to be at least 120 by now. Maybe arthritis is preventing Nancy from crawling into tight spaces and climbing rickety staircases

Center for the Book Exhibits

We have attended many family book-making events at the San Francisco Center for the Book with our grandchildren and hope to take courses there, ourselves.

In 2004, the Center for the Book presented an exhibit, Show Me a Story: Children's Books and the Technology of Enchantment. Here is an excerpt from Maribeth Back's essay, Encoding Enchantment: Engineering the Materials of Story:

"Book design is all about encoding Story into material form. How to organize content so it fits the anatomy of the book. How to convey emotion, evoke atmosphere, create an appropriate state of mind in the reader. How, in short, to create an effective vehicle for the enchantment of Story."

"Childrens' literature, a particularly fertile field for the embodiment of Story, has a rich history of enchanting forms and materials. Pop-ups, foldouts, unusual sizes and shapes, rich color and fanciful content all help to integrate Show with Tell in as compelling a fashion as possible.

"The technologies of enchantment have taken a huge leap in the past few decades as electrons join the ritual dances of Story. Screens, sound, and interactive objects both enrich and compete with the traditiona story-stage of the book. New kinds of reading machines proliferate: novels are transmitted on cell phones, a news ticker scrolls across the bottom of television screens. Reading becomes ever more important in the uses of technology: the use of email and the Web, both reading technologies, is growing exponentially."

Now the Center is presenting a series of videos on Utube and an exhibit, Once Upon a Book, in which six illustrators and authors explore the process in creating their books: Elisa Kleven, Remy Charlip, Maira Kalman, David Macaulay, Chris Raschka and Brian Selznick. These authors are the some of the best known children's book author (and illustrators) and even though your child or grandchild might be quite young, they'll grow into these videos (shot and narrated by a well-known author in his own right, Thatcher Hurd) and the process that one of their story-teller heroes use to paint a beloved story.

Summer Camp at the Grandparents

We've encountered an era demanding our talents as grandparents-who-entertain. A grandson is spending his after-kindergarten hours with us on a daily basis, at least for a while. Two granddaughters have been with us on a twice-week basis for eight years.

Last summer we originated Camp Gray for our three grandchildren complete with sleep-overs, and with a repeat experience scheduled for this August. Therefore, a new trove of activities both within the house and abroad are called for. We joined the National Park Service last year with a lifetime senior pass costing us $10. On this year's agenda is the USS Oak Victory followed by a trip to the Rosie the Riveter site and the submarine, Pampanito.

But for either after-school activities or less of an 'up the gangplank' outing, the Exploratorium's website is a destination for science-related adventures: The bee hummer, the bottle blast-off, cuica, jitterbug and the stripped down motor are some of the science activities available. The membranophone water bottle includes additional background science connected to its page such as:

Let's Hear It for the Ear!
Learn about the different parts of the ear and how they work.
Ages: 5-10

The Science of Music
Mix your own songs, join an online drum circle, or learn more about sound on this Exploratorium site.
Ages: 11+

How Hearing Works
Learn about how sound travels to the ear and how ears work.

Ages: 11+

The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA (where we are also members) provides online exhibits such as the MPG Marathon and 2001: Destination Space.

MPG Marathon: See how your design choices and driving strategy affect the performance and energy-efficiency of a hybrid car. Design your car by choosing the body style, size of the gas engine and electric motor, and tires. Then, race it against 2 opponents in real-time. Will your hybrid go the farthest in 2 minutes on a cup of gas?

2001: Destination Space compares the science and technology found in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and in the artwork of Robert McCall, to real science and technology of today.

On our agenda last year was the putting together of a miniature Stonehenge by the grandchildren; the grandparents trumped that with lunch at a local bakery and cafe aptly titled Sconehenge. Obviously, we've got our homework assignments for this summer's punning adventure.

