new for us friday: backyard s'mores, s'mores train

No, s'mores are not really new for us--I have to admit. We are big--and probably way too frequent--fans of these super summertime treats.

But what was New For Us on Friday was the very cool S'mores Kit we received from Hershey that included the "we've never seen them before" incredibly awesome toasting sticks. (I'm still finding out if there's a pair or two for some teach mama readers, so hold on tight!)

Another thing that will be New For Us will be the S'mores Road Trip to BlogHer that I'll be a part of next week, August 5-8. Hershey has generously offered to sponsor a train ride from the DC area to NYC for BlogHer10, a conference where I will be a speaker (eeeee!) and an attendee (woo-hoo!).

Here's the skinny on our Backyard Summertime S'mores and the S'mores Road Trip to BlogHer:

• Backyard Summertime S'mores: We're backyard firepit S'mores-makers, and on any night we feel like firing it up--which is usually a few times a month--we rock it out with one of our favorite snacks.

Marshmallows are ready to hit the fire.

Last night, all my husband and I had to say was Who's up for some S'mores?!! after we gave Maddy, Owen, and Cora seed-filled watermelon slices from our CSA (booo.), and three frustrated kids who were seriously sad about seeds came a runnin'.

We love making S'mores and eating them. But this time, our marshies were not full of dirt and bark from the fallen branches we use as toasting sticks. This time, we used real-life, expandable, rotatable, toasting sticks. And they rocked. As long as no one touched the metal part, that is. (Yes, I did, but the kids didn't and that's what matters.)

This time, we cleanly, calmly, easily--poked two marshmallows on our toasting sticks, held them over our fire pit, and ended up with perfectly toasted marshies. And then I helped everyone smash their marshmallows into their graham crackers and chocolate, and it was S'mores bliss.

S'mores = y.u.m

• S'mores Road Trip to BlogHer: I'm grateful that the kind folks at Hershey have agreed to send about 30 rowdy bloggers on the Amtrak train from DC to NYC next weekend. I haven't taken the train in years, so I'm looking forward to it for sure. And with company like these incredibly talented, creative, intelligent, and totally fun women? It surely will be a blast.
  

However, the really awesome part is that Hershey will have a S'mores Snacktivity booth at BlogHer (#4233) where they'll be handing out S'mores branded bags (will the toasting sticks be included?! I hope so!) while supplies last.

Come over to the booth, meet the great people from Hershey, check out the S'mores Memory Mural (and bring a photo of your S'mores making memory if you'd like to contribute).

I'd love to see you!

fyi: Please don't sweat it if you can't make it to the conference (a lot of the sessions will be live-blogged from the BlogHer Conference site--even our session! Or you can follow the action on Twitter (#blogher10). And I'll share what I learn--I promise!

Like I said, I'm hoping to share the S'mores Kit love, but until then, you can even follow the action on the train and from the Snactivity booth by following #smores .

And that's it--a double NFUF week, but that's how things go sometimes in the summer.

fyi #2: As part of the S'mores Road Trip to BlogHer, I received a round trip ticket on Amtrak to the convention and Hershey branded items. The opinions and ideas expressed here, as always, are my own, influenced only by my three little S'mores eaters.

new for us friday: we3 teach media

I am absolutely thrilled on this New for Us Friday to share something that's new for me, new for many in the world of social media, new for my family (kind of), and will be new for the readers of teach mama: We 3 Teach.

• We3 Teach Media: I'm elated to have joined forces with two talented and amazing friends, Katie and Katie of ABC and 123: A Learning Cooperative to create something that we think will be beneficial to everyone in our communities. Over here at teach mama, we'll experience only a few small changes, but I'm really excited about them.

In the days to come, I'll list our current sponsors pictured in the right hand side bar. I will also be featuring new educational products and companies occasionally here on teach mama, most likely as our New For Us Fridays. Watch for our first feature coming soon!

Here is a little bit about our new group, We3 Teach Media:

We believe in the power of numbers.
We believe in the power of reliable voice.
We believe in the power of education.
We are power teachers’ networked blogs.
We are the new day in the world of teaching, parenting, and technology.

We 3 Teach Media is here to bring education-related products and services into the light. Our shared vision for We 3 Teach Media is to foster children’s love of learning through games and play, while at the same time bringing new and innovative educational products to the attention of parents and teachers everywhere.

We are very excited about this new endeavor and know it's going to be a great way to grow and continue to meet the needs of our communities while at the same time compensating ourselves for the time, effort, and energy we've put into creating worthwhile content on our sites. Our goals will remain clear, and we vow not to sell ourselves--our readers--short. We believe this will be a win-win for everyone, and we're totally looking forward to this adventure.

