You’ll learn how to set up an art space, how to talk to children about their artwork, how to choose the best art supplies (without breaking the bank), how to repurpose and organize the piles of art created, and even how to use kids' art activities to soften everyday transitions.  The more than sixty engaging kids' arts and crafts projects included here are accessible and developmentally appropriate for one- to eight-year-olds, and they’re a far cry from the cookie-cutter crafts many of us did in school as kids. From bubble prints to musical chairs art, these kids art activities allow children to explore art materials, techniques, and ideas as they grow more creative every day. With activities for downtimes, action art for releasing energy, and recipes for making your own art materials, this book is your guide for raising an artful family.

    In this book, she shares the secrets for supporting young writers, from the smallest of scribblers to middle-schoolers mastering script. You play an important role in nurturing your child's writing development. You are your child's first writing teacher, and their most important writing role model. From teaching your child how to hold a pencil and form the letters of the alphabet, to creating writing spaces and meaningful writing rituals at home, this book gives you all of the information and inspiration you need to raise a confident writer. Fifty-two playful activities are presented as ways to invite your child to write. Each activity offers specific suggestions to meet the needs of Scribblers (pre-writers), Spellers (emerging writers), Storytellers (beginner writers), and Scholars (more experienced young writers)—providing the just-right combination of fun and functional skill development. The Write Start is a treasure trove of irresistible ideas that will help you introduce your child to the wonderful world of writing, now, and for years to come.

    What you won't find inside: predictable itineraries and lists of landmarks and events. Instead, you'll get evocative, slice-of-life experiences and age-appropriate ideas that illuminate place and culture.Each chapter of 100 Places That Can Change Your Child's Life plumbs the heart of a special place-from the Acropolis to Machu Picchu to the Grand Canyon-all from the perspective of insiders who see destinations through a child's eyes. You'll meet actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy, who tours the suqs of Marrakech with his seven-year-old son; photographer Annie Griffiths, who shares the miraculous migration to Mexico of the monarch butterflies; Tom Ritchie, who has guided countless children and parents to Antarctica for more than 30 years; the waterman who knows where to see the ponies of Assateague in the true wild; and countless others who are cultural treasures, great storytellers, and keepers of a sense of place.Packed with ideas to supplement the travel experience-foods, music, films, and carefully curated lists of kid-friendly activities and places to eat and stay-this inspiring book is the perfect trip planner to excite children about culture and the unique magic the world has to offer.

    In fact, it's every kid's built-in tool for experiencing the world at large. A parent-friendly encyclopedia, UNPLUGGED PLAY ("A wonderful guide," says Daniel Goleman) offers hundreds and hundreds of battery-free, screen-free, chirp-and-beep-free games and fun variations that stretch the imagination, spark creativity, building strong bodies, and forge deep friendships...and keep kids busy at the table while mom or dad makes dinner.

    With this imaginative, informative, and amply illustrated guide to drawing, it's amazingly easy for kids to make those art dreams come true. After a brief overview of tools and materials, the entertaining hands-on activities begin with contour drawing techniques. With the help of lots of exercises, budding artists will learn the basic elements of shapes (lines, dots, circles) and see how to combine them to make familiar forms. They'll find out how to produce the illusion of volume with shading techniques; create perspective; accurately recreate landscapes, people, animals, and nature; develop interesting compositions; and more.

    

    The books we hear or read when we are children stay with us all our lives. If we miss them when we are young, we’ll miss them forever: no Hungry Caterpillar, no Winn-Dixie, no Roll of Thunder. As adults we remember a few familiar favorites, but no one but an expert like Anita Silvey, with her thirty-five years at the heart of children’s book publishing, could put together an authoritative list like this one. Parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and bookstore clerks will feel completely comfortable recommending these books for any child, from infancy to almost-teens. Silvey includes, in addition to the 100 best, extensive lists of books to meet special needs and interests as well as classics, selected by age, to round out this extraordinarily useful work. In addition to giving an age range and the plot of each book, Silvey relates the fascinating, often hilarious story behind the story, something only an insider in the field of children’s publishing could tell. 100 Best Books for Children is as much fun to read as it is helpful.