Entertaining the Grandchildren

We're always on the lookout for activities we can incorporate into our weekly entertaining. I've just printed out pieces of the Space Shuttle to cut out and put together for a now space-obsessed grandson. That led me to the site we've cited before, How Stuff Works, and their explanation of How Space Shuttles Work.

Beyond the engineering phase, the site also has crafted a file that explains "Why is a baby monitor picking up the space shuttle video?"

But How Stuff Works can fulfill the needs of a curious child who will keep supplying quests for the site. There is a section, what's inside: family and kids crafts, that can be used as well as tapping into many other subjects that will engage. For those older children or grandchildren, the topic How *Muscle Cars Work could be appealing as well as an Engine Performance Quiz.

Exhibit at the Morgan

A number of years ago I purchased some Babar postcards including Le Petit Dejeuner de Babar at a Francophile shop in Rockefeller Center. In Montreal, I purchased some Babar bowls and when a granddaughter was born, a framed poster graced her room as well as the 'stuffed' gentleman himself.

In 2004, the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City "acquired the "working drafts and printer-ready watercolors for Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (1931), the first book by Jean de Brunhoff (1899–1937), and Babar et ce coquin d'Arthur (1946), the first book by Laurent de Brunhoff (b. 1925)."

Now it has put on display those two collections, accompanied by a digital facsimile of Jean de Brunhoff's Histoire de Babar Maquette which is "an extraordinary handmade booklet complete with cover and endpapers, text and illustrations, is the prototype for Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant."

"A dignified elephant, dressed in a green suit and wearing a yellow crown, walks upright across the page. This image — both absurd and endearing — has become instantly recognizable to several generations of readers throughout the world. The exhibition Drawing Babar returns visitors to the two essential moments of Babar's creation: when Jean de Brunhoff and, years later, his son Laurent, set down their initial thoughts on paper. Their earliest drafts, shown in juxtaposition with their finished watercolors, allow viewers to track the changes, both subtle and substantive, that both men made as they refined their work, bringing together word and image with elegance and exuberance. "

Adam Gopnik has written an essay in The New Yorker on Babar entitled, Freeing the Elephants, to be enjoyed along with the Morgan's exhibit and the catalog.

Article

Ferida Wolff, Shhh: Three decades have passed since I had full charge of a child. I hoped I remembered my mothering skills. How different could it be? I wondered

Another Paul Newman Production

We were reminded after the announcement of Paul Newman's death, that we had another way to remember him: the AudioBook version of Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, released in the 2000 CD version. Since one of our grandchildren took a course on the myths during summer camp, we had gifted her with the Dell Yearling version of the book, one of several copies we had purchased over the years.

We brought out the CDs when setting out on our trip — recited by Newman, Kathleen Turner, Sidney Poitier and Mathew Broderick — and the children were entertained over many miles.

Here are other choices for those journeys, both geographic and literary. If you hold a local library card, it's possible to download from their store of audio book selections.

ALSC Notable Children's Recordings

Seattle Public Library Popular Children's Books on CD

AudioBooks Online

No Escape:
Marketing to Kids in the Digital Age

From Multinational Monitor:

With the proliferation of media in children’s lives, marketing now extends far beyond the confines of television and even the Internet, into an expanding and ubiquitous digital media culture. The new “marketing ecosystem” encompasses cell phones, mobile music devices, instant messaging, videogames and virtual, three-dimensional worlds. New marketing practices in these diverse media environments are fundamentally transforming how corporations — notably including food and beverage companies — sell to young people.

The influx of brands into social networking platforms — where they now have their own “profiles” and networks of "friends” — is emblematic of the many ways in which contemporary marketing has all but obliterated the boundaries between advertising and editorial content. The unprecedented ability of digital technologies to track and profile individuals across the media landscape, and engage in “micro” or “nano” targeting, raises the twin specters of manipulation and invasion of privacy. The growing use of neuropsychological research suggests that digital marketing will increasingly be designed to foster emotional and unconscious choices, rather than reasoned, thoughtful decision making. The prospect of armies of avatars (virtual people), deployed as brand “salespersons” and programmed to react to the subtlest cues from other online inhabitants, suggests a disturbing move into uncharted territory for consumer-business relationships.

