Have you ever taken a look at New Moon Magazine? If you are the mother of daughters, especially age 8 to 12 (and beyond), this is a magazine worth buying, reading and talking about with the girls in your life.
As a teacher, I am always on the lookout for quality non-fiction for pre-adolescent girls that doesn’t contain articles about How to Flirt, What to Wear, What to Eat, and How to Pout, sandwiched between glossy ads for make-up and clothes picturing air brushed women and girls. So when I came upon New Moon in our school library and paged through it, I saw a beautiful magazine with girl art, articles, book and music reviews and more. Here is a sample of their monthly offerings:
“Go Girls: Girl activists, adventurers, and athletes
Global Village: Girls internationally teach readers about countries and cultures
Women’s Work: Features women in careers girls can aspire to
Herstory: Historical women with fascinating life stories
Fiction: A new story featuring girl characters in every issue
Body Language: Honest, accurate information about our bodies
The Last Word: Inspirational messages from accomplished girls and women
plus Ask a Girl, Dear Luna, book reviews, cartoons, and more! ” Read the rest of this entry »
Only 13 percent of the programming labeled by the networks as “educational” was found to have real educational value. Nearly one in four of these programs was ranked as even “minimally educational.”
The FCC requires at least three hours of educational programming per week for each broadcast station. Fifty-nine percent of stations offered only this minimum, with the programs primarily confined to weekend hours. Only three percent of stations exceeded four hours of “educational” programming per week.
Of these educational programs, nearly a quarter were rated high in content that has physical and/or social aggression.
Educational programming generally falls into three content categories; social-emotional, cognitive-intellectual, and health. Given the current obesity epidemic, it is surprising that only three percent of the programs covered health topics. Given the mix of advertising that is mostly for fast foods, sugared cereals, and snacks, this is not surprising. Just appalling.
How long must your banana be? Well, according to the current EU regulation, anything shorter than 14 cm is unworthy of sale. (I’ll save you all the conversion…that’s 5.5 mushy inches.) Pears are a different story. They must have perfect skin free of all blemishes in order to be deemed good enough for European markets. Okay, what happens to the rejects?
As kids become more aware of the tough environmental issues facing their generation, we increasingly see them speaking about about the problems and often even taking action. Climate change is a hot topic of conversation these days (pun intended) and the more that kids are aware of what it means the higher the chances that they can help salvage the planet for future generations.
Recently, 1Sky and Brighter Planet ran a user generated video contest called Climate Matters, asking people to send in videos that address the problem of climate change. The winning submissions from the Climate Matters video contest will be distributed to all presidential nominees and each member of Congress. The winning video, created by Steven Dempsey features a child’s voice talking about making the difference to today for a better tomorrow. Ask the Children, the video that came in second place was created by Barbara Lucas who asked her niece why we should be concerned about using fossil fuels and was touched by the depth of her awareness and fear. To view Ask the Children click here.
Read more about the winning videos and watch Climate Matters, the video that came in first place.
The Children’s Defense Fund’s Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
Want a free digital magazine subscription? Check out The Read Green Initiative, they are offering a free digital subscription for one year to everyone who signs up at their site. You can get a digital subscription to Parenting (or one of the other magazines they offer) for free. Read the rest of this entry »
I was happy to receive 5 CDs from Stan Slaughter, the Eco-Troubadour. For the last few weeks I have been popping his various CDs in the player, and watching how my kids react (usually wild and uncontained hopping, wiggling and a sideways skip sort of a move that is my 3 year old’s signature move). Let me back up.
Stan Slaughter has been making music about the environment for over 25 years. He’s taken every environmental topic, from composting, hazardous waste, recycling, solid waste and aquatic ecosystems, and turned them into countless songs to teach and inspire. Stan has traveled the country performing his environmental music to over 500,000 students and adults.
Stan’s music is no shrinking violet. He rocks out in many of the tunes, with serious guitar licks, so if you are looking for something light, all acoustic or bluegrass, this may not be it. But anyone who can turn the concept of an aquifer into a song has my respect. Read the rest of this entry »
BBC Scotland is leveraging kids’ pension for codes, clues, missions and 007-style in a fun little interactive for young kids 7-9 called The Environmental Intelligence Unit.
In classic “the world needs your help” secret agent mode, the game puts the child in ‘action-hero’ context to take on traffic, pollution and rubbish aligned with the three R’s of reduce, reuse, recycle.
It’s a pretty basic primer to seed core concepts in sustainability, but definitely age appropriate, incorporating factoids and video clips as kids become environmental agents on a mission to ‘find the missing R.’ (spoiler alert: the teacher’s page will fill you in on what that “R” is!)
There are four island missions (house, clear out, school, beach) and if kids engage in all four to obtain the right code words they can receive a final Eco Certificate. (hmnn…I know this is geared more for ‘reach and teach’ tactics, but I could think of some more creative/green awards that might be a better fit than a printout! So ping me, BBC, the idea hamster here will give you some freebie creative director ideas!) Read the rest of this entry »
I was inspired by Jessica’s banana. The most eco-friendly choices are so simple, aren’t they? Though a picture says a thousand words, Jamie said it best this week in her post on fun activities for young children: ”The first step in becoming more Earth Friendly is to consume less.”
This is why I love Jackie Silberg’s book 500 Five Minute Games. Quick and Easy Activities For 3-6 Year Olds. Silberg’s book is great for preschool teachers, but also for moms and dads who tire easily of young children’s games and toys. Before getting this book I often felt tempted to pick up the phone or put on a movie when my preschooler’s games got repetitive. There’s only so many times in a day you can sincerely answer yes to ”Wanna play hippos?”.
The eco-friendly aspect of Silberg’s book is simple; the activities in it require almost no stuff. Apart from a few experiments that call for simple household items like a bowl or a flashlight, the majority of games and activities in the book require only the world’s most precious resource: children. (Some games require a few kids, but I have been able to adapt most of them to 2 player by either becoming a participant or inviting a stuffed hippo or pony into the circle.) You can also scan each page in a matter of seconds and get the game going before any attention is lost. My daughter’s favourite game from Silberg’s book is called “An Interesting Story” and is from the Language Game section. It goes like this: Read the rest of this entry »
We St Louis bloggers all know Mae Mason, otherwise known as MuthaMae. She’s the mother of a three who not only blogs, but video-blogs (vlogs) and produces her own online show, Word To Your Mutha. Mae’s blog discuss all kinds of parenting and family issues in a lighthearted, humorous way, and in her latest show, she tackles how to instill the value of recycling in her four-year-old and two one-year-olds…when she doesn’t really recycle herself. Best of all, she used Green Options to help her figure it out… Read the rest of this entry »
Like we needed a study to tell us parents this. Still, with 