    The Customizable "Keep Out" Sign to deter meddlesome siblings and parents. A Bunk Bed Communicator made from cardboard tubes ("Psst! Can you keep the snoring down?"). Clever, whimsical, and kind of genius, here are 67 unique projects that will turn any dad with DIY leanings into a mad scientist hero that his kid(s) will adore.No screens, no hi-tech gadgetry. Made by Dad combines the rough-edged, handmade ethos of a Boy Scout manual or The Dangerous Book for Boys with a sly sense of humor that kids love. Scott Bedford, a creative director by day and Webby Award-winning blogger by nights and weekends, wields an X-ACTO knife, magic marker, and prodigious imagination to create endlessly delightful projects for his two sons. He knows that kids like contraptions and gadgets, things that are surprising--a chair that appears to be balanced on eggshells. Things that are complex--a multilevel city, with buildings, tunnels, and roads, built from old boxes around the legs of a table. And especially things with humor--the Snappy Toast Rack, made to resemble a crocodile's gaping mouth.The projects are shown in full-color photographs, and the instructions are illustrated in detailed line drawings that exude personality. Some are quick and simple enough to be done in a coffee shop; others are more of an afternoon project-- yielding hours and hours of rich, imaginative playtime.

    Kids who are advanced intellectually often let their imaginations ruin wild and experience fears beyond their years. So what can you do to help?In Why Smart Kids Worry, Allison Edwards guides you through the mental and emotional process of where your child's fears come from and why they are so hard to move past. Edwards focuses on how to parent a child who is both smart and anxious and brings her years of experience as a therapist to give you the answers to questions such as:-How do smart kids think differently? -Should I let my child watch the nightly news on TV? -How do I answer questions about terrorists, hurricanes, and other scary subjects?Edwards's fifteen specially designed tools for helping smart kids manage their fears will help you and your child work together to help him or her to become more relaxed and worry-free.

    Bennett's bestselling The Book of Virtues is an inspiring anthology that helps children understand and develop moral character—and helps parents teach it to them.Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history. William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in The Book of Virtues. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions—the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, The Book of Virtues is a book the whole family can read and enjoy—and learn from—together.

    Essential coding concepts are explained using eight build-along game projects that guide young coders step-by-step, using visual samples, easy-to-follow instructions, and fun pixel art.Written for children ages 8-12 with little to no coding experience, Coding Games in Scratch teaches important strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas, all while creating games to play with their friends.Supporting STEM education initiatives, computer coding teaches kids how to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically, and is quickly becoming a necessary and sought-after skill. DK's computer coding books are full of fun exercises with step-by-step guidance, making them the perfect introductory tools for building vital skills in computer programming.Author Bio:Dr. Jon Woodcock has a degree in Physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Computational Astrophysics from the University of London. He started coding at the age of eight and has programmed all kinds of computers from single-chip microcontrollers to world-class supercomputers. His many projects include giant space simulations, research in high-tech companies, and intelligent robots made from junk. Jon has a passion for science and technology education, giving talks on space and running computer programming clubs in schools. He has worked on numerous science and technology books as a contributor and consultant, including DK's How Cool Stuff Works and Help Your Kids with Computer Coding.Reviews:"An absolutely wonderful introduction to programming games." - Kirkus Reviews"...clear instructions and plenty of images that make coding just about foolproof." - Booklist

    These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle.Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.

    Her unique drawing program has created a revolution in the field of education and a sense of delight and pride among the thousands of students who have learned to draw through her Monart Method.This revised and expanded edition includes: - Information on multiple intelligence and the seven ways to learn - An inspirational chapter on helping children with learning differences - An integrated-studies chapter with projects geared for reading, math, science, ESL, multicultural studies, and environmental awareness - A sixteen-page color insert and hundreds of sample illustrationsThis invaluable teaching tool not only guides readers through the basics, but also gives important advice on creating a nurturing environment in which self-expression and creativity can flourish. Both practical and enlightening, Drawing With Children inspires educators and parents to bring out the artist in each of us.

    Author Biography: Dr. Kevin Leman is an internationally known psychologist, humorist, and bestselling author of The Birth Order Book and Making Children Mind without Losing Yours. He is former consulting psychologist for Good Morning America and a frequent guest on The View, The Early Show, and Focus on the Family. He and his wife, Sande, live in Tucson, Arizona. They have five children and two grandchildren.

    Maker Dad is the first DIY book to use cutting-edge (and affordable) technology in appealing projects for fathers and daughters to do together. These crafts and gadgets are both rewarding to make and delightful to play with. What’s more, Maker Dad teaches girls lifelong skills—like computer programming, musicality, and how to use basic hand tools—as well as how to be creative problem solvers. The book’s twenty-four unique projects include:• Drawbot, a lively contraption that draws abstract patterns all by itself • Ice Cream Sandwich Necklace • Friendstrument, an electronic musical instrument girls can play with friends • Longboard • Antigravity Jar • Silkscreened T-Shirt • Retro Arcade Video Game • Host a Podcast • Lunchbox Guitar • Kite Video Camera Innovative and groundbreaking, Maker Dad will inspire fathers to geek out with their daughters and help girls cultivate an early affinity for math, science, and technology.