Read the rest of the article at Multinational Monitor

 

British Children's Illustrators

The British Library has an extensive and rich online collection for the public. The Gallery of images from historic children's books is part of a collection called Modern British, the single largest collection of books and periodicals of its kind in the world. Coverage is of all subjects in the humanities and social sciences in publications produced in the British Isles after 1914.

"The British Library holds one of the largest collections of English language children's books in the world. As well as books for home entertainment, with stories, nursery rhymes, fairy stories or verse, these include primers and readers, textbooks, prayer books, hymnals, courtesy books and alphabet books. There are also many simplified version of adult books, such as Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress, Swift's Gulliver's travels, and many versions of the Robinson Crusoe story. These can be traced in the Integrated Catalogue."

Here are some examples:

Punctuation personified: or, pointing made easy, by Mr. Stops. London: J.Harris, 1824; The absurd ABC. Illustrated by Walter Crane. London: George Routledge & Sons, [1874] and Clever cats. London:T.Nelson & Sons, [1881].

Life Long Literacy and Storybook Adventure

The Library of Congress has created a site that promotes literacy, much to the benefit of viewers and readers, regardless of age.

Experience an array of rare children's books online, among them The Grasshopper Stories, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and The Secret Garden.

In "Introduction to Poetry," Billy Collins writes, "I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light." Poetry 180 presents that chance for students during the school year.

Read the Explore New Worlds booklist and find Book Fairs and literary events around the US and the world which can also be listed by state.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, DC students read from the anthology “How to Eat a Poem: Smorgasboard of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers.” View the Webcast

And by downloading a flash player, you and your child can enjoy the site's Storybook Adventure which features books online that can be read: Wizard of Oz, Mermaid and Aladdin. Take the quizzes based on details from the books. Finally, create an ecard using the Image Maker.

In addition, braille literacy includes a National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped which makes it possible for Americans living with visual impairment to enjoy a good book, magazine and even music scores.

Teens and Social Media

Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64%
of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004.

Fueled by new technologies, websites, and social network domains such as Facebook and MySpace, large numbers of teens share and create materials online:

39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories, or videos

33% of online teens create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including friends, groups they belong to or school assignments

28% of online teens have created their own blog, up from 19% in 2004, and almost completely driven by the popularity of blogging among girls 27% of online teens maintain their own webpage

26% of online teens remix content they find online into their own creations

Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys.  Boys, however, do dominate one area — posting of video content online — online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it.

The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content.  Nearly half (47%) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least "some of the time." Teens who post videos report a similarly large incidence of feedback, with nearly three quarters (72%) of video posters receiving comments on their videos.

Read the entire report, Teens and Social Media, at the PEW Internet and American Life Project.

The V&A Museum of Childhood Site

London's Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood's is offering, Young Runaway Slaves, an exhibit to enlarge upon the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, using historical objects, period images, newspaper reports, and original artwork.

"London was at the centre of the transatlantic slave trade from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. Britain's Black population grew throughout this period. Some were slaves. Some were free. Young Black people often worked as household slaves or servants. Many escaped enslavement and fled to the city's poorer areas. London's East End and Docklands had particularly high numbers of non-white people."

"This exhibition marks 200 years since the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The display is inspired by the experiences of young people in the East End who ran away in search of freedom."

"The movement to abolish the slave trade in Great Britain was the first mass movement in the country's history. People of all classes were involved. It was the first movement in which women were politically active."

The Museum's dolls' house collection is the largest British collection not in private hands. The oldest house, the The Nuremberg House - 1673, is one of the Museum's greatest treasures. There is also a small group of 18th century houses, including the magnificent Tate Baby House of about 1760, and a rich holding from the 19th century. Some were made by carpenters whilst others, such as the house given to the Museum in 1921 by Queen Mary, have royal connections.