Thanks for your continued support and patience while we learn to navigate the exciting road ahead!

adding practice with street sign math

Today, we hit the road a bit, to a new-for-us library to hang out with some friends and learn about 4-H and county fairs and then to (our fave!) Ikea to pass a rainy afternoon. (And the free kids' meals don't hurt, either.)

Being on the road gave us a chance to play with numbers in a way that I had never thought to do before. Thanks to Maddy, we threw in a little adding practice on the road today, called it 'Street Sign Math', and pretty much had a rockin' time.

• Street Sign Math: It began with Maddy calling from the back seat, Hey Mommy! That sign has a four and a zero. Forty. Do you know what four plus zero equals? It's four!!

Owen said, I know that! It's four! Maddy do another one!

And so began our Street Sign Math. It didn't matter if it was a speed limit sign, a highway sign, or a house number; if we could clearly make out the numbers, we added them together.

Speed limit signs that ended in zeroes were the easy ones!
4 + 0 = 4!

If there were three numbers, I'd say, This one has three numbers (rte 495), so listen closely. What does four plus nine plus five equal? Add the first two numbers, four plus nine. (I'd wait for the answer.) Awesome! Thirteen! Now add five. What does thirteen plus five equal? Yes! Eighteen! That was a tough one.

Some were tricky, but some were easier, like the speed limit signs: 35 (3+5), 40 (4+0), 55 (5+5), which led us into some doubling practice.

Nothing was stopping us-- 2+6+9?
8+9 = 17!

Maddy and Owen were really revved up about the whole idea, calling out numbers and adding them, checking each other's work. Cora was yelling out numbers and trying to play along, too, so we gave her the challenge of shouting whenever she saw 'her number', number 3 or Owen's number (4) or Maddy's number (6).

Owen is pretty quick at adding, so I really had to focus on not making this an adding race and instead making everyone use wait time before they shouted out their answers. For a while Maddy and Owen worked together, then Maddy added the first two numbers and Owen added the third, or vice versa.

It was fun. Maddy, Owen, and Cora said it was fun, and they basically made up the whole game. And that's probably why they loved it so much and it worked out so well in the first place.

This morning's Street Sign Math definitely reminded me of the importance of reviewing basic, easy math facts--the ones that eventually need to come quickly and without thought just like the sight words that we practiced in games and cool activities before and throughout kindergarten.

And that's it. Thanks to Maddy today for getting us going and helping me along in my desperate attempt to get us all to be a little more math-mindful this summer!

creating word-conscious kids

A portion of this article was originally posted by me on ABC & 123 on 5/17/10.

Just the way that some people will notice a kite in the sky, a new bird in the backyard, or a pattern of numbers on a sign, others have an ear for words. We can--and should--help our children to notice and learn new words each day because it will help them with reading comprehension and vocabulary development in the long run.

We can all do our part to create word-conscious kids in an amazingly short span of time.

Even before children are able to read texts on their own, they can develop vocabulary, oral language, comprehension strategies, phonological awareness, and print awareness just by participating in a read-aloud with an adult.

Here are just a few ways of developing Vocabulary during read-alouds:

• Vocabulary Development--Word Consciousness: Before, during, and after reading, we have a captive audience during read-alouds. Why not use this time to model how excited we are when we come across the use of rich and descriptive language?

By sharing our love of words and talking about new and exciting words, we are teaching our children to become Word Conscious. Word Consciousness is an integral component of language development and one of the early predictors of success in reading comprehension.

We can develop Word Consciousness by stopping during a read-aloud and commenting on a particularly awesome, unusual, or interesting word we encounter: Oh, I love that the farmer 'perseveres' after the fire ruined his farm. He doesn't give up. He keeps going, he re-plants his crops, and he moves forward. I love the word 'perseveres' because I like how it sounds when I say it, and it is a strong word. It means that someone doesn't give up and that they work very hard (re: The Farmer, by Mark Ludy).

Or when reading Steven Kellogg's Is Your Mama a Lama? you might say, The bat says he 'does not believe that's how llamas behave.' I sometimes like to use the word 'believe' instead of the word, 'think'. To me, 'believe' just sounds a little fancier. I 'believe' I prefer the word 'believe' instead of 'think'.

