Markham Nature Area in Concord

Markham Nature Area in Concord

The Markham Nature Area is a hidden little treasure. It's one of those places we stumbled upon by semi-accident and was amazed that we had not known about it before. Plus it's free.

There are three distinct areas or features of the Markham Nature Area:

The Tree Walk – this is an easy dirt walking trail. Along the path are various trees, many of which are marked with numbers. At the beginning of the trail you can pick up a map that will give you the name of each numbered tree.

I was surprised how much my kids liked the tree walk. They loved carrying the map, finding the tree numbers, and looking up the type of tree from their map. Honestly, I think if I took them back today, they wouldn't be able to remember a single tree name, but they still had fun. Plus, my preschooler had been confused about reading two-digit numbers; she tended to read them backward. By the end of the Tree Walk, she was an expert in reading two digit numbers because she wanted to be in charge of the map so much.

The International Garden – This is a shorter walking trail that passes through a garden that has been planted with plants from around the world, and arranged by region. The international areas include: Australia, Asia, South America, Africa, California, the Eastern U.S., the Mediterranean, and Europe.

My kids were less excited about this part of Markham Nature Area than the Tree Walk, but there were enough strange and interesting plants to hold their interest for a quick walk though. I liked that each plant had a little plaque with its name on it.

The Nursery – While a visit to the Markham Nature Area is free, they still need to pay for maintenance and other expenses. One way they do this is through plant sales at the plant nursery. The Nursery is open on Tuesdays from 9:00 to noon. They are also open on some Saturdays, but their Saturday sales appear to be done for the rest of 2012. If you'd like to know when the next Saturday plant sale will be you can visit their website here. 

Be Thankful – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Be Thankful – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Some people like to keep a gratitude journal for the month of November. In it they write a short entry each day about something they are grateful for. Some keep the practice beyond Thanksgiving month, as it is shown to improve your stress level and mood.

It can also be a fun activity to do as a family. Well, maybe more 'uplifting', than 'fun'. The journal can easily be adapted for any age. Teens and adults, and even older children can just keep a normal journal, or use filler paper. For my younger kids I like those journals that have the bottom half of the page lined for writing and the top half blank for drawing. Even younger pre-writing children can draw pictures for their gratitude journal.

Another nice variation is for the kids to draw a 'Thankful Tree' and each day they write on a leaf something they're thankful for and add it to their tree. We did this on drawing paper, but I suppose you could even get a small tree, or branch and add a ribbon to the thankful leaves and hang them on. The whole family could even share a tree this way. 

Websites for Learning to Read

Websites for Learning to Read

When you’d like a change of pace from regular books for your little beginning reader, there are some very good websites out there for teaching early reading and phonics. There are probably many more than I will list here, but these are the ones we have used and enjoyed.

Starfall.com – I list this one first because it has y far been the favorite of both of my kids when they were learning to read. It has a few sections, beginning with learning letters and letter sounds, then beginning phonics, and on to more advanced early reading stories. AS the child tries to read a story, if there is a word they are stuck on they can click on it and the site will sound the word out for them. There are also worksheets that can be printed out to go along with the online stories. In addition to the stories, there are a few games and videos that teach letter sounds or other reading rules.

Reading Eggs – This is a subscription site, and we have not used it very much. I signed my youngest up for the free trial, and she said she liked it a lot, but whenever we decided to do some reading on the computer, she would always ask for starfall. That may be mostly out of habit; however since that’s what she started with. They offer several levels of reading instruction as well, so you can personalize it to your child’s needs. On many of the parenting and homeschooling groups I follow, there are many families who rave about Reading Eggs, and since they offer the free trial, it is at least worth checking out.

While preschool television associated websites like PBSkids.org, and NickJr.com, do have some educational games and content, I haven’t found them very focused on learning to read. They can be fun for other things.

If your family enjoys a learning to read website that I haven’t mentioned, please leave a comment and tell us about it. I’m sure there are many other great websites out there that help kids learn to read that we haven’t tried yet.

If you'd like information about a good ole paper book for helping kids learn to read, check out my earlier review of Alpha-Phonics.

North Bay Athletic Association – Gymnastics Lessons in Vallejo

North Bay Athletic Association – Gymnastics Lessons in Vallejo

It has been many years since my kids took gymnastics classes at North Bay Athletic Association, but they still remember it fondly. They offer a variety of ages and levels of classes, and options about how many classes a week you would like to take. There is also a small sibling discount. When we attended, we didn’t have any difficulty with availability of the times and days we wanted, and the classes we a nice size so that each child could get a good amount of individual help.

Because North Bay Athletic Association is a non-profit, their classes were less expensive than some other similar gymnastics studios, but I wouldn’t call their prices dirt cheap. For the high quality of instruction we received, however, I do feel it was an extremely good value.