Or how about the Games page with explanations of Spillikins or Spellican as well as Subbuteo? Another interest is that of soft toys, with Schuco, the mechanical fox, being a prime example.

 

Article

Rima Magee asks Name the Baby ... What? Unlike many girls with unusual names, I had no trouble with it in school. In fact, I stayed out of trouble because I was identified too easily. In high school, my creative writing English teacher insisted that my name looked nice in print. (I kind of like it that way, too)

The Study and Labeling of Drugs for Pediatric Use under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act

Why the GAO Did This Study

About two-thirds of drugs that are prescribed for children have not been studied and labeled for pediatric use, placing children at risk of being exposed to ineffective treatment or incorrect dosing. The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA), enacted in 2002, encourages the manufacturers, or sponsors, of drugs that still have marketing exclusivity — that is, are on-patent — to conduct pediatric drug studies, as requested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If they do so, FDA may extend for 6 months the period during which no equivalent generic drugs can be marketed. This is referred to as pediatric exclusivity. BPCA also provides for the study of off-patent drugs.

GAO examined data about the drugs for which FDA requested studies under BPCA from 2002 through 2005 and interviewed relevant federal officials.

What the GAO Found

Drug sponsors have initiated pediatric drug studies for most of the on-patent drugs for which FDA has requested such studies under BPCA, but no drugs were studied when sponsors declined these requests. Sponsors agreed to 173 of the 214 written requests for pediatric studies of on-patent drugs. In cases where drug sponsors decline to study the drugs, BPCA provides for FDA to refer the study of these drugs to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), a nonprofit corporation. FNIH had not funded studies for any of the nine drugs that FDA referred as of December 2005.

Few off-patent drugs identified by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that need to be studied for pediatric use have been studied. BPCA provides for NIH to fund studies when drug sponsors decline written requests for off-patent drugs. While 40 such off-patent drugs were identified by 2005, FDA had issued written requests for 16. One written request was accepted by the drug sponsor. Of the remaining 15, NIH funded studies for 7 through December 2005.
Most drugs granted pediatric exclusivity under BPCA (about 87 percent) had labeling changes — often because the pediatric drug studies found that children may have been exposed to ineffective drugs, ineffective dosing, overdosing, or previously unknown side effects. However, the process for approving labeling changes was often lengthy. For 18 drugs that required labeling changes (about 40 percent), it took from 238 to 1,055 days for information to be reviewed and labeling changes to be approved.

It's possible to read the entire testimony at gao.gov/new.items/d07557.pdf

Stick Together

Ferida Wolff and Harriet May Savitz wrote Stick Together as a donation to children, to give young people a tool to keep themselves safe from child predators. Read it here and perhaps it will inspire you to pass it around to others who will find it helpful

Museum of Childhood

London's Museum of Childhood has been newly renovated. Online there are features that can be enjoyed including a new feature of Imaginary Friends, a part of the section titled Children's Lives:

7 Poodles

By Mary

When I was between 3 and 4/5 years of age I had 7 imaginary poodles that I led or was led around by. I used to get very upset if anyone closed a door behind me too soon as the poodles leads would get trapped and, as I could never let go of the leads, I would have to untrap them before I could move on. My mother was very accommodating of my imaginary friends, which can't be said of strangers who sometimes wondered whether I had a slight deformity which caused my right arm to stick out stiffly in front of or behind me, ending in a tightly clenched fist. Around the age of 4 or 5, I grew out of my imaginary poodles and when my mother asked me about them one day I simply said that my playschool teacher had sat on them and that was that. My mother was very concerned that this would traumatise me for life but to me it was simply a realisation that they were not real and actually quite inconvenient.