You can also develop Word Consciousness by:

• talking about the way a word sounds when you say it;
• discussing the meaning of a word;
  
• talking about the way a word looks on the page;
  
• trying different ways of using a particular word;
• challenging each other to use a 'new word' later that day;
• listening for 'new words' during other read-alouds and taking turns 'catching' them;
• sharing 'new words' as a family, at the end of the day or at dinnertime;
  
• keeping a family list of 'Cool, New Words' or becoming 'Word Wizards' and making a 'Word Wizard Wall' of words you love. . .

Word Consciousness can be started with our littlest readers and should continue into adulthood. (Okay, or at least until our kids can stand it!). It's easy, it's important, and it promotes a love of language and an awareness of language that will ultimately help strengthen reading comprehension down the road.

When children are word conscious, they "are motivated to learn new words and able to use them skillfully" (Lane & Allen, The Vocabulary Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth, in February 2010's The Reading Teacher.) So let's start noticing words--and keep talking about it!

making learning fun in the candy aisle

So today we rocked it with a long morning bike ride, an even longer visit to the park, and a few errands to fill our fridge after a crazy-fun, jam-packed wedding weekend in Pennsylvania.

But I didn't plan well at all. We ended up at the grocery store too close to lunchtime, on too-close-to empty bellies, on a day that Cora had already declared 'a yawny day' to begin with.

So we played some 'standing in line at the grocery store' games with the oh-so-exciting candy aisle.

• Candy Aisle Learning and Games: Cora was already stuck in the seat of the shopping cart because she threw the orange juice container to the back of the cart when I asked her to keep it next to her. So she was watching as Maddy and Owen stood, noses inches away from the candy bars, picking them up and putting them down, smelling them and dreaming about eating them all.
  

As I put our groceries on the belt, I said, Okay, Maddy and Owen, let me see who's a number whiz today. Work together and count the number of candies that begin with the letter 'M'.

They started counting separately and got off-track, so I reminded them again to work together, and they did. I pointed to the top left of the rack and showed them how to count just the way we read (left-right return sweep). When they finished with the letter 'M' candy, we moved to 'H' and then 'S'. Believe me, this might have been THE slowest check-out person in the history of check-out people, and we were behind five families to begin with.

Maddy and Owen were busy and occupied, and Cora acted as their cheerleader and coach from the cart. I think because I gave them the freedom to "play" with the candy, they were less inclined to fight, bicker, and beg me to buy them some.

Essentially, here's how we passed the loooooong check-out at the grocery store time:

1. Counting candy that began with a certain letter (M, H, S . . . );
2. Calling out all of the candy they knew or recognized;
   
3. Reading the candy that began with a certain letter;
4. Counting the candy that was a certain color;
5. Looking for candy that had a funny letter in its name (coconut for 'o' in Mounds, etc)
   
6. Counting all of the candy on the bottom two rows, top two rows, etc.

Yes, it sounds like a stretch, and believe me, this kind of thing will NOT happen every time we hit the grocery store. When I'm better planned and more prepared, I am a huge fan of Shopping Lists for Tiny Shoppers, but when life gets in the way, you have to roll with the punches.

And when the stars are aligned and your candy-loving, sweet-tooth kids are up for another candy-challenge, it's a fun way to pass the time with a ton of colorful reading material right at their noses.

fyi: No, I didn't have my camera with me at the grocery store. Susan Kane kindly gave me permission to use her photo via Flickr photo sharing. Thanks, Susan!

new for us friday: more bingo we love (and giveaway!)

Soon after Brady arrived, my always-find-everything-cool in-laws gave us a game that Maddy and Owen cannot seem to get enough of—Dog Bingo.

Yes, Dog Bingo!

We are lovers of any bingo game over here, but this doggone game takes the cake. (C'mon, I had to!)

It’s created by Lucy Hammett, who is the Bingo-Game-Queen of the Universe. And it gets even better—when I wrote to tell THE Lucy Hammett how much we love her Dog Bingo, she offered to give one of her awesome bingo games away to one of my readers!

Here’s the skinny:

• Dog Bingo: The premise of Dog Bingo is the same as every other bingo game ever made, but what makes this game super-awesome is that there is something to learn around every corner.

The boards are covered with everything dog—dog breeds, dog terms, dog photos and dog relatives. The cards are covered with the same photos on the boards, but what I love is that each card has a few really interesting dog "fun facts".

Maddy, now being able to read most of the facts on her own, might flip a card and say, Bulldog! Hey, Mommy, did you know that the bulldog . . . . "

It’s so cool. I love it.

Owen's rockin' double dog bingo boards.

Both she and Owen are now able to pick out more dog breeds than many people I know—myself included. It’s empowering for kiddos to be ‘experts’ at something—whether it’s dinosaurs, flowers, planets, or sports—it doesn’t matter. And I really think that this game—which mirrors the format of all of Lucy Hammett’s bingo games—is fantastic.

