http://www.walden.com/blog/ en jpedley@walden.com Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T17:58:58+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/11_fun_ways_to_have_a_happy_holiday_roadtrip_with_you_kids/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/11_fun_ways_to_have_a_happy_holiday_roadtrip_with_you_kids/#When:17:58:58Z   What will your kids be doing in the car on your upcoming holiday road trip? Aggravating one another in the back seat? Pestering you about how much longer the trip will be? Try packing a road trip busy bag. In the past, we have looked at ways to keep kids busy while waiting at a restaurant, quiet during a worship service and occupied in the office. Today we will be examining some ideas for keeping kids busy in the car.Car busy bag ideas: Remember those books with records that you got at fast food restaurants back in the 80’s? You could play the story on your Fisher Price record player and follow along in the book. A tone would sound when it was time to turn the page. They have the same thing on CD these days and they are great for car trips. Visit your local library and stock up before your trip. Try a travel scavenger hunt. Have a list of items that you are looking for and hang it up on the back of the seat. When you see an item on your list, cross it off. When you have found all of the items, take a break and stop for ice cream. If your child is old enough to take pictures, give him a camera and the task to snap photos related to a certain theme. For instance, ask him to get pictures of animals or sports cars. When he gets ten pictures in the same category, swap themes. Give kids finger puppet gloves for pretend play. They don’t take up much room and they don’t require those prone to carsickness to read anything. For step-by-step instructions on making a pair, see Literacy crafts: Make finger puppets with a glove. Make a car bingo set from magnets and magazine cutouts. On a sheet of paper, paste pictures of different types of cars and tape the sheet to a small cake pan. Each time your child sees one of the cars on his bingo sheet, he can cover that picture with a magnet. Try a travel felt set. Cover a shoebox lid with an adhesive felt sheet and store felt pieces inside of the box. Make your own felt sets or browse the selections at Genesis Arts. See the slide show at the bottom of the page for an example. Continue reading this post on Examiner.com.   Family 2009-11-20T17:58:58+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/Globalwarmingtip8/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/Globalwarmingtip8/#When:18:48:28Z Educate Your Parents Take the issue of global warming to PTA meetings to educate the parents on the urgency of this issue.   See more tips and join the campaign at StopGlobalWarming.org Education, Family, Community 2009-11-19T18:48:28+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/buy_jamba_juice_support_your_local_pta/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/buy_jamba_juice_support_your_local_pta/#When:00:05:36Z Image ©photoxpress.com   Treat your kids to a healthy snack and support your local PTA at the same time!  Jamba Juice, the popular smoothie chain has created a program called Sip to Support Schools. Present the special key-chain-sized School Appreciation card at any participating Jamba Juice at the time of purchase, and Jamba will donate 10% of the proceeds to your local PTA (Parent Teacher Association) group, and 2% to the National PTA®. To participate, encourage a local PTA board member to register for the program. She will receive a supply of swipe cards and materials to promote the program including customizable flyers, and tips. Distribute the cards to parents, teachers, administrators, friends and family, and drink to a better PTA! The program goes year-round, so visit the Jamba website frequently for more tips to promote the program and help your school! Now that’s a snack we can get behind! Education, Family, Community 2009-11-19T00:05:36+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/teaching_kids_manners_for_holiday_celebrations/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/teaching_kids_manners_for_holiday_celebrations/#When:18:58:54Z Image ©Stock.Xchng   Uh-oh, Thanksgiving dinner - family and friends reunited around one table with small children.  The classic solution for children and adults happily co-existing at holiday tables is the kids’ table.  And I highly recommend it.  If, however, the children are sitting at the adult table this year, teaching good manners will help prepare your child to be socially savvy this holiday season.The Easy Things Saturate your children in politeness days before the family gathering. Children love using manners because they love the art of the game. “Please” and “thank you” are power words, paying them off with gloating smiles. Children learn “please” and “thank you” and “please pass the butter” through immersion and repetition. Be attentive to pro-social behavior. Explicitly teach children how to act around other people. For example: make eye contact when listening, use quiet voices inside, say “excuse me” if you want attention, and it’s okay to say “no, thank you”. These are all easy behaviors to teach but remember these are skills that are learned through gentle guidance not automatically. Clarify your expectations. Family gatherings and holiday events also provide opportunities for children to do things differently than the typical day-to-day. Children may not understand that some older people need assistance. Let them know their great grandmother would love it if they would hold her hand and walk with her to the dining room. Kindness is learned by remembering another person’s point of view. Be explicit. New situations come with new rules. You may need to say, “I don’t want you to chase the dog through the house while the guests are here”. Or, “today, I want you to wait to start eating until I give you our secret signal”. And pppplease, no burping contests at the table!” Continue reading this article on Examiner.com. Family 2009-11-18T18:58:54+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/celebrity_contributor_kelly_ford_talks_leadership/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/celebrity_contributor_kelly_ford_talks_leadership/#When:01:08:42Z Photo ©stock.xchng   “Who would ever want to be King?”  