Marnie

By Lauren

Between the ages of 3 and a half and 5 and a half I had an imaginary friend named Marnie. She lived behind a panel which gave access to a back-boiler behind our gas fire in the lounge. Marnie took responsibility for all my actions, both good and bad for these two years - "Good Marnie made me do that." I would squeeze myself in between the fire and a pot plant and knock on the panel for her to come out to play. We moved when I was 5 and a half and Marnie stayed behind. She was a great companion but having since watched the Hitchcock film by the same name-the fireplace reference is a little creepy!

Blue Crocodile

By Maria

Becky aged 4 and a half has had an imaginary friend called Blue Crocodile for the last couple of years. As you may have guessed he is a crocodile that is blue. He first appeared as a scary creature that she 'saw' in the garden through the conservatory window but after a few weeks of being a little scared of him, she eventually made friends with him and invited him into the house to play. He has been around on and off ever since. Blue Crocodile is quite an independant friend. He drives his own car and lives in his own house. This is just as well, because he also has a number of his own imaginary friends including Red Crocodile, White Crocodile, Green Crocodile and at one time a number of cows! When they were all visiting us, getting them in and out of the house used to take rather a long time as the front door had to be held open as each of the crocodiles and cows were ushered through. As Becky gets older, Blue Crocodile is playing a less important role in her life, however, he will still be around for a while yet as little sister Lauren (aged 2) has now adopted him too!

Not surprisingly, Imaginary Friends falls under the category of Creativity.

New Links

Roots and Shoots - Roots & Shoots engages and inspires youth through community service and service learning. Founded by Dr. Jane Goodall, this global program emphasizes the principle that knowledge leads to compassion, which inspires action. All Roots & Shoots groups show care and concern in three areas: the human community, animals, and the environment.

The Roots & Shoots program began when 16 students gathered with Dr. Goodall on her front porch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1991. The students were fascinated by animal behavior and concerned about the state of the environment. But their schools didn’t cover these topics. The students wondered if they could further these interests through out-of-school activities. Their conversation ranged from how to help chimpanzees to how their actions might affect their communities. The sixteen returned to their schools with a task: find other interested young people and take action. And so the Roots & Shoots program was born. Since then, Roots & Shoots has spread rapidly. More than 7,500 groups – ranging in size from two to 2,000 – have registered in more than 90 countries.

Children's Book Council - While looking for a particular children's book illustrator, we came across this site. The Children's Book Council, Inc. "is the nonprofit trade association of publishers and packagers of trade books and related materials for children and young adults." One page we found contains Meet the Author/Illustrator archives; another is Getting Your Book Published. In addition, there's a reading list page including links to Graphic Novels for Young People 2005–2006, Children's Book Choices, 75 Authors/Illustrators Everyone Should Know.

iWASwondering.org is a project of the National Academy of Sciences intended to showcase the accomplishments of contemporary women in science and to highlight for young people the varied and intriguing careers of some of today's most prominent female scientists. There's also a timeline and games to be played. However, there is a commercial aspect and unfortunately, the books that are being touted are not available free at the National Academies website, as so many others are. What a shame.

A Child's Guide to a Hospital Trip

Arthur’s Guide to Children’s Hospital Boston was created by PBS to answer questions children may have about going to the hospital and to help prepare the entire family for the visit. Designed to look and read like a school report by Arthur and his friends, the guide describes hospital experiences in simple terms, and covers in detail three types of visits: doctor’s visits, pre-operative visits, and hospital stays. In each, kids can:

Read about the staff they may meet, from doctors and nurses, to radiologists and nutritionists, and even clowns and dogs who visit patients; learn about the many locations in a hospital; play cool activities before, during and after their visit to the hospital, including Buster’s Waiting Games, Arthur’s Scavenger Hunt, and E-mail a Friend.

While some children will be able to surf the site independently, it’s recommended that parents explore the guide together with the child and talk about the upcoming visit. On Children’s Hospital Boston’s Website, adults can access additional resources. Two popular features for parents are the My Child Has search feature, which includes information about 1,200 childhood illnesses and conditions; and the Experience Journal  where young patients and their families have shared their personal medical experiences.

