I often search the web for great websites for my kids. For some subjects (like math), I particularly like finding sites that make learning fun (even for tweens).
I was thinking that there might be some readers who don’t have the time to go searching for sites…so, here are a few links I like. These are mainly for math:
Here is a well-known site called FunBrain-Math, more commonly referred to as Math Baseball. Basically, your kids will do many simple skill exercises that earn them a “homerun”. Don’t expect great, engaging graphics, though. Your kids will undoubtedly like this site much more for its well known character, Greg Heffley, and his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” His site can be found on the main FunBrain Home Page (just click on the “Web Books + Comics” button) or here and for his blog click here.
If you haven’t heard about this yet, and you have a fourth grader (or older), you will most likely hear about it soon.
The next site is called simply, CoolMath. Or you can go right to the section just for kids, called CoolMath4Kids.
If you’d rather have some without all the bells and whistles (i.e., vivid colors and eye catching buttons) of CoolMath4Kids, but with great research tools, try these — first, this one has a nice drop down menu called, “Quick! I need help with:” (which is exactly what I call it when I bookmark it). On that site, you can search within all sorts of math topics from Quadratic Equations to Word Problems with Ages.
And this site looks really boring, but has some fun tools.
For something completely different, this one is all games!
I’ve always loved math, so I especially hope this helps kids who don’t yet (and may never!) see the magic of math or those who just dread doing their math homework.
My absolute favorite event at my kids’ schools is the annual Book Fair. It’s so popular at DS’s school, that I had to wait a few years before the position of co-chair opened up (and even now I’m considered the “3rd co-chair”). Anyway, the point is that I love it and everything about it. As the merchandising point person, I spend the year before the fair scoping out children’s books online and in bookstores to get a sense of what’s good and what’s probably going to be popular. Then I search online for summer reading lists to find out what all the area schools are reading. I also ask my kids and their friends about their favorite books and I keep mental notes. I’m just plain passionate about (okay, maybe obsessed with) books (particularly children’s books).
Fast forward to the Friday before the fair. A team of volunteers arrives to set up this enormous fair. Mike, the guy who delivers the 20 bookcases and gazillion boxes of books tells us it’s one of the biggest fairs he and his team have ever handled. “Wow, uh, gee, thanks…” we respond as we look at the daunting task before us. After a few handshakes and a “Thanks so much, Mike!” we decide, okay, we can do this, because, after all my co-chairs and I are all really passionate about books. Right. Okay. Here we go…
I love The Office starring Steve Carell. It’s an NBC series about everyday life in an office in smalltown USA (actually Scranton, PA) but it has something in common with The Sopranos. Yes, really. Part of the magic of The Sopranos was that the lead character, Tony Soprano, in many ways represented any-man USA. He could have been the head of a major corporation or a power partner in a law firm. I know he wasn’t…I mean he was the head of a family which happened to be involved in organized crime. But the point is that the series creator, David Chase, humanized Tony. It’s kind of the opposite of war mentality - soldiers are taught to dehumanize the enemy to make the vicious acts of war more tolerable. Chase did the opposite, he humanized a vicious criminal to somehow make him endearing.
Ricky Gervais is the genius behind The Office. He created the original (English/UK) version and still has a big role in the American version. In my opinion, he works the same kind of magic with the character of Michael Scott.
Not that he humanizes a criminal, but rather, I think the workings of his office are often analogous to the workings of a family. Yes, I know, that would make the mom (in most families) Michael, the manager of the office. And that’s not a good thing. He’s an example of everything you don’t want in a manager.
So, I’m not saying that I want to be like him or that I parent the way he manages. Rather, he experiences situations to which I really can relate. Take, for example, the episode where he wants to order pizza for the office members. They’re excited for this relatively rare delight and seem happy about it and eager for its arrival until one of the members tries to clarify precisely which kind of pizza they should be expecting — pizza from Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe or Pizza by Alfredo. They all love Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe but they all hate Pizza by Alfredo. So, when Michael says he ordered from Pizza by Alfredo, they all groan.