It supports early learners’ interests, and it facilitates early literacy skills by pairing a picture with the name of the dog. Emerging readers can see the photo of a breed they recently learned (say 'Yorkshire Terrier') and recognize that the first letter of the breed is 'Y' with the second word beginning with a 'T'. They'd then put together what they know about the letter sounds and knowledge about the photo to determine that this dog was indeed the Yorkshire Terrier. Hooray! Voila! The first steps to reading, right here!

Overall, here’s the skinny on Dog Bingo:

We love:

• The colors, the clear print, and the sturdiness of the game pieces;
• The dogs! The dogs! The dogs!
• That the facts about dogs are interesting, relevant, and are easy to understand for all levels of dog-lovers;
• The variety of facts—from information about breeds, dog behavior, and dog history—our dog-knowledge base is rich and varied.
  

We wish:

• That Brady was included in the game—where’s the golden-doodle, labradoodle mix? (Just kidding! Well, kind of. . . );
• That some of the pictures were a little more clear—but that’s just my picky opinion, not my kids’, mind you. . .
  

Here's the Giveaway:

Interested in scoring a Lucy Hammett Bingo Game for your classroom or family?

If Dog Bingo isn’t your thing, that’s fine! The winner of this giveaway will be able to choose any bingo game he or she wants! Seriously—that’s pretty cool. There’s Cat Bingo, Butterfly Bingo, Bug Bingo, Ocean Bingo, Reptile Bingo, Space Bingo, United States Bingo, Weather Bingo—you name it, most likely she’s got it.

All you have to do to win is leave me a comment (with your email address!!) letting me know what bingo game suits your fancy.

Please hop over to Lucy Hammett’s website if you’d like to check out the other bingo game options. This giveaway will end at midnight on Friday, July 30, and the winner will be chosen by random.org.

Good luck, thank you for reading, and happy bingo-playing!

Fyi: Lucy Hammett did not pay me to write this post or do this giveaway. She did, however, kindly offer to give away one bingo game to one of my readers because she’s just that cool and (most likely) wants to spread the bingo-love. My opinions are all my own, influenced only by my three little bingo players and bingo-playing husband.

we're in family fun magazine!

Can you find us? Well, it's only two of us--not all of us.

And yes, the kids are in mid-chewy-bite, and Owen really is wearing a green shirt and orange pants. Together.

And he's wearing huge black shades.

And Cora's looking totally and completely surprised, staring at the candy in her hand that she thought was an egg.

And that oh-so-handsome man in the back? My hottie husband. Okay, so you can only see his legs.

I'm going to pretend that I really haven't inundated the Family Fun editors' with inboxes dozens and dozens of pitches for my own articles and ideas, and I'm just going to be really, really happy that finally--finally!--we're in one of my most favorite magazines ever.

Remember when I totally scored big and tricked Maddy, Owen, and Cora with my rendition of Family Fun's Fakin' and Eggs? I called the post April Fools' Trick: Eggs and Bacon, and the cool folks at Family Fun caught up with me on Twitter and saw the post themselves.

Okay, so Owen's not yet 5 years old (but will be soon. . . ), and I really wish they would have had www.teachmama.com as my blog url, but really, I don't care. I'm just doing a little jig of joy that my kiddos landed on the pages of my Family Fun, even if it wasn't one of my own ideas--it was another great one of theirs.

Woo-hoo! Happy, Happy Day!

quick trick: playing on positive behavior

Back in the end of May, our little familia was experiencing a rough patch. Owen finished preschool a few weeks before Maddy ended kindergarten, Cora's playgroup was still meeting but Owen's soccer wasn't over. The pool was open but school was still in session. It was strange.

The schedule we had grown accustomed to for months and months was changing, and we were in flux. And it turned into a big, ugly behavior rut.

I was raising my voice more than I'd liked. Maddy, Owen, and Cora were bickering more than they needed, and we all were just drifting between schedules--waiting for some sort of new summer normal to come in and sweep us into regularity and happiness. (Sigh.)

But I knew things wouldn't level out again for some time, so I needed something to rope us back in before we were cranky, tired, and unfocused all of the time.

Luckily, I ran across something in the June/ July issue of Family Fun that has helped to put us back on track, and we've been using it for well over a month with great success--Our Gem Jars.

• Gem Jars: Our Gem Jars are just that--glass jars I picked up (on sale) at the craft store and from our recycle bin, and the 'gems' are those clear glass beads that we love over here and have used time and time again as bingo markers.

