Over the years, structures get modified for continuing growth. Here you will find the help to encourage life long learning.
Articles are updated frequently.
These sections are organized by age level, but the information is not confined to just these ages. Consider looking at other age ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.
Articles are updated frequently.
These sections are organized by age level, but the information is not confined to just these ages. Consider looking at other age ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.
Hope is in Your Horoscope
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. Thich Nhat Hanh
Hope is a learned response and a bigger determinant of success than intelligence, skill or previous success. It is your work as parent, grandparent, or caregiver to help your children stay hopeful. If your children have a higher “hope score,” they will be more successful at achieving academic and athletic goals. They will be able to recognize and make the best use of opportunities. With your children and yourself, if you make the choice to hope, you put yourselves in control of how you react to circumstances, knowing that you can draw on hope to see things in a new or different way. Hope strengthens us and expands our capacity to believe in our dreams and what is possible for us.
How do you develop hope? First of all, you need to be optimistic, to believe that things will get better. You need
to set goals for yourselves and help your children to do so. Having goals to work towards in one of the best ways
to have hope.
Hopes are the strands that run through our lives—our struggles, our successes and setbacks, our strengths and shortcomings. Realistic and reasonable hope can move us forward toward achieving goals and lift us up as we accomplish each step in attaining them You and your children need to “high five” or pat yourselves on the back each time you move a step closer to your goals. If each one of you is setting and accomplishing a goal, you encourage and help each other. (www.wikihow.com). Hope breeds hope.
You can even schedule hope according to Noami Drew. You can create a daily 5-minute silence ritual and curtail your intake of the news. Develop a mantra such as I am the key to hope. I am the key to peace in my family.
Using this time to make a difference in your lives gives you the opportunity to live your greatest promises and to develop your highest and best selves. Hope is energy, fuel for living. Hope is a necessity, an emotional engine and basis for engaging in life.
Hopeful thinkers achieve more and are physically and psychologically healthier than less hopeful people.
Charles Richard Snyder
Treat your family to a healthy, hopeful life in spite of COVID 19.
Jumping Rope: An Antidote for Stress
Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. Ray Bradbury
I am not sure your wings will unfold as you jump rope. It is said that neither you nor your children need to jump that high to profit from jumping. Jumping has many benefits. It works your heart by pumping oxygen around your body more efficiently. It strengthens muscles in your upper and lower body as muscles move simultaneously. It expands lungs as you move air rapidly through them, and it relieves stress. Jump roping skill transfers to other athletics due to its “one-stop shop” for your whole body. It is also a great calorie burner. 10 minutes of non-stop jumping equals 30 minutes of jogging.
To get the most benefit from jumping or skipping rope, you need to have a good jump rope. A beaded rope is better than a cloth or vinyl one. buyjumpropes.net has all kinds of beaded jump ropes for sale at very reasonable prices. They have jump ropes for all occasions, especially now for Christmas. They show you how to measure jump ropes for everyone in your family. By holding the handles as they reach your armpits while you are stepping on the rope, you can tell if the rope is the right size. If you need to adjust the rope, this website has a short video to tell you how to do that.
Your driveway may not be the best surface to jump rope on, but it is a convenient place for your family to gather. Wood is the best surface if your children want to help dad drag pieces of plywood for you to jump on. Maybe jumping inside on a mini-trampoline is good because it absorbs some of the shock and conditions your calf and leg muscles.
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. Zora Neale Hurston
Another reason to use jump rope during this pandemic is to reduce stress. It decreases overall tension, elevates and stabilizes mood, improves sleep, lifts self esteem and improves balance. For your children, it develops both sides of the brain, improves spacial awareness and reading skills, increases memory and mental alertness.
Jumping rope can make your family less stressed and happier and increase the bonding your family needs through Covid 19.
Give of Yourself -- No Wrapping Necessary
Teens usually do not have the money to spend on gifts for members of their family but they can still have presents for others. Giving of themselves to help at this busy time of year is one of the best presents. Helping to shop or wrap gifts. Making cookies to give to family and friends and personalizing them to wrap in plastic wrap and put on the tree. Even young men could laugh and enjoy doing this.
Maybe sewing new Christmas stockings. How about learning to crochet a dishcloth or knit a colorful scarf? Could your young people assemble a robot for a younger member of your family? Could your older children spend time with the younger ones without complaining, but maybe letting you know good-naturedly that this is part of YOUR Christmas gift.