Lyrics from one of my favorite Coldplay tunes, Viva la Vida. The truth is not everyone wants to be King or Queen, (although a title and crown does seem appealing). But we are all leaders of some sort in our own little realms and we are all subjects in someone’s kingdom. It’s a macro as the president of a powerful nation or as micro as the ring leader of a 6th grade clique.  Even if we think we aren’t in official leadership positions - people follow us. As a mother, a wife, a friend, a co-worker YOU do lead. Sometimes you lead gently like a beautiful poem by Maya Angelou and sometimes forcefully like a hip thrust from Madonna. (I want a cone bra to go with the crown.) I know. I know. The topic of leadership is nothing new. Thousands of boring books have been written on it. There’s that one. What’s it called? The 1000 Irritating Habits of People Who are Way More Fabulous Than You in Every Possible Way or something like that. Are leaders born with it? Can you develop it? There are sports analogies out the wazoo. But since I have a fascination with heaving cleavages, the Tower of London and royalty in general let’s stick with the King/Queen metaphor. A recent article in Psychology Today broke down leaders into two categories. The X Leader and the Y Leader. Queen X believes her followers are basically unmotivated and need their ruler to motivate them and direct their activities. Queen Y believes that followers are self motivated and self directed and do better with a hands off style. I’d like to add Queen Z as a third option. The leader (parent, teacher, boss or mentor) who zeros in on each person’s unique contributions and gently guides them to greatness through spectacular spurts of self motivation and monumental lapses in it. That’s a more realistic and inspiring leader. “And I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt, pillars of sand.” Viva la Vida points out the pitfalls of being a leader. To be clear, it ain’t  easy being Queen…or was that green? Either way stepping up to the challenge of being a leader in our everyday life takes courage, but the reward is great. I had a very thoughtful talk recently with my 14-year old who goes to a school that isn’t big into testing or competition. It’s a school that focuses more on developing critical thinking skills. I guess it works. He ended up giving me his thesis on how positive competition and constructive criticism CAN be.  Then I told him he was my favorite child. JUST KIDDING! Which leads me to this point. Listen to your children, your students, your employees, the people serving on your committee. They might just have something valuable to share that would help in your “reign.” They’re in the trenches fighting the battles of the kingdom.  It’s bloody out there. You can lose perspective from your comfy velvet throne. The best teachers learn from their students and integrate it into how they lead. Obviously each “leadership” relationship is different. And, we all have tough decisions to make in our roles as leaders. I recently handed down an unpopular verdict to my favorite child’s request for an iPhone. (Still kidding on the favorite child thing. Although he is VERY cute.) I had to consider our family budget and the validity of his argument that he would be able to research homework assignments more efficiently.  Nice try from a future King.  “Listen as the crowd would sing, Now the old king is dead!  Long live the king!”  And finally Viva la Vida points out that change is inevitable and remember if you don’t like the current King or Queen…a new one is on the way.  Or to quote another song, “Life’s a Dance. You learn as you go. Sometimes you lead. Sometimes you follow.” Family, Insider 2009-11-18T01:08:42+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/a_lunch_program_revolution/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/a_lunch_program_revolution/#When:20:00:46Z Image ©photoXpress.com   The term “school lunch” is often met with snickers and eye-rolling as many of us think of hockey puck hamburgers and Franken-nuggets. As if serving fresh, nutritionally loaded school lunches which children will eat, isn’t tricky enough, consider the challenge facing many charter schools across the Unites States: No kitchen or facility space to serve food. Some charter schools have solved the dilemma by running a daily caravan of volunteers to the nearest sandwich shop, or offering a rotating menu of fast food. Most such situations results in a lunch offering which is less than desirable from a nutritional, cost effective, or logistics stand point. Please welcome Revolution Foods. Revolution Foods launched in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006 by Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, two eco-conscious former teachers and school founders. Their vision was to create school food service that would assure that all students have access to healthy, fresh food on a daily basis. Richmond and Toby partnered with Executive Chef Amy