“Project Night Night is dedicated to improving the lives of homeless children, one sweet dream at a time. To this end, Project Night Night donates individual tote bags each filled with a security blanket, an age-appropriate book, and a stuffed animal to children (ages 0-10) in homeless shelters.”
I absolutely loved this idea. Every kid has, or should have, a security item that gives him/her a sense of security in our crazy world. My two-year-old has his “Ya Ya” which he carries around every where and doesn’t go to sleep with ought it. My kid has a home, a bed and two loving parents, and yet still feels the need for a comfort item. Of course there are organizations that provide important services, like treatments or shelters and food. However, for a child this seemingly small item represents something a lot bigger, or so I think…
Title: Focus Group, Parents of School-Age Children are Needed Location: Foundation for Jewish Camp (15 W 36 St, between 5 & 6 Ave, 13 Fl) Link out: Click here Description: All participants will receive a $20 gift certificate. Dinner will be served. If you have any questions, please feel free to email Alina Bitel at alina@jewishcamp.org or call her at 646-278-4533. Start Time: 18:45 Date: 2009-06-23
Foundation for Jewish Camp (www.jewishcamp.org) is launching a major nation-wide initiative that will create opportunities for Jewish kids from Russian-speaking families to experience Jewish overnight camp. In order to address the interests of the families in the most appropriate way, we want to learn as much as possible about the preferences for the summer activities for their children. We would like to find out their attitudes towards summer camps in general and Jewish summer camps in particular, to assess factors that would motivate them to send their children to Jewish camps. We also would like to find out their specific interests and needs when it comes to the educational content of camp as well as marketing they would be responsive to.
The initial learning will happen through several focus groups with parents of school-age children, which later will inform a survey distributed to hundreds of Russian-speaking Jewish families. We would like to learn about YOUR THOUGHTS on this subject matter.
Please join us!
I am trying to get my 6 year old son to read more. I read to him different types of books and a lot of them he is able to read on his own. There are certain books he likes and certain ones he would rather not listen to. I still have not figures out what exactly he likes more , which types of stories because if varies from day to day and from book to book. One day he wants to read about superheroes and the other day I see he wants a book with giant dinosaurs or something of that sort.
Yesterday I went to Barnes and Nobles to see what else I can introduce to my son. I would like to start him on a series of books. I think its something very exciting when you read the first book and you want to go on and read the next one and the one after that because it captures your attention. The series that I chose to start with is called Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. There were so many choice and after spending some time in the store I requested some help because I was not sure what would be appropriate for his age. I saw a lot of series books but most were for girl and then a sales person from that section suggestion Flat Stanley to me and said its one of he popular ones and enjoyed by kids.
We started on it last night. I hope he will catch on to it. Its all about a little boy and his adventures. I hope he will make an attempt to read this on his own butt for now even if he just wants to listen to it that’s ok also because it brings out his imagination and gives him the ability to discuss it with me and it promotes the skill of being able to understand and retell the story.
My 11 year old brother joined Boy Scouts of America a few months ago. He had been begging my parents to let him go on an overnight trip for a while until finally my parents agreed. So last weekend he went on this long awaited trip. He lost some tournament and as punishment (or a cruel joke) he was tied to a tree and the other kids threw pine cones at him for 30 seconds. Some kids were nicer than others and threw open cones where as others through the hard kind, which ultimately resulted in the entirety of my brother back being bruised.
I always thought that Boy Scouts (BS) were about teaching kids good values and helping others, and I don’t know that this particular incident was teaching them that. In fact, to me, it only teaches violence. Interestingly I found this article on the BS page http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss01.aspx. Here is a direct quote “The quality of the program and the safety of our youth members call for high-quality adult leaders. We work closely with our chartered organizations to help recruit the best possible leaders for their units.” I wonder what kind of leaders will grow from the above mentioned behavior.
However the trouble didn’t end there.
Later in the trip my brother was attacked by a dog, which belonged to a nearby owner. The dog bit him on his back and behind. And here is where things got even more interesting; even though the counselors on the trip were all fathers, nobody took my brother to the hospital for a check up, nobody requested paperwork from the dog owner regarding proper immunizations, nobody recorded the incident, and worst of all nobody called my parents. In me opinion, this group showed nothing but irresponsibility and it scares me that these people are responsible for children.
Once my brother got home, once again the counselors did not approach or apologize for what happened. In fact, after some research it became clear to me that some people accept this abusive behavior from the scouts as a norm. As a mother of two, it is beyond me why someone would want to send their child to a place that teaches the wrong messages with obviously no responsible supervision.
I am sure those of you who have a six year old child will know what I am talking about. They can be the cutest , silliest and the sweetest but when things don’t go their way , they become stubborn and upset. I have been observing my 6 year old son for a while now. I noticed that he makes friends easy, that he enjoys playing with other kids. What I also noticed is that when he plays with others and if there is a chance that he will lose he either backs out of the game or tries to change the rules. I will give you an example just last week I was walking him to school and he met two of his friends outside in the school yard. I didn’t know this but apparently they all compete to be the first in line when they walk up the stairs to their classroom. The three of the them were running in and then I hear my son saying guys stop. They all stop and he continues on his way running and getting there first. I see his face light up and he is so happy but it was not fair. The other two kids got very upset. I pulled him to the side and had to explain to him that what he did was not fair. That if he does not play honest his friends will not play with him. After the talk I admit I had a hard time convincing him that what he did was wrong but eventually he understood and apologized to his friends.