Anything they choose to do for others in their neighborhood or community are "feel-good" gifts to share, giving them peace and joy this season during pandemic sadness.
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. Thich Nhat Hanh
Hope is a learned response and a bigger determinant of success than intelligence, skill or previous success. It is your work as parent, grandparent, or caregiver to help your children stay hopeful. If your children have a higher “hope score,” they will be more successful at achieving academic and athletic goals. They will be able to recognize and make the best use of opportunities. With your children and yourself, if you make the choice to hope, you put yourselves in control of how you react to circumstances, knowing that you can draw on hope to see things in a new or different way. Hope strengthens us and expands our capacity to believe in our dreams and what is possible for us.
How do you develop hope? First of all, you need to be optimistic, to believe that things will get better. You need
to set goals for yourselves and help your children to do so. Having goals to work towards in one of the best ways
to have hope.
Hopes are the strands that run through our lives—our struggles, our successes and setbacks, our strengths and shortcomings. Realistic and reasonable hope can move us forward toward achieving goals and lift us up as we accomplish each step in attaining them You and your children need to “high five” or pat yourselves on the back each time you move a step closer to your goals. If each one of you is setting and accomplishing a goal, you encourage and help each other. (www.wikihow.com). Hope breeds hope.
You can even schedule hope according to Noami Drew. You can create a daily 5-minute silence ritual and curtail your intake of the news. Develop a mantra such as I am the key to hope. I am the key to peace in my family.
Using this time to make a difference in your lives gives you the opportunity to live your greatest promises and to develop your highest and best selves. Hope is energy, fuel for living. Hope is a necessity, an emotional engine and basis for engaging in life.
Hopeful thinkers achieve more and are physically and psychologically healthier than less hopeful people.
Charles Richard Snyder
Treat your family to a healthy, hopeful life in spite of COVID 19.
Jumping Rope: An Antidote for Stress
Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. Ray Bradbury
I am not sure your wings will unfold as you jump rope. It is said that neither you nor your children need to jump that high to profit from jumping. Jumping has many benefits. It works your heart by pumping oxygen around your body more efficiently. It strengthens muscles in your upper and lower body as muscles move simultaneously. It expands lungs as you move air rapidly through them, and it relieves stress. Jump roping skill transfers to other athletics due to its “one-stop shop” for your whole body. It is also a great calorie burner. 10 minutes of non-stop jumping equals 30 minutes of jogging.
To get the most benefit from jumping or skipping rope, you need to have a good jump rope. A beaded rope is better than a cloth or vinyl one. buyjumpropes.net has all kinds of beaded jump ropes for sale at very reasonable prices. They have jump ropes for all occasions, especially now for Christmas. They show you how to measure jump ropes for everyone in your family. By holding the handles as they reach your armpits while you are stepping on the rope, you can tell if the rope is the right size. If you need to adjust the rope, this website has a short video to tell you how to do that.
Your driveway may not be the best surface to jump rope on, but it is a convenient place for your family to gather. Wood is the best surface if your children want to help dad drag pieces of plywood for you to jump on. Maybe jumping inside on a mini-trampoline is good because it absorbs some of the shock and conditions your calf and leg muscles.
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. Zora Neale Hurston
Another reason to use jump rope during this pandemic is to reduce stress. It decreases overall tension, elevates and stabilizes mood, improves sleep, lifts self esteem and improves balance. For your children, it develops both sides of the brain, improves spacial awareness and reading skills, increases memory and mental alertness.
Jumping rope can make your family less stressed and happier and increase the bonding your family needs through Covid 19.
Give of Yourself -- No Wrapping Necessary
Teens usually do not have the money to spend on gifts for members of their family but they can still have presents for others. Giving of themselves to help at this busy time of year is one of the best presents. Helping to shop or wrap gifts. Making cookies to give to family and friends and personalizing them to wrap in plastic wrap and put on the tree. Even young men could laugh and enjoy doing this.
Maybe sewing new Christmas stockings. How about learning to crochet a dishcloth or knit a colorful scarf? Could your young people assemble a robot for a younger member of your family? Could your older children spend time with the younger ones without complaining, but maybe letting you know good-naturedly that this is part of YOUR Christmas gift.
Anything they choose to do for others in their neighborhood or community are "feel-good" gifts to share, giving them peace and joy this season during pandemic sadness.