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Oh Crap, We’re now HomeSchooling! Resources for Organized Learning anyone can use

March 18, 2020 by Chris Leave a Comment

So the sudden homeschool situation most parents across the US are dealing with may seem like a bizarre experiment.  Kids are better at school than we are and probably have a better attention space.  While teachers put together plans for their students it may seem like us parents are adrift in a sea of wtf it’s not that bad.

Our parent’s generation didn’t have the resources so if we were stuck at home for a month, it would have been 30 days of Garfield comics and Price is Right.

I’ve put together some of our favorites sites and apps, as well as many I’ve only learned about today. I’ll keep this posted with new ones including history and geography sites which I always feel gets short shrift in today’s schools.

Any you like but we missed?  Be sure to comment and let us know.

 

Math
ABC Mouse  –  This is perfect time to test the site on a 30-day free trial
CK-12
Dreambox – Adapted math programs.  Adapted is the keyword and necessary to increase achievement or something.
Gfletchy – Interesting approach to math with 3 act tasks with video and download sheets.  I feel like this is ideal for small groups or homeschool situations
Khan Academy  – Khan has great math for younger kids but really shines middle school and an up.
NeoK12  – Lots of videos and games
Prodigy – How to get a kid to do 50 math questions in an hour or two without batting an eye.

Social Science
dkfindout–  You likely have some DK books at home or have taken a few out at the library.  This is the interactive version.

Science
Anton Petrov Fun Space Videos
asapSCIENCE – An youtube channel that answers the most pressing questions in the most fun way
Astrum – Well-produced videos answering questions about space
Because Science – High energy host usually talking about less serious science subjects like superheroes
Mystery Doug – Popular at our kid’s school, Doug answers questions kids ask
Nat Geo Kids – Home of Weird by True shorts
NeoK12 – Created for teachers there are lots of videos, presentations, and quizzes so you can measure progress
Neuroscience for Kids – PName says it all and it turns out neuroscience isn’t that hard after all.
PBS It’s Ok to be Smart – snackable science channel on youtube.
PBS SpaceTime – Space youtube channel for kids ready to graduate to next level faces.
SciShow – Questions answers like you were a five year old.

Reading

ABCya
EPIC (Free Trial) – Lots of books.  There is a subscription cost, but we’re testing out the free trial.
k12 Reader  – For the teachers and parents.  Do you wonder where your kid’s worksheets come from?  It’s likely from here.
Libby app – For use through your library.  A full catalog of e-books and audiobooks to get on loan from your library. We use this all the time.
NeoK-12  More worksheets and presentations on a variety of subjects.
NewsELA Distance Learning site made free for the remainder of 2020!
Readworks
Project Guttenberg –
Scholastic Book Flix – Scholastic has extended their free trial, just enough time to get to read most of their online library
Squiggle Park  – It’s prodigy for reading.
Storyline – Read along with the hosts
Wordville – Gets to the nitty-gritty of words and grammar fun and easy.

 

ART/DANCE/MUSIC

GoNoodleKids (for little ones)
Art for Kids Hub –  Art made easy.  Seriously easy art that even a parent can do.

Starfall – Has music subjects but also lessons for Language and Math geared for kids up to Grade 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Develop Healthy Eating Habits by Changing your Kitchen Defaults – Part 1

January 2, 2020 by Chris Leave a Comment

Develop Healthy Eating Habits by Changing your Kitchen Defaults – Part 1

Our little guys tried more varieties of food before they turned five than Karen and I have before turning twenty-five. One reason is availability. Specialty foods have gone mainstream so a Slim Jim has to cozy up to sheep jerky and pomegranate is about as exotic as Peanut M&Ms. Taking advantage of variety has really aided in developing our boys’ robust palate.

We’ve been asked how we go about designing our meals as well as what we buy at stores. This is a two-parter since Karen has a professional background in picky eating and I’m just a reformed picky eater who tries to keep it healthy.

img_food_sample

He had a dream to have crackers with four dips for breakfast.

Here are some default settings I generally follow. The first thing to make your unhealthy foods yourself. If I crave a muffin or brownies we try to make it from scratch. So we can appreciate the work that it takes to make it and what ingredients it takes.  We have cookies in the house but they’ve not made by Nabisco.  Cooking your own food, even if not totally healthy, will give you knowledge that translates to healthy cooking.