There are also more advanced programs for kids who want to take gymnastics to a more serious level, or perhaps start toward competition. The instructors watch for kids who may be capable of more, and will invite these families into the advanced programs if they are interested.

While our family is not athletically gifted, my kids ha d a great time. In fact, I think they had so much fun with a handful of the activities that they almost didn’t notice that they don’t really like gymnastics that much. When we left, they missed their instructors the most.

While I’ve had friends tell me that they have had great, and awful instructors at North Bay Athletic Association, all the ones we had, and we had about three and a handful of substitutes, were all wonderful. Like most classes, there is probably a personality fit that needs to be found between instructor and student. As I mentioned before, though, since they have so many class offerings, it isn’t hard to move to a different time or day if you want a different instructor. 

Leaf Rubbings – Fun Stuff to do Anywhere

While we may not get the dramatic seasonal changes here in the Bay Area that much of the rest of the country experiences, I think it is still fun to stop and notice the seasons, the California way.

We still get a nice and beautiful fall here, complete with leaves on the ground. Take a short walk and let the kids pick up a few of their favorites. Leaf rubbings are simple, and fun. When you get home, all you need to do is lay the leaves on a table, with the more-textured side of the leaf facing up. Place a piece of white paper on top, and with the side of a crayon, rub back and forth over the leaf until its impression shows up on the paper.

For very young children, making the rubbing is probably enough. If your kids are older, or you want to add a little more learning to your leaf rubbing project, you can use a magnifying glass to examine and observe your leaves. Group them into leaves that share traits that the child observes, then pick a different feature, and sort them again. For instance they might sort by color the first time, then by simple vs. compound leaves the next time, or by bumpy vs smooth leaf edges, and so on.

To take it even further, here are a few books about leaves that you and you children may enjoy:

Also, if you have some Halloween candy left over that you don't care for (we all get some less exciting candies in our bag every year), don't throw it away. Save it in a ziplock baggie, and I will have a fun craft in a few weeks to use it in. The more colorful the candy, the better. 

Movie Review: Wreck It Ralph

Movie Review: Wreck It Ralph

Parents who grew up in the Pac-Man, Q-Bert arcade age will enjoy this movie as much as their children will. The games that provide the central settings for the movie: a first person shooter with vicious destructive bugs, a candyland racing game, and Fix-it Felix Jr. – Wreck It Ralph's own game, are all fictional games (so far). Yet, the old classics make lots of amusing cameo appearances in the surge protector that serves as a passageway for the characters from one game to another.

There are good messages about friendship and being true to yourself, while also stretching to do more then you thought you could. What follows includes some spoilers for content to help parents judge if the movie would be a good fir for their own kids and family.

Overall, while there are scary moments, and sad moments, they felt milder than many kid movies. My kids said they shed a few tears.

Violence: The first person shooter game, and the character that comes out of that game use lots of over the top firepower. All the shooting is directed solely at the enemy giant bugs. Ralph causes lots of damage to objects and buildings, and occasionally uses his strength on the bugs, but there is no other violence toward other people. (People in the video game sense which is very diverse.)

Romance: Fix it Felix is quickly enamored with the character from the shooting game and makes frequent innocent romantic remarks to her.  They also kiss a few times.

Language: Ralph and the Candy racing girl exchange a lot of personal insults along the lines of ‘stinking breath’, ‘stupid head’, and so forth. As their friendship progresses, these are clearly used as terms of affection, but they are frequent. They also have a discussion of “Duty’ as a pun on ‘doody’, ie: poop.

Drugs/Alcohol: A character makes himself a martini. I didn’t notice any other references.

Book review: Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire!

Book review: Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire!

Fancy Nancy was my own wake-up call about not judging a book by its cover. I avoided these books for my girls because I assumed they were about being pretty and having the right clothes, and things that I didn’t want my girls to get caught up in.

One day, my youngest found “Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire” at the library and asked to check it out. I do my very best to let them pick out whatever interests them at the library, so I let her. Naturally, then she needed me to read it to her. I was happily surprised by the story.

It turns out that Fancy Nancy like fanciness in all aspects of her life. Yes, her clothing and appearance is one aspect of her fanciness, it is also treated in the book as somewhat of a given, and not discussed. I suppose the illustrations do that part. She also loves fancy words, and this it turns out is the theme of this book. Fancy Nancy is trying to write a poem, and read other poems in her quest to write a great fancy poem. She learns new fancy words along the way, and their meanings. It reminded me more than a little bit of the “Martha Speaks” book and television series in that way.

More importantly, my daughter loved it, and wanted to talk about some of the words she learned. So it has been a lesson to me. My original rule to myself – to not judge what books my children pick out to read – has served us both well again. And making assumptions about a book I haven’t read or bothered to learn anything about almost cost us a wonderful read, and vocabulary building experience. I don’t know if all the Fancy Nancy books follow this same theme, but I do know that I will no longer be hesitant to check out more to read with my daughter and find out.