Okay, stop there!
How many moms can honestly say they haven’t experienced something similar to that little situation? A group of kids are in your house at dinnertime and you say you ordered pizza. They all say, “Great!” Then one of your kids says, “Where did you order it from? Pizza Hut or Dominos?” (or whatever pizza places you have where you live) You answer one or the other and the kids all say, “Awww. That’s not the good kind of pizza. We like [the other one] way more!”
Okay, now back to the episode of The Office. Michael drops his head and simply says, “Harumpf. Okay…” Then figures out what to do next. He’s the doormat I’ve been too many times in my short career as a mom.
But the most recent episode, Money, was different. Different from any I can remember (and I think I’ve seen them all). It struck me as…well…sad. It’s a comedy, right? But so many things happened that made members of my family look at each other and say, “Aww…” For example, the office geek, Dwight, is distraught over a recent breakup and finds himself wailing in a stairwell. Office manager, Michael, has serious financial problems, tries to take on a second job but fails miserably, then tries (and fails) to run away on a freight train. Just when it’s looking its bleakest, the episode turns the corner with touching moments of caring and support.
Isn’t that the way many, many families operate? When times are really tough, our family members or friends are there to emotionally support us. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it ’til I die…this life is all about love. It’s not about the snazzy cars or the bling or the handbag that costs thousands of dollars. It’s not about bossing people around or pushing your kids to be the best on the sports team or the smartest in the class.
No matter whether you’re the head of a crime family, an office manager or a mom, when you’re 85 (God willing) and you’re sitting in a rocking chair somewhere (I really hope I have a cool rocking chair when I’m 85) and someone asks you if you have any regrets, I sure hope you’re able to answer with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye, “Oh, no. I’ve really enjoyed my life.” If you take a moment right now, right this very minute, to just imagine what that would be like…what do you hear yourself saying?? If the answer is yes (with a lengthy list of regrets), I would compassionately suggest that you get to work on ridding yourself of those regrets…whatever they may be. If it’s “I wish I would have gone sky diving. I always wanted to go skydiving.” Then, heck do a little research and figure out how you could make that happen. If it’s “I wish I would have told my kids I loved them more.” Then, well, you know what to do. Whatever it is, take care of it today. It’s worth it. You’ll be happy you did.
As for me, I’m going to stop taking myself so darn seriously and work on letting go. And if Michael reminds me of myself in any way, I won’t get defensive, I’ll just smile.
Have you heard John Mayer play the guitar? Have you been lucky enough to attend one of his concerts so that you could actually see him play the guitar? Ahhh, grace in motion.
Before going to his concert this summer, I listened to his music, but didn’t truly appreciate it. I mean, it was nice to have playing in the background, nice to sing along with occasionally, but didn’t exactly make me sit down and breathe it in, you know what I mean?
Then I saw him perform live.
Oh my goodness…
I really don’t know how to describe the experience. I’ve tried to explain it to friends but I just couldn’t capture my feelings in words. When I told the moms in my book club about it, they looked at me like I was slightly nuts, asked me whether I was going through a midlife crisis then concluded I must have a crush on the guy!
No, no, no. I’m a happily married woman. It’s nothing like that. Not at all. It’s more like a deep appreciation for great talent. I had the same kind of feeling when I saw Michael Jordan moving (well, flying) around the basketball court. Or even when I watch Roger Federer play tennis. Or (yes, really) when I watch my husband cook or paint portraits. It’s the creative artistry that I admire and fawn over. That’s what makes my heart skip a beat. It’s grace in motion. God given talent at work right before my very eyes.
In the case of John Mayer, his music is full of passion. His vocals are just so pleasing to hear. They fall gently on my ears at first and then drift deeper in. You know what I mean?
Here’s an example. I listened to his song, Gravity, from his Continuum album (do they still refer to them as “albums”?) and thought it was okay. Fine song. Then I saw him perform it and…oh…my…goodness…back to that part where I simply can’t describe the experience.
