Every year, I have the urge to be crafty and decorate the gifts I give with beautiful, homemade accents. Every year, I put it off until the last minute and end up writing “To Junior, From Mom” on the packages with a Sharpie. This year will be different! Joy Williams- knitter (check out her stuff on etsy here), author of Nature Crafts, and former art teacher- sent me this quick craft idea to make gifts shine this Christmas. It’s so easy, even I can do it! And as a bonus, it uses some items that might otherwise end up in the landfill.  Read the rest of the story...

It is not uncommon for my daughter to come out of her room in the morning with an outfit that will make us gasp. Maybe it’s leggings, a tiered skirt, shirt and 5 necklaces all in various, uncoordinated colors, or maybe it’s a sundress paired with fleece pants and a long sleeved shirt (to combat the cold). She’s creative when it comes to her fashion, that’s for sure! Now there is a website that may be for her and girls with similar, uh, gifts. We’ve played with websites that let us pick an outfit for a character (human or pony), but Fashion Playtes lets girls design clothes and purchase their creations.  Read the rest of the story...

The days are shorter, the bad weather is coming and the children are stir crazy- what’s a parent to do? My six year old daughter frequently keeps herself busy writing and illustrating books on construction paper, so I was thrilled to find out about a website called Storybird. Storybird is a unique site filled with artwork of all kinds- funny animals, princesses, monsters, and many others. Some of the pictures are silly, others are breathtaking- they certainly have a talented pool of artists! (I’ve looked at a lot of the art, and I haven’t come across any picture unsuitable for my kids.) Using the artwork, children (and adults) can write stories of any length which are available to view online (but should be available to print in the future). Here’s the description from Storybird:  Read the rest of the story...

This week, November 15-21, is Geography Awareness Week. In one way or another, geography touches all of our lives on just about a daily basis. Thanks to incredible technical advances, we now have live maps and GPS on our phones, in our cars…even in some of our video games. But even with all of the geography surrounding us, sometimes it’s tough to think of a simple, easy way to introduce our children to maps and geography. I am a geographer at heart (I work in the Geographic Information Systems industry) and I thought for a while about an easy, non-digital, hands on way to get kids interested in maps and geography. The idea: Mapping Your Mail.

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