Another default is planning your meal around the veggie. We always have proteins in our meals, but ensuring the vegetable is cooked in an appealing way ensures the kids get the nutritional benefit.  This could mean leaving some foods raw, like snap peas or bell peppers or steaming broccoli or boiling peas.  I also invited other veggies in every recipe.  We add cooked sweet potato to pizza crusts or adding green vegetables to store-bought mac n cheese.  Sneaking veggies into foods is all the rage and half the pasta aisle seems to be made up of noodles from everything from spinach to seaweed.

Tips & Tricks

Here are a few other tips/tricks and defaults we turn to make cooking and planning with kids.

  • A treat at the supermarket is letting the kids pick their own fruit. They’ve had fun picking out dragon fruit, jicama, and other strange-looking fruit that just wasn’t available twenty years ago.
  • If kids pick it, pack it, stir it, chop it and add it, chances are they’ll eat it.
  • Never toss out bananas. The darker they get, the sweeter they’ll taste in a smoothie.  Freeze them.  The kids love designing their smoothies.  They’ve used just about everything in the fridge and spice rack.
  • Never tell them it won’t taste good, even if it’s a cumin, basil, banana, and watermelon smoothie.
  • Pack your pancakes with fruit and greek yogurt.  I don’t like greek yogurt but find it pretty good if it’s been hidden in something baked.
  • Add frozen berries to cooked oatmeal to cool them down faster.
  • Not just pancakes use greek yogurt in everything.  It’s super versatile and adds a bit of tanginess to Italian dishes.  It’s also a great way to stave off your appetite at night.
  • Only use half the Mac n’ Cheese additives in boxed mac and cheese.  Use the extra additives in your burger mix for a little extra cheesiness.
  • It’s okay to toss unhealthy foods. If you wouldn’t feed it to your dog, it’s better off in the bin.
  • Use a calorie counter.  It’s a good practice to check the cumulation of the foods you’re taking in as a baseline — no need to do this every day. Many apps can handle this, and you don’t need to be obsessive about making it happen. It’s a good idea to check on occasion what nutrients you may need help with or if you’re taking in more sugar than you realize.
  • Our favorite snacks – unsweetened applesauce, carrots, greek yogurt, snap peas, pb&j, naked popcorn, bell pepper slices, string cheese, as well as every type of nuts we can find.

The thing is, keeping it healthy has gotten harder. Our rules haven’t changed much since they were two, but they are much more independent at five. Now they don’t always think rules apply, and that’s perfectly fine. They will still go to the fridge and pull out snap peas or finish off a pint of strawberries at a sitting because that’s what they like and it makes them feel good

We’ll be back soon with Part 2 – Grade School Snaking

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 Dee Dee McGee and Her Musical Knee

January 1, 2020 by Chris Leave a Comment

Have a scab-picker living under your roof?

What what would happen if instead of blood, loud music was released each time the body’s healing powers were interrupted.  Here’s a poem about a young girl with a proclivity for picking scabs and her knee that went to the next level to stop her.

 getting kids to stop picking scabs

Dee Dee McGee and Her Musical Knee

Dee Dee McGee Skinned Her knee,
     While Climbing up a bonsai tree.

She didn’t shout or little bit pout.
     She inspected her leg turned Inside-out

Gross and beastly, bloody and ghastly,
     Because it was hers it wasn’t so nasty.

Her body went to work and the wound soon healed.
     But good luck keeping that darn thing sealed.

Nothing could stop her finger from itchin,
     Not mom, nor doctors or medical stitchin

Daring infection, and leg amputation,
     Organized she was with her scab collation.

Until the morning she scratched a bleeder.
     Her knee sung out I’m a believer.

Of course the song was unexpected indeed,
     Now the wound became a musical bleed

Unclog your ears. You heard me right.
     A song by the Monkees, became her new plight.

Now that her wound became a speaker.
     Her urge to itch suddenly grew weaker.

When she couldn’t skip school as she was so inclined.
It played.  
Not a Trace of doubt in my mind.

