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| ...committed to instilling an unquenchable desire to learn which will last a lifetime. |
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| Creative Learning Newsletter Volume 1 Number 2 November 2004 |
| All Material Copyright © 2003-2004 www.TriggerMemorySystem.com/www.TimesTales.com All Rights Reserved |
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| IN THIS ISSUE:
-- "Welcome" -- Use Math To Give an 'Attitude of Gratitude' This Holiday Season -- Memory Tip of the Month -- Game of the Month --Editor's Note _____________________________ Welcome Readers! We at TMS hope you all had a wonderful Thankgsgiving holiday. It is hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. We decided to take this opportunity to share some ideas for involving your children in the holiday preparations while learning at the same time. Along with the ideas in our feature article, here are a few more ways to make holiday preparations a part of your schooling/learning. *Older children can practice handwriting and learn the parts of a letter by addressing and mailing Christmas cards. Older kids can be responsible for updating or building a database on the computer and printing labels. *Have your children put together a holiday newsletter to copy and send with your Christmas card. This can be as simple or involved as you like. Young children can handwrite and illustrate a letter while older kids may make a newsletter complete with color photographs. *Put them to work in the kitchen measuring and doubling recipes. If you're done with your baking (or not ready for it yet) how about doing some bulk cooking to make those busy holiday evenings a bit easier or even to give as gifts. *Speaking of gifts, have your children make them. Look through craft books and encourage them to use their creativity to give joy to another. In the past we have drawn names and were required to make a gift for the person we drew. This was always a special event and even the youngest child participated. Children can also use their creative skills making wrapping paper, decorations and decorating cookies. *We also have a basket of wrapped books that I bring out Dec. 1st. We unwrap and read one Christmas story each night. Perhaps older children would be willing to read to younger. *Take some time to learn the history behind some favorite Christmas songs. Who wrote it, when and why? These are just a few ideas. As always, BE CREATIVE and enjoy the holiday! Creatively Yours, Dena (Dena Wood www.TimesTales.com) _____________________________________________ Use Math To Give Your Children an Attitude of Gratitude This Holiday Season During the holiday season, it is not uncommone for my children to show up armed with a list of what they want for Christmas. This list is unsolicited and presented as if it were a shopping list of staples and necessities. They've been caught in the attitude of expectancy promoted by television commercials, a culture of abundance, and the prevalance of a "me first" attitude. Ah....what to do? How about turning the economics of gift giving into a math unit study? Sit down and list all the people your children feel your family should give gifts to. Have them consider what type of gift they would like to give each person and determine a general price range. This would be a good time to look through advertisements and do some cost comparisons. Be sure they include themselves in the list, along with the costs of what they would like to receive. After constructing the gift list ask your children to brainstorm what other things will need to be purchased for the holidays. Some items to consider; hosting a large holiday dinner, participating in a cookie exchange, gifts to charity, cost of purchasing and mailing cards, cost of decorations, increase in electric bill if you use outdoor lights, purchasing a tree, gas expense in driving all over shopping. Now, have them add all of this up. Chances are your children will be shocked to learn what the average family spends during the holiday season. Hopefully, this exercise will cause them to more seriously consider their annual "must have" list. You can take this even further by using it as a springboard to discuss your personal spiritual, moral, and ethical beliefs regarding the holiday, spending, etc. What is the value of your time? Do the gifts/expenditures/activities have the meaning you want them to? What are your priorities for the season? You may even present your children with a challenge. Homemade gifts? Participating in a charity event? Have a "Hundred Dollar Holiday" (a web search will give you more info. on this)? Give your children a set amount of money and have them prioritize. What would they do if they only had $500? Again, use your imagination. Happy Holidays, Jennie vonEggers & Dena Wood (www.TimesTales.com) ______________________________________ Memory Tip of the Month The use of acronyms is an excellent mnemonic method of memorization. It is especially effective when trying to remember groups of things. How many times have you heard from your kids, "I forgot!" when told to do something? Here is a fun excercise to teach them to remember so that they won't have any excuse for "forgetting" again. All you have to do is turn the first letter of your memory list into a cute or funny saying....the sillier the better. For example; Instead of having keys, our postal box had an letter combination for the lock. My son was the mail-getter and couldn't remember the groups of letters. We turned the letters GIHRG into a saying, "Gary is having rotten grapes." Now, that's easy to remember. Fun Mnemonic Excercise to try with your kids: Before you venture out to the local grocery store, challenge your children to remember part of the list. Break the list into groups of 5 or 6 items for each child to remember. Tell them to make up a memorable sentence using the acronyms of the items. Once at the store, see if they remember their list of items. Challenge them to make use of this tool regularly. Yours Creatively, Jennie von Eggers ______________________________________ Game of the Month Have a family contest. Write out the words "Merry Christmas" on a sheet of paper. Have each person make as many words as they can using the letters in "Merry Christmas". The person with the most original words wins. To determine the winner, have each person read their list. If someone else has the same word, they both cross it off. If no one has that word, it counts toward their total. The person with the most words that no one else thought of wins. ____________________________________ Again, we wish you a very, merry holiday season. Check us out at www.TimesTales.com Also, we are working on our new site www.CreativeHomeschooling.com It is currently under construction, but feel free to take a peek. As always, your ideas, suggestions and input are greatly appreciated. Sincerely, The Times Tales Crew Marillee, Jennie & Dena |