Klein, and designed a school nutrition program which only used local foods that are void of controversial hormone and chemical treatments, as well as appeal to both parents and kids. Continue reading this post on Examiner.com. Charter Schools Examiner Karin Piper wrote the great article excerpted above. For more information on improving school lunches, also see Walden’s earlier post: Healthy School Lunches: Dollars and Sense. Education, Family 2009-11-17T20:00:46+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/family_volunteer_day_support_communities_while_demonstrating_the_power_of_f/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/family_volunteer_day_support_communities_while_demonstrating_the_power_of_f/#When:18:41:42Z   Family Volunteer Day, November 21, is held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The event is sponsored by the HandsOn Network, which encourages and equips people to take action to change the world.Family Volunteer Day demonstrates the power of families who volunteer in their communities. According to guidelines on the informational Web site, a family is any group of two or more people who consider themselves a family. Volunteering can be done by: The whole family One parent and one child or teen Siblings together Extended family, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins “Volunteering gives you an opportunity to change people’s lives, including your own,” according to a KidsHealth.org article. By volunteering as a family, parents can teach their children kindness, compassion and good citizenship, HandsOn Network said.Not sure what you and your kids could do on Family Volunteer Day? Check the HandsOn Network Web link. Ideas are based on children’s ages or you can choose a project connected with an issue that is important to your family.VolunteerSpot, a free Web-based organization tool that powers grassroots volunteering at school and in the community, has published a free e-Book, Family Friendly Volunteering: Ideas from A-Z. Suggested projects include: Book Drive – Collect gently used books, CDs and DVDs and donate them to schools, children’s hospitals, or family shelters. Graffiti Removal – Join other families in your neighborhood in scrubbing surfaces and painting over graffiti. Prom Dresses – Organize a collection of prom dresses and accessories. Girls in economic need welcome a chance to dress up for homecoming and prom. Work Party – Assemble a team to rehabilitate a less fortunate corner of your neighborhood or a tired playground and make it a better place for families. Continue reading this article on Examiner.com. Family, Community 2009-11-17T18:41:42+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/exclusive_tooth_fairy_star_dwayne_johnson_discusses_the_new_movie/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/exclusive_tooth_fairy_star_dwayne_johnson_discusses_the_new_movie/#When:23:57:13Z Your character is a hockey player. Is being in movies that features sports important to you? You bet. I just know how important sports was to me, and everything that sports and athletics taught me from the time I started doing gymnastics when I was a kid, which didn’t last very long, until the time I took martial arts and everything else. I know the lessons that it taught me, and I’m aware of the impact that sports has on children’s lives, all around the world. So any time I’m able to implement that it’s just really, really a cool thing. Was it difficult to play the tooth fairy? It wasn’t difficult at all. I mean, it was a no brainer for me. The tooth fairy is part of our culture and it’s part of the wonderment of being a child and, and the beauty of growing up. The very first time that I was approached to play the tooth fairy, I loved it. I loved the idea number one, and because it’s a character that we haven’t seen come to life in movies before. Do you remember when you lost your first tooth? Yes, I do. It didn’t come out naturally. I remember jumping from the couch - I thought that I was able to jump from the couch onto the coffee table. And I missed, and hit my mouth on the edge of the coffee table and knocked out a tooth. Does the Tooth Fairy exist in your own Samoan culture? Yes, the tooth fairy does exist in the Samoan culture. And, you know, that’s the wonderful thing about the tooth fairy – there are so many different versions of the tooth fairy in cultures worldwide - in France, in Asia, in the islands of Samoa. It’s really amazing and wonderful, the myth of the tooth fairy - because losing a tooth in every culture is such a rite of passage. What does your character learn about dreams? Derek finally realizes why dreams are so important in children’s lives is because he has this great relationship with Ashley Judd’s character, Carly. She has two wonderful kids, Tess and Randy. Tess is a beautiful little five year old girl; Randy is fourteen, but both of them are at that age where dreaming is vital and setting goals is vital. And not only that, but doing everything you can possibly do to achieve those goals is vital, and Derek doesn’t quite understand that until he sees their dreams shattered because of him. TOOTH FAIRY comes to theaters nationwide January 22, 2010. Movies, Insider 2009-11-16T23:57:13+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/live_in_the_moment_through_reading/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/live_in_the_moment_through_reading/#When:23:45:24Z Chip Flaherty on Halloween with two of his four children, Trey and Bridget.   “Live in the moment” - is one of those important adages that is easy to say but difficult to practice.  