Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, flowers and bees began their ancient, symbiotic relationship. Tens of millions of years later, we are still enjoying the fruits of their labor — quite literally! Did you know that one in every three bites of food we eat is made possible by bees, and about 75% of the world’s flowering plants are pollinated by our buzzing friends and other animals like bats?
Why not support the native bees in your neighborhood? Building an upcycled bee sanctuary may attract cavity-nesting bees, which usually lay their eggs in holes made in dead wood by beetles or hollow or pithy stems. In this adaptation, we’re using cut cardboard tubes and paper straws!
Now is the time of year when plastic eggs become widely available in stores, and they also reemerge from under beds, the back of the closet or the top shelf of the garage. In some households, these eggs are filled with treats by adults, and hidden for children to find. Other households hide the eggs outside multiple times and decide who can find the most. This year I found a STEM challenge that can be done indoors, with less risk of losing the eggs.
This challenge is about guessing (or hypothesizing) whether the item you place in the plastic egg will make the egg sink.
For this game, you will need the following supplies:
Plastic eggs
Water
Container to hold water (mixing bowl, sink, bucket)
Assorted items that fit into an egg (see ideas below)
Optional: paper and pencil
I suggest having your items for inside the eggs preselected and ready before you and your child begin experimenting. I organized my items in a muffin tin. If your eggs have holes, cover those with tape to make water-tight seal.
I thought I’d highlight some nonfiction this time! Sometimes it can be hard to convince fiction lovers (like myself!) to read nonfiction, but often a good narrative nonfiction will do the trick. And because I can’t resist all the amazing fiction titles coming out this month, I picked two nonfiction and two fiction books.
This book tells the story of two men who became the first Native professional baseball players to face each other in a World Series in 1911. Each of them left life on their respective reservations (Charles Bender in Minnesota and John Meyers in California) to play baseball. Each had to persevere through countless insults and slurs. The media was not kind to them, and neither were the fans. Frequently called “Chief” and portrayed as fierce rivals, the two men actually had great respect for each other and the barriers they were breaking together. Not only does this book highlight an exciting moment in history, it also brings attention to current attitudes toward Native players in sports. Author notes in the back give more info about their careers beyond the 1911 World Series. Continue reading “Brianna’s Books: April Favorites 2023”
Spring is here, a season of new beginnings, which means it’s a great time for kids and parents to start incorporating, or re-incorporating, habits into their lives that will nourish and uplift their bodies and minds. Making sure that you’re moving your body, eating a balanced diet of nutrient-rich foods and taking time for mindful breathing and relaxation are some important ways to help create and maintain a healthy lifestyle, and the library has many books that can help:
How do you like to move? Do you like stretching, team sports, swimming or skateboarding? Or maybe hikes, bike rides, dancing or martial arts? There are so many different ways to move your body in healthy ways. One of my favorite ways to move my body is through yoga, and there are many different poses and types of yoga to try. In “Yoga Frog,” by Nora Carpenter, Yoga Frog leads you through a series of yoga stretches, or asanas, from Mountain Pose (tadasana) to Resting Pose (savasana) to help you have a happy, hoppy day just like him! And author Mariam Gates has two books, “Good Morning Yoga” and “Yoga Friends” that use yoga poses to lead young readers through a story. Another wonderful story with movement is Eric Carle’s “From Head to Toe,” which invites kids to copy the antics of various animals as they wave, clap, wriggle, thump, kick and stomp. And the benefits of physical fitness are also covered in both Scot Richie’s “See How We Move!,” which follows the members of a swim team as they prepare for an upcoming meet, and Rosalyn Clark’s “Why We Exercise.” Continue reading “Cultivating Healthy Habits for Spring”
Can you imagine scraping pictures onto the walls of a fire-lit cave using a small, sharp stone? How about carving symbols into a beeswax-filled wooden tablet using a sharpened piece of metal or bone? No longer needing to fill a goose feather with ink to capture our thoughts on paper (although I think that sounds fun), we can use the coniferous wood and graphite of the standard yellow pencil.
For school-aged kids, pencils may seem kinda dull. What’s so special about something you use every day? I think pencils are magical, actually. Think about all the future writers, illustrators and animators journaling or doodling in notebooks or the margins of their homework; who nurture big dreams and later go on to create wonderful chapter books, graphic novels, television shows and movies. In celebration of pencils as vehicles of creativity, check out the books featured below!
As a young child in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai dreamed of having a magic pencil to create peace in the world and erase suffering. When she was only ten years old, she began speaking out for girls to have the same educational rights as boys. Living under Taliban rule posed threats, but Malala was not afraid. This reflective, auto-biographical picture book chronicles Malala’s journey to becoming an international activist for universal education, earning her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 (awarded when she was only seventeen!).
