Archive for category: Boys

“Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence and what the predicate says – he does!”

Thanks to Tina, via her FB page, for this.

GROSS-ABULARY is very up-front about what it is.

It’s a literacy game that’s gross.

And we all know that kids—okay, especially boys—love gross.

If your kid is “one of those,” then GROSS-ABULARY will be right up his alley.

It’s a game about building gross sentences, using starter concepts like belch, armpit and flu for inspiration.

You take a card with a caption like bacteria and your job is to build a sentence around the word before the three-minute timer runs out.

You’re given a pile of words and word endings (suffixes) to choose from. And your sentence can be as silly, serious, gross or normal as you’d like. The longer the sentence, the better, since you get a point for every word you use.

The winner of each round gets to answer a multiple-choice trivia question on the back of his card:

How many more bacteria are on an office desk than in a toilet, 20 times, 200 times or 400 times? A: 400 times—I think it’s time to clean your desk.

Gross.

If the player answers the question correctly, he wins that card; the player with the most cards wins the game.

My son and I were a bit worried that GROSS-ABULARY would be a bit too gross. But as you play it, you find that the sentences don’t have to be gross–unless you want them to be.

To add to the literacy angle, my son and I read each other’s sentences out after every round. That also added to the surprise factor, since I could shock my kid a bit with some very ridiculous sentences that unfolded for him as he read them out.

So if you’ve got a kid who loves gross more than reading, GROSS-ABULARY is definitely your game. He’ll be so caught up in the gross, he won’t even realize that he’s building his literacy skills.

GROSS-ABULARY (ages 6+, 2-10 players) sells for $24.99 and is available at Chapters/Indigo and Mastermind stores.

Your kid will love this.

You draw a stick figure, and the website brings it to life.

There is a literacy component, because the site takes the stickman through a plotline. You’re given instructions like, “draw a key in my hand” before he can open a locked box.

Kids have to read and understand the instructions, and then figure out how to fulfill them.

(So like life.)

There’s plenty of action to keep kids interested in the story. I won’t spoil it for you, but think dragon, fire, flood… cartoony, though, not scary.

And throughout it all is a very quirky sense of silliness. For instance, at some point the site itself catches on fire and detritus drops on the dragon’s head. Stuff that kids love.

After you’ve finished the scenario – a couple of times, likely – take a look at the gallery. People have done some pretty incredible “stickmen,” like Steve Jobs, Gandolf, anime and other really inventive characters.

Visit www.drawastickman.com.

This is the video that’s recently gone viral. If you (and your kid) haven’t seen it, you must – it’s lovely. One-minute and 52 seconds of delightful, stop-motion, book-adoration.

Visited the bookstore “Type” in Toronto this morning and got the back-story: Apparently a couple of filmmakers (Sean Ohlenkamp for one) have made these kinds of videos before on a smaller scale. They wanted a larger venue, so they approached the owners of Type, who were happy to accommodate. Type let them take over the store for a number of nights from 9 p.m. until the next morning, when all the books – of course – had to be back on the shelves, in order.

They had about 20 volunteers to help them reshelve each night. (The books didn’t go back by themselves, unfortunately.) It took over a year to edit.

The video came out a couple of days ago and it’s really taken off. Gotten coverage throughout North America. Yay for Type – and books! (And my friend Val, who originally sent me the link to the video!)

Terrific Hallowe’en is an easy, fun and speedy online game.

The goal is to find the differences between the two, similar-looking pictures.

You click on each thing that’s different. It might be a missing leaf on a tree, a missing house in the background, or a different-coloured tie.

When you spot the five differences, you get a new pair of images. There are three levels: Easy, Medium and Hard (which you can’t unlock until after you’ve finished Medium).

The game is timed, so you can’t just sit there staring. However, if you do take too long it flashes you a hint – well, it shows you a difference. Not really a hint.

It’s a good way for kids to really look at an image, and think about “same” and “different.” It’s also good for hand-eye co-ordination, since you have to click right on the difference.

Small kids can play it with an adult, by just pointing to the screen with their finger. And the Hard level is perfect for older kids, who won’t be bored.

Here is a great video that teaches what Silent E does. (Spoiler alert: For one thing, it makes a hug huge!)

Thanks to thekidshouldseethis.com, who brought this to my attention via a tweet.
Their website is fantastic – it’s a collection of videos that kids just gotta see.