If you want a sample, click on the “play” button below. That song is called “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” about the agony of a doomed relationship. Honestly, doesn’t sound as good on the video as it does in person (or even on the Continuum CD).
He’s an artist. He plays guitar with so much talent, passion, and skill. He makes that guitar sing. No, he makes it speak to you. Oh, these words just don’t do it justice.
Just listen to the song Gravity. It’s a ballad that starts out slowly, in a fabulous, bluesy way. Some people might give up there. But…stay with it…stay with it. And listen.
Interpretation of all art is necessarily subjective, right? To me, Gravity is about negativity, excess and greed. Specifically, it’s about negative people trying to drag you down into their pessimistic, dark world. Later in the song he makes a plea to keep him “where the light is” (i.e., to stay positive, healthy and grounded and out of their muck (which they often characterize as ‘reality’ even though it is just not…not…my reality!)).
You might interpret the song in a completely different way, but for me, it’s an uplifting song that picks me up, helps me lift my head again whenever I’m feeling low–whenever I’ve been subjected to people being rude, snotty, whiny or unreasonably negative.
Take this morning, for example. I checked my email before starting my daily running-around-town chaos and found a formally worded, snotty, harsh message from some parent saying she never got our check for our order of cheap, goofy gift wrap that the school pushes on us every year. I put the check (in an envelope) in my daughter’s backpack (and told her it was there) nearly three weeks ago. Okay, so she was irresponsible and still hasn’t turned in the envelope. Acknowledged. She should have turned it in. Agreed. So send me a simple e-mail saying, “Hey we still don’t have that check.” Instead, Miss Serious sends me an e-mail threatening to withhold the order until payment is received, blah, blah, blah. Are you kidding me? This fundraiser is like a crumb on my floor. Fine, keep the two or three stupid pieces of junk that you practically coerced me to order. I could care less. I don’t even want them anyway. Grrrrr. She needs to read that “Power of Kindness” book I posted about (earlier this month). Heck, I think at this point, I need to re-read it…or turn up the John Mayer music. Breathe, girly, breathe….like our measly little order is going to hold up the closing of your accounting books. I don’t buy it. Or if it is, then please, just cancel it. I don’t want to support the program anymore anyway!
It’s like customer service at some big box store. If they treat me harshly and/or disrespectfully, I don’t go to that store. Why the heck should I patronize a store that treats its customers poorly? I won’t. That’s what competition is all about, isn’t it? Vote with your feet.
Oh, gosh, I’m way off on a tangent I certainly didn’t intend to explore.
The point is that, after refraining from sending back a nasty email, I went off and did my errands while listening to John Mayer’s music and I felt much better (and, as I said earlier, I’ll be cranking it up again soon). I hope you take a moment to listen to it. If you find it’s just not for you, then I hope you have some other music that you can play when you’re feeling blue. Good music has a way of speaking to our souls. Today, instead of focusing on that unreasonably negative email, I’m choosing to focus on Mayer’s music and to feel grateful that he’s in this world making music that makes my heart sing.
A week ago, I purchased Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Steps to Get Your Kids to Eat Good Food.” Hopeful and eager, I quickly got to work and pureed six types of vegetables and some fruit (using two pots of boiling water), produced over a dozen little baggies of purees, and prepared four different recipes.
After eating Turkey Chili (with carrot and red pepper puree), Tortilla Cigars (with yellow squash and carrot purees), Banana Bread (with cauliflower and banana purees) and Scrambled Eggs (with cauliflower puree), my family announced, “Sorry, but this stuff is honestly awful.” Rats! I was really looking forward to making Gingerbread Spice Cake (with broccoli and carrot puree).
Seriously (or truthfully), I wanted to like this food. Of course, I wanted my kids to like it, too. It seemed like such a great idea! Even Oprah’s wiz doc, Dr. Mehmet Oz, supported it and thought Ms. Seinfeld was on to something. And heck, we are loyal “Seinfeld” fans (of her husband’s old television series on DVD).
But, this whole “pureed vegetables snuck in kid-friendly food” thing? For our family, it’s a total bust. Sorry, Jessica (and Jerry).