Her ugly knee wanted to rock.
     So Dee Dee layered sock after sock.

It muffled the sound only a little.
     It puzzled the kids at Middletown Middle.

It sung I’m in love, and I’m a believer.
     Look at me everyone, I’m Dee Dee’s femur.

Magically it crooned I couldn’t leave her if I tried,
     Was the moment she broke down and finally cried.

She had to stop and give scratching the boot.
     If Dee Dee hoped to put her knee on mute

Until one day there was nothing but scar,
     She could finally tell it-  au revoir.

Dee Dee is wild and has broken many a bone,
     But no matter how bloody, she leaves them alone.

 

– Christopher Rodgers (with help from his twin boys)

 

 

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The Marvel of an Ordinary Life

September 16, 2019 by Chris Leave a Comment

Marvel of an Ordinary Life“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

― William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

These beautiful words are important to consider in the modern world where there is constant pressure to enjoy extraordinary vacations with the kids, have the latest toys or teach kids Mandarin or the cello before they’re in 1st grade.

At five, the boy’s tantrums are less frequent but almost always occur in public at an ice cream shop or a restaurant. We’ve walked out empty-handed to the cries of “I hate you.” One, in particular, is probably somewhere on Instagram judging by the wide-eyed patrons of the crepe shop. It’s when they want something in addition to the treat is when they breakdown.  Ice Cream, I guess, is too ordinary.

William Martin encapsulates my favorite dad days. Short hikes and long days.  Fostering creativity and mindfulness will snowball into an avalanche of curiosity and understanding later in life.

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Thirty Six Words for Butt – Lessons in Storytelling.

June 13, 2018 by Chris Leave a Comment

….Captain Tushii of the Hi-Knee City Police Department tracked Keister over five states and predicted he would target the Tokus National Bank. So, he and Detective Gloot E. Uss, waited in the bank’s posterior for Keith to arrive. Keith parked his horse, Duffy, and strode confidently into the bank…

That’s an excerpt from a short story I wrote with John and Julian, our 6-year twin sons. I hated potty talk before I had kids. Now I want to dig a deep hole and dump the words butt, fart, poop and fill it with concrete.  With twins, potty words have legs.

The dilemma is how to blow up the potty talk echo chamber?  The solution? Add more potty words. Lots more. How many words for butt do you know?  Probably not as many as you think.  We wrote down all the ones we knew and found dozens more online. It was a hilarious exercise and butt is mundane when you put it against tokus or badonkadok.

The next step was important. It’s to give those words life in a creatively way. We wrote a story – The Scary Derriery.  In the story, we shoehorned a couple dozen ways of saying butt in fun ways. The kids and I mapped out the bones of the story around the ghost of a bank robber who uses too many potty words.  We often write stories or make them up on walks and car rides as a way to discovery and understanding; when just reading about something doesn’t go deep enough.

Your stories don’t always need to be about potty words.  They can be about how to be more grateful and optimistic, beat boredom or what bullying is.  They can be poems, graphic novels or wordless cartoons. Pick a theme or a lesson and a learning moment will present itself. It’s also something you can return to as a reminder.

The point for us was to build something together, learn there are many ways to examine a similar thing while improving their reading and not pretending we are Ronald Dahl.  If you would like to read The Scary Derriery in full click the link.

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About Us

All our Boys

Karen Rodgers is a mother of twin boys, wife, and speech language pathologist for the Champlain Valley School District in Vermont and New England Speech & Feeding. She knows her way around a weight room and here on the GoodFitFam blog Karen and her husband Chris will share their wisdom, experience and contagious passion for kids, fun and fitness.

Speech + Feeding

Why Picky Eaters LOVE McDonalds

Kid’s Who Say, “I can’t”.

Be flexible and other Social Dynamics

Address the Social and Emotional Impact of Food for you and your Kids

Getting Your Kids to Eat New Foods.

Workouts

5am arm quickie/ back blast

Arm Blast

My Silver Lining Lat Workout

Try this 40-minute Full Back Workout

Sunday Morning Back Routine

Parenting

Why Do We Procrastinate?

Help Kitchen Visual Guides

Hosting a Quiet Book Swap

Springtime Kid Shows Worth Streaming

All the Hardest Things Combined

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