In Growing Up Global, Tavangar shares with all of us her “parenting toolbox” to help give our children a vital global perspective. Whether you’re mastering a greeting in ten different languages, throwing an internationally themed birthday party, or celebrating a newfound holiday, Growing Up Global provides parents and children with a rich, exciting background for exploring and connecting with far-flung nations they may have only heard about on television. Inside you’ll discover• fun activities, games, and suggestions for movies, music, books, magazines, service activities, and websites for expanding your family’s worldview • simple explanations that will help your children grasp the diversity of world faiths• creative ways to gain geography literacy• handy lists of celebrations and customs that offer a fascinating look at how people from different cultures around the world live everyday lifeGrowing Up Global is a book that parents, grandparents, and teachers can turn to again and again for inspiration and motivation as they strive to open the minds of children everywhere.

    Drawing on a program she has honed in schools around the country over the last fifteen years, Little Big Minds guides parents and educators in introducing philosophy to K-8 children in order to develop their critical thinking, deepen their appreciation for others, and brace them for the philosophical quandaries that lurk in all of our lives, young or old.Arranged according to themes-including prejudice, compassion, and death-and featuring the work of philosophers from Plato and Socrates to the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King Jr., this step-by-step guide to teaching kids how to think philosophically is full of excellent discussion questions, teaching tips, and group exercises.

    Being a florivore herself, she only wants to invite them over for cakes and tea. The ironic air wafting through Kirk's rhymed tale will not be lost on young readers, and the insects in the big, brightly colored illustrations beear comically apprehensive expressions as they hastily depart . . . At last, Miss Spider is able to convince a rain-soaked moth of her good intentions . . . A sweet tale" --School Library Journal

    This fourth edition includes new material for contemporary parents on anger, children's dreams, maintaining individual and family life, marital as well as parental life, and many new personal anecdotes. It is the perfect guide "not merely for parents who want to raise their children in the best manner possible, it is for all people, including adults who want to raise themselves." (M. Scott Peck, from the foreword).Whether exploring love and discipline or bedtime and storybook reading, Berends shows the practical relevance of spiritual insights to the most ordinary parental tasks.

    Many people believe they can't homeschool because they are lacking some magical quality or skill successful homeschoolers have. The truth is that homeschooling can be done, and done well, by most ordinary people.Terrie Lynn Bittner's book will take you by the hand and show you how. She breaks the job down into doable chunks and carefully explains each part, giving you the confidence you need to get it done. Her explainations are clear and thorough.Down-to-earth and practical ... sensible and direct ... Designed to empower the novice toward home-schooling success, this book is friendly, reassuring and endlessly supportive ... like a very well-informed neighbor. (Publishers Weekly)In this honest and commonsensical book ... Bittner ... offers sound advice on legal issues, lesson plans, curricula, testing, teaching, values, preparing for graduation, and college ... This is an encouraging and helpful resource for parents considering homeschooling their children. (Booklist)

    Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, economics, and psychology, Tough shows that the qualities that matter most have less to do with IQ and more to do with character: skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism."How Children Succeed" introduces us to a new generation of scientists and educators who are radically changing our understanding of how children develop character, how they learn to think, and how they overcome adversity. It tells the personal stories of young people struggling to stay on the right side of the line between success and failure. And it argues for a new way of thinking about how best to steer an individual child – or a whole generation of children – toward a successful future.This provocative and profoundly hopeful book will not only inspire and engage readers; it will also change our understanding of childhood itself.

    But where do they go to find honest, practical answers to questions such as: Can I afford it? Or, how will my child make friends without going to school? Look no further. This invaluable guidebook—completely updated to include the 101 most important homeschooling concerns—answers all those questions and more. Inside, you'll learn: ·Methods of motivating, teaching, and testing homeschooled children ·The latest on the growing use of distance-learning tools ·Ways to homeschool your special-needs child ·The differences between homeschooling younger children and teenagers Drawing from the collective wisdom and experience of homeschooling's most respected voices, The Homeschooling Book of Answers is your essential guide to this widely popular—and flexible—educational approach. "I can't imagine a more helpful book on homeschooling—a happy marriage of the realistic with the idealistic, the passionate with the practical."—George Leonard, author, Education and Ecstasy"Of the many books on home education that have come across my desk, this is the most usable for the beginning homeschooler."—Jerry Mintz, Director, Alternative Education Resource Organization"Provides useful information that demystifies and makes accessible the homeschooling experience."—Marty Layne, author of Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide to Homeschooling