In Lewis Carroll’s “Through a Looking Glass,” a gnat asks a little girl named Alice, “What sort of insects do you rejoice in where you come from?” “I don’t REJOICE in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m rather afraid of them — at least the large kinds.”
For the most part, like Alice, we do not “rejoice” in insects in the United States, much to the dismay of entomologists like Dr. Dino Martins, author of “You Can Be An Entomologist!” In this colorful overview, Dr. Martins speaks directly to kids, explaining why entomologists study bugs and how bugs are helpful.
Dr. Martins says that all we need to be an “insect watcher” is curiosity and patience. But what if the thought of watching bugs is scary?
“Ruby and the Itsy-Bitsy Icky Bug” is an excellent book to read to warm up bug-reluctant readers. One day while stuck in time out, Ruby discovers a bug on her window. When the bug won’t fly away, and they are forced to spend more time together, Ruby slowly discovers that the bug maybe isn’t so icky after all. Continue reading “Exquisite Entomology”
Did you know March 16th is Panda Day? In celebration of these cute critters, I found a fun panda-themed craft with a new way of applying paint to paper.
Daylight saving time is upon us, and brighter evening skies can certainly boost our moods and signal warmer days ahead. But if you’re a parent or caregiver, daylight saving time can also make bedtime MUCH more challenging! Any changes in sleep routine can be super disruptive for kids, and “springing forward” can result in grumpiness and sleep deprivation that lingers for days.
Pediatricians and sleep experts stress that creating and sticking to a nightly routine is crucial as the days stretch longer. For many families, this routine is capped off with a bedtime story. On those bleak nights when sleep seems so far away, a blissful bedtime read may just be the perfect remedy for rambunctious little ones and stressed-out caregivers alike. For this list, I went in search of books with gentle rhymes, dreamy illustrations and sweet sentiments for saying “good night.” Continue reading “Dreamy Bedtime Books”
I’ve got some treats for you this month! Tasty picture books, a new fantasy series opener and a historical fiction for horse lovers. I can’t think of a better way to finish out the last few days of winter than spending time with some new books.
Picture Books
“Ramen for Everyone” written by Patricia Tanumihardja and illustrated by Shiho Pate
Do illustrations of food tickle your tastebuds? They sure do for me! This book is full of delicious pictures of ramen that had me searching for the nearest ramen restaurant. Hiro is a little boy who loves ramen, especially when his dad makes it every Sunday. His dad follows a recipe passed down from his father, and Hiro carefully observes and takes notes every time. When he turns seven, Hiro decides it’s time to make his own perfect bowl of ramen! But things are a lot more difficult than anticipated, and it takes some encouragement from Dad to prevent Hiro from giving up. The illustrations are reminiscent of manga, and the text is filled with action words that capture the excitement and joy in the kitchen. The lesson about perseverance and being okay with something that’s less than perfect would be a great conversation topic as you enjoy a bowl of ramen with your kiddo! (Full disclosure: as of the writing of this blog, I have not actually ever eaten real ramen. I hope that by the time you’re reading this, I will have remedied that.) Continue reading “Brianna’s Books: March Favorites 2023”
Books are often the first exposure children have to the broader world outside of their homes. I have spent much of the past few weeks thinking about these early reading experiences, especially as it relates to Black History Month, and I focused on two questions:
How important are these early book choices, whether we are making them with our children or for our children?
When should parents and caregivers start intentionally choosing books for children that directly address topics like race and racism? Especially white parents and caregivers, like me?
Author Amina Luqman Dawson’s first novel Free Water, a middle-grade book about a secret community of formerly enslaved people living in the wilderness, received both the 2023 John Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Book Award from the American Library Association. She is the first African American author to win both awards.
I turned, as I often do in these crucial parenting moments, to the experts for some support. Luckily, I only had to turn as far as the list of people and places I follow on Instagram. One of my favorite follows — and one of the country’s leading voices on the importance of Black history for early education — started her career right here in Columbia. Dawnavyn James is a Stephens College graduate and former kindergarten teacher at Parkade Elementary, where she gained national recognition for her TikTok videos and Black History Club toolkit. Continue reading “It’s Always a Good Time to Celebrate Black History”
Daylight saving time is upon us, and brighter evening skies can certainly boost our moods and signal warmer days ahead. But if you’re a parent or caregiver, daylight saving time can also make bedtime MUCH more challenging! Any changes in sleep routine can be super disruptive for kids, and “springing forward” can result in grumpiness and sleep deprivation that lingers for days.