Obviously, Children's Hospital in Boston is not like all hospitals throughout the country, but the site is helpful in outlining what can be expected in general terms at most hospitals — in English and Spanish.

Baby Voyager

We have a fairly rare family name that is being passed on and is now at five generations: Thea. We used this link to see just how rare it is. You, too, can do that with a name that is being considered for a child or grandchild:

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager is an interactive portrait of America's name choices. Start with a "sea" of nearly 5000 names. Type a letter, and you'll zoom in to focus on how that initial has been used over the past century. Then type a few more letters, or a name. Each stripe is a timeline of one name, its width reflecting the name's changing popularity. If a name intrigues you, click on its stripe for a closer look.

Launch NameVoyager (requires Java)

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager is a letter-by-letter exploration of name trends and history.

The beginning screen shows nearly 5000 names, each represented by a stripe. Type a letter, and you'll zoom in to focus on how that initial has been used in names over the past century. Type more letters to zoom in further, down to the level of a single name. Backspace to delete letters or try a new search.

Each stripe is a timeline of one name, from 1900 (at left) to present. The changing thickness of the stripe reflects the name's changing popularity. The usage frequency is shown on the right-hand axis, which changes scale as you zoom in and out.

You can also mouse over a single name stripe to highlight its shape and learn its popularity rank at any point in time. Click on a stripe to zoom in on that name.

Great fun!

Waterford Press

While searching for books and games to keep a hospital-bound child amused, we came upon WaterfordPress.com, a marvelous site for hundreds of downloadable activities including puzzles, games, mazes, origami, as well as matching and coloring projects. Instead of the usual crude drawings, the activities are colorful illustrations. The files are all PDFs so download the reader from Adobe Acrobat if you haven't already. Waterford, a Chandler, AZ publishing company, produces a series of books and reference materials for teaching children about plants, animals and natural history.

Study

Numerous studies have found that while American children have a positive view of older adults in their own family, they have a negative world view of aging. Nobody had been able to explain this paradox. But Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at The George Washington University postulated that a major factor contributing to children’s negative attitudes about aging is that the earliest literature in the form of fairy tales that the youngest of children are introduced to typically portray older people as wicked, weird, or weak — conveying very negative images of aging.

Consider Cinderella’s malevolent step mother, the evil old witch in Hansel and Gretel, the scheming Rumpelstiltskin, and the child abusing old lady who lived in a shoe as but a few examples. These are great classics, but what if families want to offer additional images — positive ones — of aging through literature to their children? To begin with, there have been very view reading lists available listing and describing books for the very young where older adults are portrayed positively. None have been easily accessible and widely recognized, To the extent that the youth of America have a better sense of the potential that can accompany aging, they can develop a life cycle perspective that improves their preparedness for both the problems and possibilities of later life as well as enhancing their attitudes toward positive intergenerational relationships.

To address this gap, Dr. Cohen approached the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) of the American Library Association to explore collaboration in creating an authoritative, annotated, widely disseminated reading list for children, describing books portraying aging and older adults in a positive light. The effort was one of the initiatives coming out of the Center’s newly established public education program on aging — known as the SEA Change Program, where SEA Change is an acronym for Societal Education about Aging for Change. The ALSC enthusiastically agreed to collaborate and used their infrastructure of librarians across the country to assemble a list of 91 books presenting aging realistically and positively for children from Pre-K through Grade 6.

The above is taken from the report and the entire list of 91 books can be viewed at: http://www.gwumc.edu/cahh/booklist/booklist_20041110.pdf

PBS Kids WayBack history site: Family Ties - What you can do online: Get advice on family reunions from cousins who trace their family back to the 1600s; play an interactive game to build your own family tree; test knowledge of communication through the ages. The Future part of the website allows you to do the following online: a multifunctional plastics production lab to make and recycle plastic, learning about the different kinds of plastic all around us; making slime and silly putty with easy recipes; find out what kids in the 1950s predicted about the future, and make your own predictions about the years to come; take an interactive quiz exploring career options.