Okay, I confess that I didn’t take that first suggested (perhaps most important) step – deceive the kids. In fact, I actually described the concept of vegetable purees being put into kid-friendly food and even disclosed at the outset which veggies I was putting into the food — even showed the kids the recipes (!). Then, when my son heard that I intended to actually make several of the recipes, he looked hurt (and a bit irritated) and asked, “Why would you do that to vegetables? Why would you do that to us?” He didn’t like the idea of moms deceiving their kids. Then when he tried a few of the dishes, he sounded like a food critic from the New York Times (or maybe just a son who felt angry at the notion of parents trying to pull a fast one on their kids). “Mom,” he said emphatically, “I’d much rather have real carrots in this Turkey Chili than this orange…goop you put in it.” Then he told me he would rather eat brussels sprouts than anything I made using the recipes from the cookbook.
Sigh.
Back to the drawing board.
Or maybe to the movies. Jerry’s “Bee Movie” comes out soon…
Today is Blog Action Day. One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.
Watch this if you’re interested:
It’s a chance to express yourself on environmental issues and how ignorance (and/or denial) of them significantly impacts the world.
What first came to mind for me were newspaper articles I read recently about Al Gore’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — the same year that President Bush is polling at embarrassingly low numbers (primarily based on his botched war). So…War and Peace. Or Peace (and War). I think it’s wonderful that Mr. Gore earned recognition for decades of work. It’s even better that his awards have brought much needed attention to the issue. It has worked for our family. I mean, I am really just starting to dig into it to try to get my arms around the issue and provide suppport where possible. Like providing the link in support of Blog Action Day.
Then I started to think about my audience - parents, moms, kids. And I talked to my kids about what they know about the state of our environment. They’re taught about it in school (yay!) but there’s always more to learn. We’ve changed lightbulbs in our home (to compact fluorescent lightbulbs or CFLs), replaced our water heater and other appliances with high efficiency models, we recycle everything that can be recycled and we’ve planted many, many trees.
But those things probably won’t help my readers in their lives, so I decided to highlight some books that you can buy (or get, if available, from your local library) for your kids.
What can you do right now? Well, if you’re a blogger, click on the link and participate! Or, if you’re a reader and not a blogger, click on the link and read some of the tens of thousands of posts that were posted today. Give our kids and their children (and all of your descendants) hope for the future of our planet.
You might want to preview the video below when no kids are around. My blog is generally family friendly, so I wouldn’t normally post something like this, but I was so impressed by the video, I wanted to share it. I love pretty things and beauty as much as the next person, but I think marketing types are exploiting women’s desires to be attractive. I wish we could be more accepting and less judgmental. I wish we could celebrate aging gracefully and be beautiful by eating healthy food and engaging in whatever forms of exercise we enjoy (e.g., playing tennis, walking the dog, taking long walks with loved ones, etc.). Instead, we’re bombarded with falsified images which we’re supposed to strive to emulate.
As always, it’s up to you whether or not you click “play.”
Fairly intense and dramatic, but really, what are some of these companies doing to our girls? Heck, to us?!
Okay, this might sound crazy (or like something that you’d expect on an old “Seinfeld” episode), but I was so excited to try the recipes in Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious” that I stopped at the store after taking the kids to school and purchased a slew of vegetables. I didn’t have the book with me and I didn’t have a detailed list of ingredients for selected recipes. I thought I’d be okay, though, because fairly early in the cookbook (pp. 28-29) Seinfeld provides a chart of all the vegetables used in the book with instructions on how to steam and puree them (by the way, when you puree the squash or the red pepper, be sure to dry the processor or the purees will be a bit runny). I looked at those pages last night and watched her video on the Oprah website (if you go to that link, just click on “Go in the Seinfeld home” to see the video), so I thought I could remember (generally) which veggies to buy. Well, I knew I already had six zucchini and a bunch of carrots, but I bought more carrots as well as cauliflower, red pepper, spinach, yellow squash and avocados.