And if you’re in the mood for something slightly more modern…

This one’s for kids who are already good spellers and who think spelling is fun. (To me it’s a no-brainer, but I have to remember that not everyone reads the dictionary for fun.)

Anyway, that kid will appreciate this great online spelling bee from Oxford. It’s fast and it’s fun – and it’s challenging.

Go to the Oxford Spelling Bee site.

Choose British English or US English. Then choose your level, from Tricky to Fiendish, and then click Start.

Warning – Fiendish will require you to spell words like gymkhana and belligerent, one of which I got wrong (Does the word not look better to you with one l? Look: beligerent. Oh. OK, that looks wrong.)

The website reads the word in a lovely British accent, so make sure your computer sound is turned well up. You can hear the word again if you want before you try to spell it. If you get it wrong, you get an X. If you get it right, you get a checkmark. Each category goes up to 15, and at the end you get your score.

I love that they start with “Tricky” as the lowest level which implies that if you get one wrong in that category, well, it was tricky. (It’s not you, it’s me, Oxford is saying.)

You can work your way through the levels, and you can do a level again to try to get a better score. When you do that, the words change so you can keep playing over and over again.

Now I’m feeling a bit belligerent about my score so I think I’ll go work out in my local gymkhana. Wait – with my horse. (I just looked it up.)

You don’t always need books to help your kid read better.

When my son and I go for a walk, there’s always something weird, funny or unintelligible to read, correct or figure out.

Example. We went on vacation and on the buffet we saw this sign. (Click on the picture for a larger image.) I called my son over and showed it to him – I didn’t say anything. He said, “hey,  that should be Mandarin!” And together, we showed the buffet lady and we all laughed about it.*

It was a great opportunity to get a bit playful with words, while at the same time showing my son the way to approach typos (and the people who make ‘em) - while it can be helpful to point out someone’s typo,  it’s not cool to be judgmental or become some kind of self-appointed ”grammar cop.”

Another time we were playing some miniature golf. As you go around the course, sometimes you have to wait for others to finish their hole. Rather than just wait, I would point to a sign and ask my son to rearrange the letters in the sign to form new words.

OK, it sounds nerdy, but it’s actually a pretty funny game because you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff kids come up with! There are no “rules” to the game – you can use all the letters, or just some of the letters – you can even add some letters if you see a phrase you’d like to create.

The idea is just to take signs that you otherwise might not pay any attention to, and create new meaning from them

The next time you’re out with your kid, even if it’s just walking to school, take a look around you at all the reading possibilities. Every little bit helps.

*If you have a kid like mine, you’ll know immediately why a sign that says ”mandrain” is hilarious. Even the buffet lady thought that one was funny – and then she immediately removed the sign.

Do you have a kid you’re trying to encourage to write more?

Is your kid discouraged because she’s worried that her writing isn’t good enough?

Here’s some great advice from a young author, Maureen Johnson, who is currently working on her 10th novel for teens.

She will tell your kid (in her own inimitable way) that in order to write well, first you need to suck. (3:56 but it goes fast.)

Here’s a link to Maureen’s website.

You’ve gotta love the spirit behind The Kid Should See This.

You’re trolling the Internet (as you do) and you come across a crazy video showing lightning strikes on the CN Tower, and you think “I’ve gotta show this to my kid!”

That’s exactly what TKSST is. A collection of fascinating, insane, edutaining, funny videos that your kid has just gotta see.

What’s on TKSST right now? Let’s see:

• a bug walking across food colouring, showing how its feet slurry the water. (cool);
• luminescent underwater creatures (way-cool);
• an animated, artistic work by a Scottish-Canadian filmmaker (interesting for a certain kind of kid);
• Dizzy Gillespie performing St. Louis Blues on the Muppet Show (groovy);
• a comparison of how big all the planets are (science-y fun, especially when the other planets come out to dwarf our Earth in size);
• a guy flying over the Grand Canyon in a jet-propelled, wearable wing (nature-cool);
• a TED lecture about a robot that flies like a bird (way-cool).

The videos range from less than a minute to five or six minutes. But of course, you can fast-forward and skip to the best parts. The site is co-curated by Rion Nakaya and her three-year-old, Dante.

TKSST parses all the white-noise from the Internet down to just the best stuff that’s going to feed your child’s curiosity in a good way. Gotta love that.

Thanks, Val, for pointing us to this great website. Via swiss-miss.com (where I nabbed this screenshot from since I still don’t know how to do good ones myself).