ABC Arts Online: Winged Sandals - The Scout Report has profiled numerous sites on the vast world of Greek mythology before, but this most recent site is perhaps the most enchanting and visually stimulating so far. Winged Sandals, produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (in association with The University of Melbourne's Centre for Classics and Archaeology), takes visitors through the world of Greek mythology with a number of Flash-enabled movies, intriguing games, and quizzes. Visitors are led through the site by Hermes (appropriately enough, as he is the messenger god), and are transported above the city of ancient Athens, to various locales. The Storytime section is particularly lovely, as visitors can watch retellings of such important tales as the acquisition of the oracle at Delphi by Apollo or the story of Perseus's encounter with Medusa. Also of note is the games section which allows visitors the opportunity to charm Cerberus with music and to create their own musical creations in Groove Pentatonica. Designed for children age 6 to 12, this website is a fine teaching aid and a real delight for young people and adults.

(Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003)

Parenting & Grandparenting

The experience of having access to and learning a musical instrument when young was not mine to have. The expense of piano lessons and the investment in that instrument was beyond my parents. That's one reason why I find information on more accessible, easier to play and inexpensive instruments for children is intriguing.

MIT's media lab is making strides in this field, developing a line of musical toys called Music Shapers and Beatbugs. Here's a description the shapers, which are expected to be manufactured by Fisher-Price.

"These are single-person, sophisticated hyperinstruments, designed for children and non-professional musicians. Part of a musical texture or fragment is provided by a computational system, and is then modified, personalized, or "shaped" by the player. Our first experiments in this area were with the still-successful Sensor Chair, which allows free-body gesture to control sound; and we have since been interested in more tactile, "squeezable" interfaces. Most musical interfaces today are hard and tough, from ivory piano keys to taut drum heads, to vibrating metallic violin strings. Sound itself and especially the vast sound world opened up by computers and synthesizers is noticeably malleable, multi-dimensional, and not rigid. We are developing a new generation of interfaces that can be squeezed, pulled, stretched, and twisted, with various degrees of suppleness. We are experimenting both with new materials and with multiple sensing devices to measure 3-D volume of stretched objects, as well as multiple points of force exertion. A wide range of materials are being explored, including foam balls, conductive fabrics and threads, and even stretchable media like Play-Doh. Such interfaces are proving to be useful for children and students, giving direct tactile control over complex sound systems, but will also be sophisticated enough for use by sophisticated musicians and music-lovers."

Toy Symphony was a means of distributing these toys for children's use:

Toy Symphony was a three-year project which combined children, virtuosic soloists, composers, and symphony orchestras around the world to radically alter how children are introduced to music, as well as to redefine the relationship between professional musicians and young people. A complete set of Music Toys was distributed to children in each host city (including Berlin, Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester/London, and Tokyo), and children were mentored to create their own sounds and compositions for toys and traditional instruments. A pedagogy for using these Music Toys to teach and instill a love for musical creativity was developed. Final concerts were presented in each host city including kids' compositions and specially commissioned works by young composers, performed by children, soloists, and orchestra, playing Music Toys, Hyperinstruments, and traditional instruments.

Explore MIT's hyper musical projects for children as well as adults. Professor Tod Machover's Toy Symphony had its MIT premiere in April of 2003.

Just Who Parents and Grandparents?

The Census Bureau has provided fresh statistics regarding grandparenting:

Caregivers 5.7 million
Number of grandparents who live with any of their grandchildren under 18. Most of these grandparents (4.5 million) maintain their own household.

2.4 million
Number of grandparents responsible for most of the basic needs (i.e., food, shelter, clothing) of one or more of the grandchildren they live with. These grandparents represent 43 percent of all grandparents who live with their grandchildren. Of these caregivers, 1.5 million are grandmothers and 900,000, grandfathers.

900,000
Number of grandparents responsible for most of the basic needs of their grandchildren for at least five years.