I came home and went into pureeing overdrive. I started boiling two pots of water (one slightly later than the other so I could stagger the steaming/pureeing actions), turned on my favorite music and got to work. Before long, I had little baggies of all the above mentioned veggies (with an overabundance of zucchini). Well, as I was deciding whether to put the bags in the freezer or the fridge, I (finally!) realized I needed to figure out which recipes I would make first. I flipped through the book looking for a recipe with “zucchini puree” in the list of ingredients. When I was on page 147 I started to worry just a little. Eventually I discovered that only one of the recipes calls for the zucchini puree — the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I guess I’m going to be giving cookies to everyone I see (my kids aren’t fans of oatmeal). Well, that’s not such a bad thing…
A bit deflated at that point, I thought, “Okay, I’m eager to get veggies into my veggie-deficient kids, but I need some kind of tool to cross reference the purees with the recipes.” Well, I love making charts, so I quickly put together a handy dandy little tool. This way, if I happen to end up with a bushel of carrots, I’ll know my options. Here it is:
By the way, some of the recipes use two purees, so I suggest that you check the recipes before shopping — no matter how eager you are to make them!
Also, if you’re interested in finding out more about Jessica and her book, I recommend visiting her website or the Oprah website.
Images from Oprah’s website (and my word processing software).
Everyone knows that a big part of being a mom is feeding the kids. When you’re talking about little kids, it’s often a big challenge. It’s a struggle to do it well (i.e., make sure they eat enough veggies and fruit, not much junk, etc). How many kids do you know love vegetables and ask for them, especially at this (Halloween) time of year when all that’s on their minds is CANDY?
So, of course I was intrigued when I heard about a cookbook that claims to provide recipes for great tasting food filled with hidden veggies. The idea is that you puree all sorts of fruits and vegetables so that, when you add them to your recipes, you retain the nutrients but disguise their appearance. In other words, you make pancakes with sweet potato puree or scrambled eggs with pureed cauliflower (which is a great example of a vegetable that my kids won’t let come near their mouths!). Deceptive? Yes, if you don’t tell your kids what’s inside.
Who better to write this deceptive cookbook than a Seinfeld? When my family and I first read about this book we looked at each other and said, “That’s SO Seinfeld!” (Yes, I admit that I let my kids watch certain episodes of our DVD collection of “Seinfeld” and they’ve watched enough to know the humor). Remember the frozen yogurt episode? Elaine, Jerry & the guys discover unbelievably tasty frozen yogurt and can’t believe that it’s supposed to be better for you than ice cream. Then they notice it’s not as healthy as they were led to believe. Well, now Jerry has the real thing! The food in this cookbook is tasty and healthy!
Jerry’s wife, Jessica Seinfeld, calls the book, “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food” and makes no attempt to apologize for her sneaky methods. Her sketched likeness on the cover of the cookbook winks at you knowingly. I suppose if her kids didn’t know about the stealth veggie/fruit inclusion before the book was published, they most likely know now.
I bought the book but haven’t yet made any of the recipes. Maybe it’s because my kids are older than Mrs. Seinfeld’s, but I felt compelled to tell them all about the hidden-veggies-in-the-food concept. I’m not sure whether that will doom the recipes, but I’d rather have them play along with me and be pleasantly aware of the versatility of food.
It was the kind of moment when you’re looking for one book, but another just seems to pop out at you, urging you to pick it up. Don’t you love when that happens? Well, I do. And I did (pick it up).
It’s been serving as a gentle reminder to keep my head up and not let the crabby, negative people get me down.
Ferrucci describes various facets of kindness: honesty, warmth, forgiveness, contact, sense of belonging, trust, mindfulness, empathy, humility, patience, generosity, respect, flexibility, memory, loyalty, gratitude, service and joy.
I haven’t finished it yet, but I already love it.
I think about how much more pleasant our communities could be if we all focused more on being kind. Not just to strangers in the supermarket, but to our kids, spouses, families, pets, fellow bloggers and especially to people with whom we disagree.
“john mayer”