    Research shows that spirited kids are wired to be "more"—by temperament, they are more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and uncomfortable with change than the average child. In this revised edition of the award-winning classic, voted one of the top twenty books for parents, Kurcinka provides vivid examples and a refreshingly positive viewpoint. Raising Your Spirited Child will help you:understand your child's­—and your own—temperamental traitsdiscover the power of positive—rather than negative—labelscope with the tantrums and power struggles when they do occurplan for success with a simple four-step programdevelop strategies for handling mealtimes, sibling rivalry, bedtimes, holidays, and school, among other situations

    Never before in history have children been so plugged in—and so out of touch with the natural world. In this groundbreaking new work, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation—he calls it nature deficit—to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as rises in obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and depression. Some startling facts: By the 1990s the radius around the home where children were allowed to roam on their own had shrunk to a ninth of what it had been in 1970. Today, average eight-year-olds are better able to identify cartoon characters than native species, such as beetles and oak trees, in their own community. The rate at which doctors prescribe antidepressants to children has doubled in the last five years, and recent studies show that too much computer use spells trouble for the developing mind. Nature-deficit disorder is not a medical condition; it is a description of the human costs of alienation from nature. This alienation damages children and shapes adults, families, and communities. There are solutions, though, and they're right in our own backyards. Last child in the Woods is the first book to bring together cutting-edge research showing that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development—physical, emotional, and spiritual. What's more, nature is a potent therapy for depression, obesity, and ADD. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Even creativity is stimulated by childhood experiences in nature. Yet sending kids outside to play is increasingly difficult. Computers, television, and video games compete for their time, of course, but it's also our fears of traffic, strangers, even virus-carrying mosquitoes—fears the media exploit—that keep children indoors. Meanwhile, schools assign more and more homework, and there is less and less access to natural areas. Parents have the power to ensure that their daughter or son will not be the "last child in the woods," and this book is the first step toward that nature-child reunion.

    Combining expert advice from midwives, psychologists and obstetricians with first-hand accounts, it explains what's happening with her, what's going on with your baby, and what the hell you should be doing every step of the way.With tips from those who know, what-to-do explanations and fascinating facts, this survival guide will ensure you're armed and ready for your role as a new father - from discovery to delivery and beyond. A must-read for all fathers-to-be.

    And Gyo Fujikawa’s appealing illustrations depict children of all races sweetly interacting, as well as an engagingly rendered menagerie of animals and the natural world in all its wonderment. Among the verses that children will love are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells,” Lewis Carroll’s “The Melancholy Pig,” and Eugene Fields’ “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” along with proverbs, limericks, nursery rhymes, and folk songs.

    . . until they take so long that the picnic is gone!

    PLUS BONUS CONTENT...Sensory in a Nutshell! Just a little bit more, but not too much to overwhelm you. This practical, daily application handbook is helping parents, teachers, and caregivers all over the world to understand sensory signals and cues from a child rather than jumping to the conclusion of behavior driven. This user friendly "go to" handbook is geared for daily use and as a quick sensory reference guide designed to work hand in hand with ASensoryLife.com, where you can find printable handouts, sensory how-to videos, sensory tools and equipment ideas and links, as well as a sensory ideas on a budget. Enjoy the simple, organized format to give you the essential and useful information to respond to the child's sensory needs right on the spot! The handbook provides simple every day sensory strategies and techniques to help ALL children; including SPD, autism spectrum disorders, ADD/ADHD, APD, and developmental disabilities. This handbook provides guidance and understanding as to why children do what they do in regards to unique sensory processing differences and needs. When you respect a child's sensory differences, it will change how you respond. Keep it Real. Keep it Simple. Keep it Sensory!

    Over the past forty years, educators there have evolved a distinctive innovative approach that supports children's well-being and fosters their intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation. Young children (from birth to age six) are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through many languages, or modes of expression, including words, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage, and music. Leading children to surprising levels of symbolic skill and creativity, the system is not private and elite but rather involves full-day child care open to all, including children with disabilities.This new Second Edition reflects the growing interest and deepening reflection upon the Reggio approach, as well as increasing sophistication in adaptation to the American context. Included are many entirely new chapters and an updated list of resources, along with original chapters revised and extended. The book represents a dialogue between Italian educators who founded and developed the system and North Americans who have considered its implications for their own settings and issues. The book is a comprehensive introduction covering history and philosophy, the parent perspective, curriculum and methods of teaching, school and system organization, the use of space and physical environments, and adult professional roles including special education. The final section describes implications for American policy and professional development and adaptations in United States primary, preschool, and child care classrooms.

    You'll see ants and bees and birds--hip-hopping bunnies too. You'll even hear the sounds some of them make.Crunch, munch,caterpillars lunch...Crack, snap, wings flap...Beginning as the sun is high in the sky and ending as fireflies blink and the moon rises above, this backyard tour is one no child will want to miss.In the Tall, Tall Grass is a 1992 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award Honor Book for Picture Books.