1.4 million
Number of grandparents who are in the labor force and simultaneously responsible for most of the basic needs of their grandchildren.

Multigenerational families

3.9 million
Number of multigenerational family households in the United States; these are families where grandparents live under the same roof with two or more generations of descendants. They represent 4 percent of all households.

65
Percentage of multigenerational households in which the grandparent is the householder and lives with their children and their grandchildren. There are 2.6 million of these households.

33
Percentage of multigenerational households in which the grandparent lives in the home of their children (or son- or daughter-in-law) along with their children's children. These households number 1.3 million.

2
Percentage of multigenerational households (78,000) that include both grandparents and great-grandparents, as well as children and grandchildren of the grandparents. The great-grandparents could include parents-in-law of the grandparents.

Grandchildren

5.6 million
Number of children living with a grandparent; these children comprise 8 percent of all children in the United States. Of these children, 3.7 million lived in their grandparent's home and 1.8 million in their parent's.

21
Percentage of preschoolers who are cared for primarily by their grandparents while their mother is employed or in school.

Parenting and Grandparenting: Keeping those summering children from (Oh, My!) being bored. Dozens of Digital Dozens, The Invention of Play, Plan Your Dream Prom and mathemagical e-cards

When NY Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens attained his milestone winning 300th game, I thought of the Exploratorium's website on the Science of Baseball. This sighting is motivated by the fact that most schools are on summer vacation. With that recess may come a visit to a grandparent(s) or a parent faced by an active child who is easily bored with an endless summer or with activities that are too programmed. And, of course, there is that concern that too gaming online may be a preoccupation.

Take heart, there is a site that has come up with imaginative math and science projects online ... and the marvelous Exploratorium is just one of them. Take a look at their Skateboard Science feature, surely a gifted way to instruct and entertain. Not only that, it may revise the way you look at skateboarding: "Is it just a glorified plank with roller skate wheels on it? Or is it a highly engineered device through which kids have reclaimed the urban landscape, bringing creativity and style back to the sterile asphalt spaces of sprawl?"

We're not too old to learn a few skateboarding tricks like the ollie, are we? The invitation to find 'a cool site' brings up the Invention at Play page, with, among others, sounds of a ringing telephone or a roaring windstorm to whet the young inventors' appetites.

The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse Foundation for Math and Science Education is a marvelous resource for keeping those minds engaged: the Digital Dozen is an accumulation of commendable sites back to the year 1995 to delight that child or grandchild.

If you play the Digital Dozen roulette wheel, it will pick out some of the dozens of choices for you, like this one on the abacus:

The abacus
Grade: Kindergarten - 12
Synopsis: The abacus is an amazingly versatile and enduring mathematical tool. It is becoming popular again as a way to teach children about numbers. This site explores the history of the abacus and provides Java Applets that demonstrate how to do computations with it. Read about how the abacus triumphed over an electric calculator in a 1946 competition. Additional resources include related Web links, suggested reading materials, and complete plans for constructing a LEGO abacus.

Here's another:

Count on
Grade: Kindergarten - 12
Synopsis: You can count on this site to make math fun and exciting — and educational at the same time! Play to learn with the wide assortment of mathematically themed games; explore galleries of technological marvels in the Matrix; or explore what's in a number in the magic squares of Numberland. You can even send mathemagical e-cards to friends and family.

And this:

NASA Observatorium
Grade: 7 - 12
Synopsis: Images, movies, fact sheets, the latest news — this site is another great NASA gateway to space resources. Dig into the education section to find lessons and activities for budding young astronomers.For those teenagers who might be making significant money this summer, a site designed for middle and high school students, Sense and Dollars would be worthwhile exploring. "This site offers a safe interactive environment for kids to practice effective ways of earning, spending, saving and investing money. They can explore budgets, credit cards and interest rates and then apply that background to engage in some real-life money problems young people face now and in the future. The site also offers a parent and a teacher guide."

 

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