I bought black letter stickers so I could put each family member's name on a jar. Maddy, Owen, and Cora each have a jar, and there's even one for Mom, Dad, and Brady.

The deal with the Gem Jars is simple, and it's one that's been supported by research over and over and over again: rewarding positive behavior.

After I had assembled all of the 'pieces' of this Gem Jar experiment, my husband and I called a Family Meeting just like we do when we have to discuss anything new.

I said, Daddy and I are excited to tell you about a new way we're going to reward the great things we see you guys doing every day. These are your new Gem Jars, and these are the gems. Notice there are big gems and little gems? I'll tell you why in a second.

See these two lines on the side of everyone's jars? There's one at the top of the jar and one in the middle. When your jar is filled with gems, you will earn a reward. Half-full jars will earn small rewards, and bigger rewards will come when your jars are totally full of gems. And imagine how beautiful your jars will look when they're filled!

Maddy's jar is almost full!

I took out a piece of paper and we all brainstormed some ways that we all could earn gems. We came up with:

• playing nicely with pets
• being first-time listeners
• sharing toys
• keeping a clean room
• brushing teeth and washing face without being asked
• flushing toilet and washing hands with soap without being asked (gulp.)
• using good manners
• waiting patiently to talk and not interrupting others
• being extra kind and loving toward each other
• telling the truth
  
• saying "I'm sorry" without being asked
• being extra helpful to others

We explained the difference between big gems (a pack of fancy diamond-like glass beads I found at the store near the wedding supplies) and little gems (a mix of the smaller glass beads I mentioned above). Big gems could be earned for going above and beyond, but they were very special; it might take time to earn those.

We all also discussed rewards for half-full and full jars, and we wrote them on a list. We decided that a trip to Rita's, a special trip somewhere with Mommy or Daddy, being able to choose dessert one night, a chap stick (for the girls--I know. . . ), a new book, a pack of silly bracelets, or even a trip to the toy store with a $5.00 or $10.00 limit might be good things to work toward.

The kids seemed excited, and so were we. Anything was better than what we had, and we were all ready for a change.

We're about six weeks into Gem Jars, and we're really happy with how things are going. We've hit the toy store once about two weeks ago since the jars were close to full, and it helped keep up the momentum. Maddy picked out a dolphin stuffed animal, Owen picked out a Lego set, and Cora also picked out a Lego set.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it fool-proof? Nope.

But what it does do is give everyone something to work toward and it keeps us focusing on the positive: Let's get this room picked up so that I can throw two gems in your jars! or Thank you, Owen, for letting Brady outside. Put a gem in your jar! or I love the way you're speaking to each other and sharing toys! Three gems for each of you!

It's a riot to hear them actually notice positive behavior and say to each other, Maddy, you were nice to help me. I'm giving you a gem, or Mommy needs a gem! She made us a great dinner (okay, so they said that once, but I'll never forget it!).

On tough days, when kids are arguing, hitting, or are unkind, sure--we count 1, 2, 3 or use time-outs if we need to. But we also remove gems from jars if we need to--if behavior is not what we expect. If they ask for a gem? No way do they get one! The sure ticket to not getting a gem is to ask for one.

In my book, it's not bribery. It's incentive, it's recognizing and immediately rewarding the behavior we want repeated, and it's simple. No points, counting, or record-keeping. Just beautiful jars slowly being filled with gems that represent love, generosity, kindness, and support. We won't do it forever, but for as long as we need or want to and until the behavior is as automatic as breathing. Or so we hope.

Thanks, thanks, and more thanks to Malissa O'Brian for sharing her family's idea on Creative Solutions in Family Fun! Love it--thank you, Malissa!

math in the kitchen with veggie kabob patterns

This summer, I've tried to be more math mindful, since (I'll say time and time again) it just doesn't come naturally to me. So what better way to play with math patterns and concepts than with veggie Shish Kabobs?

With a few peppers and squash from our local farmer's market and a ton of tomatoes from our garden, we threw in a little math fun yesterday, talking color, shape, and type of veggie patterns, while trying not to poke our fingers too hard with the skewers.

• Veggie Shish Kabob Patterns: I had the wooden skewers soaking in water when I realized that my dinner preparations were going to take me longer than I thought. If we wanted to get to the pool, I needed some help from my three little assistants and get this party on the road.
  

So I said, Hey Maddy, Owen, and Cora, I need help!! Who wants to play with some food and help me get dinner ready so that we can hurry up and make it to the pool?

veggies and skewers, ready for some action

Owen must have been hungry (or pool-happy), because he was the first guy up on the stool to help me, and Maddy followed soon after. My usual right-hand woman in the kitchen was not as excited to help me; she was pretty engrossed in some other more important puzzle and doll business.