I read an article today online that apparently this is very common behavior for 6 year old kids and its best to catch them at it and explain to them that it is wrong. I want my son to compete for certain things in life cause I think it makes him want to strive and achieve higher results. I also want him to be an honest person cause in life in my opinion if you do something wrong it may work in the beginning but the truth always comes out.
I am sure many have gotten into the situation where a rude sales person came across their path. My first reaction is to just ignore it and walk away but lately I am so tired of it. I expect that when a customer comes to a store they should get the attention that they require. After being a sales girl in a store my self I got my share of pretty ridiculous people but never did yell , or was rude to them because no matter what they asked me and believe me there were some pretty interesting/stupid stuff like “can I dry clean towels?“ I mean who dry cleans their towels I know mine go in the machine for laundry. Anyways my point to this is you should always keep your cool and if you cant deal with people stay out of this field.
I came into super market a not far from my house to get a few things. I came to the cold cuts section and asked for they guy there to help me. I asked him for a certain type of smoked turkey that I know they had a week prior to this and he turns around and tells me am “ It didn’t fly to us yet , it only migrates here a few times a year” I didn’t come to him for jokes if he does not have it just say so why give me some stupid answer. Then I asked him for provolone cheese and I see there is a brand new pack right in front of me behind the glass. He says to me “no we don’t have it” here is where I went crazy. I am a customer and I don’t appreciate being lied to. I went to the manager to complain. I don’t know what good it will do , I felt like all I did was waste my time and my nervous but I for sure hope I was heard. I have not gone there for a while after that cause after you have been treated bad you just don’t want to go.
I can provide a ton of examples about being treated rude in a store. My dad was purchasing some cold cuts in a Russian store in Brooklyn and while he is standing online and waiting patiently the sales woman is chatting up the storm with her friend and not paying a attention to him. So he politely asked if he can get some service and after she had given him the stuff he wanted instead of saying thank you she said “I hope you choke on it”
I would like to post some tips on how to handle these rude people and hopefully it will help someone when they are not being treated the right way.
I am currently in carrier transition stage. As part of my carrier change I am required to get a certification. When my RE Investment Analysis class started I freaked out, I graduated college six years ago and needed some adjustment. However, I quickly realized that all the formulas professor was going through in class were remotely familiar to me. By the end of the class my faint memory of Algebra was back and functioning to its capacity. I even thought to my self that if my son will ever say “when in the world would I ever use Algebra?”, I would answer “RE Investment Analysis”.
My husband and I always fight over this topic, he is a historian by nature and I’m more about logic and math. He thinks that it is more important to know history and geography, which I agree to be very important topics. But math in my opinion is more then that, Math is a way of thinking. Understanding Math is not about learning facts or remembering dates it’s about understanding how things work and why.
I’m very thankful that my parents spend the time on helping me develop my math skills. I believe that thanks to math I’m a much better analyzer of not only math but life situations and problems in general. Which is why I think math is an important topic to teach your kid and not dismiss it as “a boy’s thing”.
I may not know the capital of Madagascar (Antananarivo thank you Wikipedia) but I am able to manage any size of business venture.
So check out the article and add your response to what you think about Math.
I’m not a believer of spanking. I use yelling as the form of conveyance. My 2 year old started responding to my yelling by making a lot of yelling of his own (and he’s a lot louder then I am). This is when I realized that I might need to change my ways. After all how can I ask my two year old to stop yelling, or how can I punish him for yelling when I do the exact same thing? So I did some research and noticed that I’m not the only one with the problem. Check out the article at http://blogs.babycenter.com/momformation/2009/06/06/parenting-without-yelling-can-you-do-it/ After reading this I decided to join the three month “Stop Yelling” pledge at http://www.safechildren.org/. I will let you know how I’ll do in the process.
Title: Swan Lake Ballet Workshop with American Ballet Theatre Location: Great Hill (Enter the Park at 106th Street and Central Park West) Link out: Click here Description: FREE! ALL AGES! Start Time: 11:00 Date: 2009-06-20 End Time: 13:00
If you’ve had the pleasure to stroll by the Harlem Meer lately, you probably enjoyed a scenic view that was hard to imagine twenty years ago when the land lay in deterioration. Since the Central Park Conservancy’s efforts to restore this forgotten landscape began in 1993 with the introduction of native plant and fish species, however, the now-flourishing habitat has attracted many new species of wildlife including two beautiful white swans.
In this special ballet workshop, the Conservancy welcomes teaching artists from American Ballet Theatre who will share with us the beauty of waterfowl through the magic of dance in one of the world’s most beloved ballets, Swan Lake.
One of my latest finds was . KidZui is a browser specifically designed for kids. Instead of working as a filer and preventing kids from going to restricted sites, it is designed to be the one and only application that the kids will interact through. The User Interface is great, very kids friends. Every page is hand picked by KidZui and verified to be Child Safe. This is really a Closed System browser.
Downloading the application from http://www.kidzui.com/downloading is straight forward. I had to install the application, and register myself as a parent. My KidZui account allows full monitoring of what my son views through the program. It will also send me a daily activity report with screenshots of the sites that he visited.
My son was able to pick and character, not only give him the name, but also select what the character would look like. The browser looks excellent. Very interactive, colorful, easy to navigate. KidZui folks did a truly remarkable job. I’ve put some screenshots of the UI below.
My son loves the browser. He can get around to all his favorite sites by himself. The search bar on top allows to quickly look through all available content.
We still try to limit the amount of time my kids spend at the TV and the computer. But while he’s on it, he is totally loving it.
