Ranger Rick and I know I've been gone a while...

I've found something else so totally amazing that I'm just busting at the seams to share it. Not sure if I've mentioned it but my husband is a nature photographer/videographer. I stumbled across this today on the ALA's Great Sites for Kids. It's National Geographic's Wildlife Filmmaker, and since my son wants to be just like Daddy I'm so so excited to have him experiment on it! We obviously love National Geographic, as have generations of folks before us. Remember that bit in It's a Wonderful Life where little girl Mary and little boy George are at the soda fountain? And little Mary says, "A new magazine! I never saw it before!" and little George says, "Of course you never! Only us explorers can get it, I've just been nominated for membership in the National Geographic society."
Oh, love love love. 

Anyway, enjoy it! I'll share more soon. Have been working an awful lot on some other projects. 
PS - Have you noticed Ranger Rick lately? He's blissfully still around, albeit modernized. I love the old Ranger Rick images. Here's that site and the first I mentioned: 
NWF Kids/Ranger Rick (the magazine is still really good)


National Geographic Animal Wildlife Filmmaker

When I cleaned houses in my very early twenties my favorite job was a mansion in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Built in 1850 or so it was a four floor wonder, and the original and subsequent owners LOVED children and incorporated little bits and bobs for their kids all over. There were little play trap doors, secret passages, a swing in the upstairs hall between the children's bedrooms, and a staircase that turned into a slide. In the back nursery closet door (and there were pocket doors in almost every room! Swoon!) there was still a fading, peeling off Ranger Rick Membership sticker - probably from the thirties. Super charming. Found out recently from a friend in the neighborhood they've subdivided the mansion and made it into condos. No! But it had a ballroom! And an inner mahogany octagon shaped study with inlay of stars on ceiling. Progress is not always a good thing. But oh, well! Ranger Rick is still cool and I have my memories!

Artsy Craftsy

Buried in the depths of my bookmark manager are the makings of a huge reference database of crafts and art projects for children that don't suck, so I'm going to share a bunch of those today. Y'all know what I'm talking about with the kids craft suckage - type in "crafts with kids" or "kids art projects" and in the google search bar and you're presented with a multitude of neon flashing, googly eyed, haven't been updated since the first Dubya administration monstrosities. So what's a caregiver to do? Well admittedly most of our "crafts" are thought up by yours truly, I seem to have always had a knack for the arts and the crafts (at least up to a sixth grade level) and am wise to the fact that most of the time if you present a kid with really good art materials (the basics which I'll list below plus some decent "grown up" supplies) and just let them go to town the outcome will be more enjoyable for everyone. 
So here are the basics that we always have on hand: 

1. Good paint (acrylic craft paint, about $1.00 - $5.00 at Michael's). The kids paint dries out so quickly and doesn't have the good "slip" that the grown up stuff does. Spend a little extra and invest - you'll save money in the long run! A good watercolor set is also a childhood staple. 
2. Loads of construction and good art paper in all sizes and textures. This includes recycled paper. We regularly dig into our bin for collages and other projects. Tissue paper from birthday presents is useful, too (as in the project I'll list below). 
3. Real paint brushes. These don't have to be expensive. Michael's sells sets of brushes starting at $10.00. They work so much better than the weird plastic ones that come with watercolors. Kids don't get frustrated by lack of ease of motion. 
4. Glitter. So much glitter. 
5. Elmer's Glue, pipe cleaners, yarn, googly eyes, buttons, wood beads, pom-poms. Just a collection of random. We put these into glass pasta sauce jars on our craft shelf so that we can see what's inside easily. We hoard everything and use it all. Milk bottle caps, used but clean foil, cardboard oatmeal canisters, craft sticks are also terribly fun to have around. 
6. Aleene's craft glue and a hot glue gun. When Elmer's just won't cut it. 
7. Mod Podge (for sealing and creating decoupaged collages)
8. Flour, salt, water, oil, cream of tartar - for making homemade playdough.  I've seen that folks are selling this stuff on etsy now, scented with essential oil. Erm, do it yourself! Half the fun for kids is in the making of it!
9. One of those big art kits marketed towards beginning artists and younger artists. We scored a HUGE unused one at a garage sale with pastels (also a MUST - kids love the smooth work they create with these) in a beautiful wooden case. They also have a good selection of art markers and colored pencils. 
10. Crayola air-drying clay. This along with a bunch of cookie cutters, safe age appropriate knives, forks, and other found tools provide at least an hour of creative entertainment. 
11. Clothespins. We use them for crafts, for securing forts, for displaying art projects, for aiding in yarn traps (yes, they're just what they sound like), for keeping the bread bag closed, for hanging clothes...We totally heart clothespins around here. Gary uses them in his line of work for securing wires and gels to lights (there's some sort of fancy film/video term for them too - bullets I think they call them. Film people are a strange lot). 

As for when I am sapped out of ideas, I usually turn to some of the beautiful blogs that I read anyway. These are traditionally coined (but not all) by other mothers of young children, and you kind of have to admit we're a force to be reckoned with in the idea department. Here are a few of my favorite projects we've done and websites we use.  