When Maddy and Owen were both at the counter, I told them, We're making Veggie Shish Kabobs now so that when we get home from the pool, we can just throw them on the grill. But I don't want these to be boring, plain, old Shish Kabobs. We need to make them a little more exciting by making them into cool patterns.

Owen sports his abbcabbc veggie pattern.

You can use anything here--tomatoes, yellow or green squash, or red, orange, or yellow peppers to make your pattern. Watch me.

I made a basic ababa pattern with green squash and yellow peppers, and I reminded them about what makes a pattern.

Then I said, The pattern can be with color, shape, or veggie. You decide. As long as you can explain it, it works!

We got creating, but we did so very carefully because this was the first time the kids had used wooden skewers. By this point, Cora joined in on the fun but stuck to the cherry tomatoes on hers. (I knew they'd end up squishy and shriveled on the grill, but I like them, so I didn't mind.)

For Cora, we worked basically on counting--one-to-one-correspondence of object to number, and that's it. With cherry tomatoes on a skewer, it's easy.

Maddy and Owen would finish a skewer and explain the pattern, and sometimes we had to do some correcting, but most times they seemed to understand and had fun with it. We threw some Italian dressing over the veggies, put them in the baker, and they were ready to go.

Veggie Shish Kabob-making proved to be a cool, worthwhile way of getting my little helpers involved in our meal-prep (so we could go to the pool!) while at the same time, getting them thinking in terms of patterns and numbers.

I'm a big fan of using food for learning--not mindlessly or in a wasteful way, but rather with cooking, honing fine motor skills or learning colors, creating shapes, trying new things, or even playing with patterns.

Happy eating and learning in the kitchen!

Need some other fun ways of sneaking in some math learning? I find inspiration at we teach--the math group (and all of them, really!) totally rock!

new for (me!) friday: yahoo mother board summit

New For Us Fridays give us a chance to try new things, expand our horizons a bit, and introduce something new to our lives each week. This New For Us Friday is really a New For ME Friday, and it was an absolute treat.

I attended the Yahoo! Mother Board Summit in Sunnyvale, California. It. Was. Soooo. Cool.

• Yahoo! Mother Board Summit: The Yahoo! Mother Board is a community of about sixty women who are passionate about using the internet--blogs, micro-blogs, community sites, whatever—in their lives and every day.

Yahoo created the Mother Board to build close relationships with parents. We attended this summit to meet each other, share ideas, learn about Yahoo's cool products, and figure out ways that we, as active members of our local and online communities, can work best with Yahoo.

I learned SO much and will share in more detail shortly, but essentially, here's the skinny:

our oh-so-purple welcome mat

• Yahoo! Flickr Photo Sharing: Flickr, Snapfish, and Picnik are a happy little photo family, and I never knew it! You can share photos and send them to anyone via Flickr. You can order prints on Snapfish because Flickr is linked to Snapfish. You can edit photos on Picnik because Flickr is linked to Picnik. It's one big happy photo sharing, editing, and printing family.

You can share long photos (aka, videos 90 seconds or less) or make a slide show and embed it right onto your blog, Twitter, or Facebook accounts. SO awesome. I'm all ready to do some long photo-sharing.

• Shine: Shine is a lifestyle site for women on a blog platform, where content from top publishers, from editors, and from everyday writers is shared and viewed by thousands. Content is not only available on Shine but it’s also on the Yahoo! Homepage (where 600 million people can view it! Whew!).
  

Topics from parenting to work & money, food and healthy living are covered. It’s worth checking out, contributing to, and getting to know some of the talented editors and writers, especially if you want to share your own ideas with others.

• Yahoo! Safely: The Online Safety Roundtable emphasized for me the importance of instilling a strong sense of self-respect and respect toward others in our children. And in schools, we need to share the power—both positive and negative--of technology with all parents, whether they are ‘connected’ or not.

We discussed the 3 C's of Online Safety -- 1. Keep Current on the latest trends; 2. Keep Communicating with your kids about the importance of being safe online; 3. Keep Checking your browsing history, phone logs, etc. Check sites like Common Sense Media, where parents can create their own Family Media Agreement and where schools and families can find resources for teaching and understanding internet safety.

Elisa Steele, Yahoo! Chief Marketing Officer, gave the Keynote Address.
Her kids say she's the "Chief of Awesomeness" and I agree.

