Look around outside. What do you see? A bird? A flower? A sunset? A tree? Each one would make a great haiku — for you! The Japanese haiku, one of the oldest forms of poetry, teaches us much about the art and craft of poem-making. The entire poem consists of only three short lines, […]
Have you ever read a poem ABOUT poetry? Have you ever written one? All it takes is a metaphor (comparison) and your imagination! Here are some poems with metaphors that compare poems to lots of different things. What’s a Poem? A whisper, A shout, Thoughts turned Inside out. A […]
Two separate articles came through my inbox during the past few days. The first was the announcement of a new piece of technology called Aristotle which supposedly can understand the speech of very young children, allowing it to answer their questions and play simple games. The device will even read the child a bedtime stories, […]
Last year around this time, I posted a blog about holiday shopping, or more accurately, holiday overspending. In it, I repeated some good advice that I got and still abide by: When it comes to gifts, try the rule of four for your kids: one gift they want, one gift they need, one gift […]
The Story Behind the Origami Originally, the folks at the Bronx Zoo set out to collect 35,000 elephants representing the heartbreaking number of 35,000 elephants (96 per day) killed each year for their ivory tusks. The overall goal of the initiative is to help gain a wider awareness of the elephant ivory trafficking crisis […]
Where I live, the ground this time of year is a mosaic of gold, red, brown, burgundy, and orange. So many pretty fall colors, so many fun leaf shapes. I wish I could keep autumn forever. Viola! My wish is my command! This was my favorite craft when I was a kid, and […]
Halloween season is in full swing and ghosts, witches, zombies, monsters, and other scary creatures are everywhere. It seems like no matter where you go you are bound to see spooky decorations adorning store windows and private houses, grotesque costumes on display, and scary stories in the “featured” section of libraries and bookstores. Kids are […]
Every time I think about dinosaurs I feel the need to reread one of my daughter’s favorite books: Oh My Oh My Oh DINOSAURS! by children’s writer and artist extraordinaire Sandra Boynton. With simple pictures and just a few words of text, Boynton has captured exactly what makes dinosaurs so interesting to kids: they’re big, […]
It’s not always easy to get outside with your kids. Hot weather, cold weather, bugs, homework, activities, screen time, travel time, work time…there are a myriad of obstacles to really getting out there and introducing children to the wonders and beauty of the natural world. Personally, I’ve found that sometimes just the thought of how […]
by Read Aloud Dad We must clear up something from the very start. Some kids will never love to read and it is useless to try to force them to love it. We may try to plead with them, we may try to coax them, we can even threaten to starve them […]