Ann Wood's 100 Horses Project:  This is a highly celebrated, simple project that creates objects of great beauty. We did just one each but managed to create little pieces of art that we'll keep probably forever. Here's a photo from her project:

Ann Wood

Kaboose: This is a fantastic resource for educators and caregivers. We always find great crafts and activities to match whatever we're thinking of or working on (or season we're in). I used this A LOT in the children's room. I think we're going to attempt this for an Earth Day related craft. We do a lot of "nature crafts" with things we've found on walks. Hot glue guns are essential for making little tiny houses and people out of sticks, bark, leaves, mountain goat fur...

Kaboose

Wisecraft: This beautiful little site offers pretty things every day, and a lot of it is kid-focused (and some just inspirational to spark your own ideas). I think we're going to try this doozy next. Xander loves rocks (don't all kids - don't all adults?).

Hot Rocks - Wisecraft


Natural Family Crafts: I've recently found this little site and there are some sweet, "Waldorfy" ideas on here. We do a nature table and stuff though we're not strictly "Waldorf" . Adhering to any set of rules or lack of any rules whatsoever bores us, so we usually use a hodgepodge of inspiration and create our own theories and dogmas. But anyway! We'll be trying this project out (a variation) this week with leftover tissue paper. 
From Natural Family Crafts

Here are a few I go to for a quick inspirational project fix: 

Soule Mama

Imagine Childhood 

Design Mom

Ohdeeoh
Mer Mag

Now go crazy, dump a bunch of art supplies on the floor, and go to it!


"Every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Picasso

Cherub Rock

I have a small(ish) child. He's five and he has a large, blonde head. Here is a haiku that I wrote about him a while back, and have coincidentally turned into a small typography art piece in our kitchen:

Little yellow head
which was once swan white with fuzz
How long until brown? 


Now this little flaxen dude soaks up information nuggets like a sea sponge (which did you know regenerate from their broken off-pieces?) so I try to steer his small shoulders towards the educational but entertaining (and genuinely) and away from the insipid. The reasons are diverse. Mainly I want him to learn something while he's playing, and also I don't want to be annoyed by Sponge Bob's maniacal giggle or the pew pew sounds that emanate from the Star Wars website (although in bleak moments I have succumbed and allowed him to click around there, within five minutes he's frustrated - kind of how I felt when the remastered Episodes 4-6 came out). Although, the Star Wars site does have a few good memory games and a killer Sound Board activity for your budding movie sound engineer.

So how do I, as the heavily eyeliner-ed, peacock feather adorned caregiver of the century, help my son have quality computer time in his (dwindling fast) preschool  years? Well, honestly I learned everything I ever wanted to know from a library. During my time in a Children's Library I learned of, found, shared, heard, and had kids bounce in their tiny chairs and raise their hands to show me a collection of fantastic and satisfying sites, cool enough to spend a bit, but not saccharine enough to cause a temper tantrum when computer time is over. Here is the short list that Xander cycles through, and I do add more and will add more here as I find them. We of course try others, which I will add to the database Small People at the left,

The National Gallery of Art's NGA Kids site: This is my favorite. Chock full of interactive art that goes way beyond playing around with Microsoft Paint. Xander has learned about the Dutch Masters, the surrealists, American folk art, and his creativity has gone through the roof from these easy to navigate activities. It's even fun for adults, no joke. In fact, most big museums have good websites for children, some are for elementary to middle school ages, but there's usually something of value for all ages. If your child is older they might enjoy the American Museum of Natural History's wordy activities. Mine's just a bit young for them, seeing as he can only read a few words.

CBeeBees: The BBC Kid's website is full of show-related activities. Some are shows that have made the jump across the pond to the states, such as Charlie and Lola. Playhouse Disney has some Charlie and Lola activities, too - but in our opinion they're not as good. The Butterfly Gallery and  Germ Counting games teach and art and math respectively and when you poke around the site you'll find Shaun the Sheep games, as well as Fireman Sam, and a bunch of others you've never heard of because you're American.

Playmobil Fun & Action:  Playmobil is a recent, all encompassing obsession of my son's lately. He plays with his sets for hours, combining them into clashing of  Romans, Pirates, Dinosaurs, Swat Teams, Giant Squid world, a twisted, dangerous place that I would never step foot into willingly. The website actually has some good activities and little films, as well as the massive collection of clickable products for sale, so  your kid can keep on dreaming of more Playmobil and harass you to buy things.

The ALA - Great Web Sites for Kids: The American Library Association has compiled a beautiful list of the best sites to steer kids to (and for older kids to click through). The presentation is a bit dry, but the content, oh the content! In the coming weeks we're going to test a bunch of these out and post our favorites here in the shiny, pretty, gossamer database that is Dano Gold.

Your local library: Your local library system is most likely to have a whole Kids page chock full of suggestions, book reviews by children, Tumble Books, activities, reference databases for homework help, and links to good and safe websites. My favorite (the system I worked for) is featured on the hyperlink. Libraries, I xoxo you.

Those are just the three most common ones we pop over to these days, in the coming days I'm going to build the database to the left, but these are some of the lesser known ones that provide a bit of educational entertainment without parental annoyance. Enjoy!