• Yahoo! Social Products: Head to the Yahoo site and personalize your own page—add your Twitter, Facebook, and the new and improved Yahoo email accounts, and all of your status updates can be in one place. Adjust your personal settings on your account, and your comments on articles, sales, events, news, or products can be shared with your whole online community.

• Yahoo! Accessibility Lab: I chatted with two incredible members of the Lab who explained all that Yahoo does to ensure that every computer user--no matter his or her physical limitations--can have the best online experience. The engineers at the Lab make sure that all of Yahoo's pages are able to be navigated with any type of support; it was fascinating for me to learn how much thought Yahoo puts into every online element.
  

I learned so much from Victor and Nate and the Accessibility Lab at Yahoo!

• Social Media for Social Good: Who knew?! Visit Yahoo! Good, where people can learn about how they can take positive action in their communities and share their experiences and ideas with others. Share your way of helping others and encourage your pals to join you by asking, You in?

• Yahoo! Green: is packed with timely articles, advice, and tips on how to live greener lives. Everything—everything—is covered here, and simple searches will turn up dozens of relevant articles on any topic in question. Which is more green: cloth diapers or disposable? Check out Yahoo! Green to find out. You may be surprised.

• Yahoo! Editorial: We met the talented authors of the mammoth The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World. Seriously. And they gave us suggestions for increasing our SEO (mine is pathetic), writing great blog posts (mine are too long), and creating better titles (mine need work). I need to get reading. . .

yummy, sinful Y! and Yahoo Mother Board cupcakes

• Advertising Products: Yahoo tries to create the most worthwhile and memorable advertising experiences for their users. I had no idea how much energy was put into advertising--the layout, the wording, the 'experience'--but now I do. I’m amazed. And now I’ll pay more attention to ads, thanks to Yahoo! I'm looking forward to some really cool, really valuable, and user-friendly, interactive ads in the next few months.

My friend Kimberly (from Mom in the City)
sends a few Tweets near Yahoo! Gift Shop

From the purple carpet that led us from our bus to the building, the purple flowers everywhere, the purple walls in the buildings and purple bathrooms, Yahoo’s attention to detail floored me. The Y! on the shades, the Yahoo tissue paper in our bags, the Yahoo cupcakes, and the care with which the planners of the Yahoo Mother Board Summit put into everything really showed us how much Yahoo values their product, their employees, their consumers, their co-workers, and their relationship with the Yahoo Mother Board.

Many, many thanks to my friends at Yahoo for the invitation to be a part of the Yahoo Mother Board and for filling me with inspiration, ideas, and energy this weekend. Thank you for the chance to connect with my many talented Yahoo Mother Board friends in beautiful Sunnyvale, California.

Thank you to the amazing Robin Zucker and the yodeling mamas, Amy Heinz and Jeanne Moeschler for taking the time to chat, listen, and laugh together. Thanks to Stacy Libby and to Nicole Rodrigues, Greg Martin, Paul Doherty, Barbara O’Connor, and Ilene Tucker for being fantastic organizers and yahoooo-rific Yahoos. Thank you to all of the awesome session speakers and panelists. Thank you to the family who shared their heartbreaking story for the Online Safety Roundtable.

I look forward to working with Yahoo in the future, and I extend my most sincere gratitude for their generosity in paying for our transportation, lodging, food, conference, and gifts. My opinions here are all my own, as are any inadvertent mistakes in this post.

Thank you to the Four Seasons Palo Alto for its Oooooohmygosh incredible service.

Any questions about this event or anything I mentioned here? Please let me know--I'd be happy to do what I can to help or clarify!

beach bingo-- fun in the car and at the shore

Woo-hoo!

Nothing like spending a long weekend at the beach, especially when the trip only takes a few hours.

We didn’t even think for a second to let the rainy ride there keep our spirits down. No way.

Last weekend, we beached it up at the Delaware shore, and it was awesome. We had an absolute blast, rockin’ it out on the Jolly Trolly, jumpin’ waves, watchin’ the seagulls and kites, and playin’ with the beach-dogs in the early mornings.

To pass the time in the car, I created an updated version of last year’s Travel Bingo OBX and Travel Bingo MD to PA.

This time, we played Travel Bingo: Delaware Beaches.

• Travel Bingo: Delaware Beaches -- I included places that I remembered from the last time I had spent time in Rehoboth and Dewey, like the big Dolles sign, a high-rise hotel, Grotto’s Pizza, the boardwalk, a beach umbrella, and a bridge.