But it is important - medical research indicates that those who can live in the moment increase their longevity and improve their brain function.  But in this increasingly busy and noisy world, how can anyone live in the moment? Well, good news:  there are Walden Media products that can help you live in the moment.  The bad news:  you have to read this entire blog before I share these products with you. First, a couple of observations.  This past Halloween, I saw a Spiderman/dad with his kids in tow, engaging in the familiar ritual of knocking on doors and getting candy.  In our Spiderman/dad’s hand he held not a web-shooter, but a Blackberry, which he would occasionally look at and shoot off (not a web, but) an e-mail. Now my first thought was Spiderman on the World Wide Web presents a possible one liner or two, but upon deeper reflection I realized that this was yet another example of how difficult it is to get away now - how truly difficult it is to live in the moment. Why does it matter that we find a way to live in the moment?  Well, in the great book You Staying Young, authors Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. note that a failure to live in the moment lessens our longevity (by shortening the telomeres on our chromosomes) and harms our overall brain function (by contributing to the shrinking of our prefronal cortex).   (Name Dropping Alert:  You Staying Young is a phenomenal book, which I found out about when I appeared on Doctor Oz’s radio program as a guest.  I would be remiss to not mention that Doctor Oz was incredibly personable and well prepared, calling the night before the radio show to make sure that I was all set.  When he called, some neighbors were over and they still talk about the night the famous Dr. Oz literally made a housecall.) With its importance medically established,  I began to look for an activity that would allow living in the moment.   Approaching a rotary while driving comes close.  For those of you who have never driven in Massachusetts, a rotary is a circle in the middle of a road, a place where a number of other streets converge.  From an aerial view it looks like a pinwheel, spinning off cars and streets and presenting driving possibilities and permutations that require focused thought. However, when approaching a rotary, it is impossible to be solely in the moment because thoughts do creep into your mind - “are my car insurance premiums paid up?” “what is my towing deductible?” “is it time to give public transportation a chance?” Similarly, parallel parking, which requires concentration, is too attenuated a process to truly galvanize the mind and let one live in the moment.  You worry about hitting the car in front of you, hitting the car in back of you, and whether you will be an embarrassingly far distance from the curb when you finally park.   (For these reasons, back when I was dating, I refused to go anywhere that would require parallel parking.  Restaurants with valet - great;  movie theater with a parking lot - fine; but a romantic, charming cafe with parking on a busy street - a non-starter.  There is pressure and then there is first date pressure, trying to parallel park and, once done, having your date ask whether a shuttle will be coming by to transport her all the way to the sidewalk.) My search for an activity that would allow for living in the moment brought me to the Internet, where I read about a study in England that found that reading is the best way to relax.  The cognitive neuropsychologist who conducted the research stated that “Losing yourself is the ultimate relaxation.” I had found my answer.  Reading - especially reading for fun, reading for pleasure - is the activity that transports us to a place where tomorrow’s PowerPoint presentation, the car at the mechanic, the oil bill - all disappear for a while.  By losing ourselves in a book we find that haven where we can concentrate and relax - where we can live in the moment. Walden Media books provide great stories, tales well told by talented authors.  It is my pleasure, honor and good fortune to have a job where the end result, the end product, is a book - a product that not only entertains but maybe can keep us around a little while longer.  Not a bad deal at all. Books, Community 2009-11-16T23:45:24+00:00 http://www.walden.com/blogpost/be_thankful_for_your_health_create_a_jared_box/ http://www.walden.com/blogpost/be_thankful_for_your_health_create_a_jared_box/#When:22:05:18Z Image ©photoXpress.com   Have you escaped the H1N1 swine flu this year?  If so, there’s something to be thankful for.  Perhaps you have recovered after a bout with an illness, return of good health is another thing to be thankful for.  Did you wake up this morning breathing?  There’s nothing too small to be thankful for.If you are thankful for your health and looking for a way to show your gratitude, consider making a Jared Box with your homeschool students.Who is Jared, and what is a Jared Box?  Jared was a little boy who battled childhood cancer.  His fight on this earth ended on November 12, 2000.  The Jared Box website explains that:“Jared maintained his sense of humor and the joys of childhood through play. He carried a backpack full of toys and games to all appointments, and questioned why the other children didn’t bring toys to their exam rooms.”If you’ve ever spent any amount of time with a sick child waiting to be seen by a doctor, you know that the time can drag on.  It’s a stressful time for both parent and child.  Anything to take your mind off of the crisis at hand by diverting your attention to something more enjoyable is welcome.  A Jared Box does just that. Continue reading this article on Examiner.com. Education, Family, Community 2009-11-16T22:05:18+00:00