However, what I realized was that the game was best suited for actually being there—not driving there. So even though Owen and Maddy played for a good chunk of time (and Cora just put stickers all over her board and circled the pictures—and good circle-making practice it was!), I re-vamped the game when I returned home.

beach bingo, before it got re-vamped

I switched out some of the beach-specific places to make it actually suit the trip. I added a flower (there were millions), a church (because we saw tons!), a farm (we saw tons times ten), a tractor, a cow, and construction. I kept several of the beach-specific places because as we got closer to the shore, we did see a bunch of Grotto’s Restaurants, hotels, and water.

So although we didn’t play the game on the way home, it was fun for a while—Owen put stickers on the objects he saw, and Maddy put checkmarks on hers—and that’s all that matters in my book.

A long weekend in a great vacation spot, with super-fun family, lots of laughs, lots of great food, and (yikes!) no internet service—what’s not to love? It was a true vay-cay in my book.

Need a Travel Bingo teach mama style for your next trip?

Here are a few to print out as pdf's to make your ride a little smoother (and to sneak in a little learning along the way!):

• Travel Bingo to Delaware Beaches (specific with Delaware sites)
  

• Travel Bingo to the Beach (re-vamped, rural version that will work better for the road)

• Travel Bingo MD to PA
  

• Travel Bingo OBX (and the original Shore Fun post filled with some cool ways of making learning fun on a trip to the shore!)
  

Happy memory-making and safe travels!

a math-mindful summer -- everyday math activities

Today when we were doing some after-breakfast reading, something funny happened.

Owen showed me clear as day just how differently our brains are wired. It was one of those cool, I'll-never-forget-it kind of moments when I realized how parenting is extra hard because each of our kiddos can be so alike in some ways and so totally different in others.

The bottom line is that I need to make more of a concerted effort to throw in some mindful math into our days. But my brain doesn't work that way naturally--as I've said before--so it's not easy.

Luckily, Maddy's school provided her with a ton of Everyday Math Activities that I have used and adapted and have shared here. Hopefully it will guide me into a cool and refreshing math-zen state this summer. . .

• Becoming Math-Mindful -- Everyday Math Activities: I gave Maddy, Owen, and Cora the challenge of finding a book we haven't read for a long time, and Owen came up with an old fave--Owen & Mzee, by Isabella and Craig Hatkoff and Dr. Paula Kahumbu. It's the sweet, unbelievable story of a hippo and tortoise who become best buddies.
  

We really hadn't read it for a while, so the kiddos were happy to hear the story. It's a pretty long text for a children's book; mid-way, I could tell Owen was drifting.

He said, Hey Mommy! Look--Owen's on this page four times.

And then the next page, seconds after we'd landed there, he'd say, Woah. Owen's here three times. Or five. Or two. Or one. Or six. However many times his name was there, he'd notice it immediately and could say the number in no time flat.

There it is. Owen's here four times.

What I realized is not that he was totally bored with the story. Well, maybe he was, but he was listening--I know--because we'd stop every now and again to talk about the ideas, characters, events, and he knew what was going on.

But I also saw very clearly how quickly his mind just jumps into number-zone, and I know I don't do enough to support this type of learning--for Owen or Maddy or Cora for that matter.

So tonight, I rifled through Maddy's papers that she was given at the end of the school year because I remembered seeing math-related activities. I found them (ya-hoo!), I organized the ideas a bit to better suit my visual-learning needs.

I've saved Everyday Math Activities as a pdf to download here.

I printed it out and will keep it close for the next few weeks, trying to throw in a little somethin' math-y now and again.

I love the ideas because they really do sneak in learning--there's no flashcard requirements, worksheets, or boring stuff here--just easy, natural ways of being more math-mindful with kiddos.

A sneak-peek at some of the Everyday Math Activities:

Counting: At snacktime, have your child estimate the number of Cheerios or pretzels. Then count them; Use tally marks to count objects. . .

Odd or Even? Give your child coins then ask her to identify them. Is there an odd number or even number?

Shapes: When you're out on the town, have your child identify geometric shapes--and use the correct vocabulary to discuss features. . .

Time/ Date: Have your child look at an analog clock and tell the time at the hour and half hour.

Measurement/ Fractions: When fixing a sandwich, have your child help you cut it into halves, thirds, quarters. . .

Addition/ Subtraction: Add and subtract objects--Legos, toys, blocks. . .

(HUGE thanks to MCPS and our cluster of schools for creating the basic Everyday Math Activity sheet, which I just modified and re-organized slightly!)

And that's it--a busy and exciting, sweltering July day with a teeny bit of learning shoved in before we (eeeee!) got to meet the hilarious, talented, and awesome Steve (from SteveSongs!) in real life. Seriously. It was a marvelous day.