Activity Village News

18th April 2007

Recommendation:
If you have any behavioral issues with your kids, you might want to check out the Better Behavior Wheel, from Robert and Julie Butler. We've been recommending it at Activity Village for nearly two years now and have had great feedback from purchasers (as well as resorting to it ourselves on occasion!) Available as a real product (sent internationally) or as a digital download, the Better Behavior Wheel allows you to set consequences for undesirable behavior that fit your family - and the unusual and very clever twist of having to spin the wheel to discover your punishment works wonders to take the stress out of the situation for the parent and reinforce the message for the child. This is an excellent product and we recommend it highly.
Product review here
Get the Better Behavior Wheel

A MESSAGE FROM LINDSAY

If you are based in the UK you will have been enjoying the glorious weather we have had here for the last few weeks - it seems this year that we have whizzed through Spring and gone straight to Summer! I have certainly found it hard to force myself to sit down at the computer recently - but I managed it, and I hope you will enjoy all the new activities we have added to the website since the last newsletter.

Over the last 6 weeks or so we polled visitors to the website about how often they wanted to receive the newsletter, and "monthly" was the resounding reply. So monthly it is! Thank you for all the emails you sent on the subject, and apologies to those of you who voted for a weekly newsletter instead (particularly Tricia in Canada, who wrote a lovely email which I stupidly and very frustratingly managed to delete before I managed to reply!)

As the newsletter will be monthly, we will be making much more use of the Activity Village Blog - firstly so that I can let you know when I update Activity Village, and secondly so that Tracy and I can tell you about our latest "discoveries" on the web. If you haven't already done so, please consider subscribing to the feed so that you will be able to see easily when we update. I have put together an illustrated guide to how to do this for those who are new to feeds:
Subscribing to the Activity Village blog feed

READER COMMENT

Thank you Joy! We have lots more origami coming - in fact I have a backlog of projects and photographs just waiting to be written up! Explore our "Origami for Kids" section here!

FOR UK READERS

WHAT'S NEW AT ACTIVITY VILLAGE?

We have updated our Coloring Pages Database with many new collections of coloring pages of your favorite characters..
Coloring Page Database

Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up in the US (May 7th-11th) and anyone looking for inspiration will find plenty at our updated Teacher Appreciation pages (those not in the US might like to have a look for some early ideas for the year end!)
Teacher Appreciation

We have added 20 new birthday coloring pages to the site for your kids to enjoy (they make a useful quiet activity for after a birthday tea or even a party bag extra)
Birthday Coloring Pages

Also on a birthday theme, we have a new "Birthday Cupcake" file folder game to help your child with counting and number recognition. You can find it here
Birthday printables

We have begun a new Recycling theme at Activity Village. We have lots more to add still but if you visit now you will find recycling coloring pages, recycling posters to print, and lots of excellent links to explore with the kids
Recycling for Kids

While we are on a recycling theme, Earth Day is celebrated on 22nd April in the US. It is a day to think about our planet and what we can do to keep it special; to think about saving water and energy, reducing pollution, recycling, protecting our animals, trees and plants, and generally getting kids interested in protecting their environment. We have added an Earth Day page here
Earth Day for Kids

Also coming up soon is St George's Day, on 23rd April. We have updated out St George's Day links and added some new jigsaws of the St George's Cross
St George's Day

TRACY'S WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS

Tracy lives in Portsmouth, UK, and is a home-schooling mother to 4 girls. Each week she suggests websites or individual web pages for us to visit. And remember, if you come across anything outstanding or particularly useful that you think others would enjoy, we would like to hear about it. (editor@activityvillage.co.uk)

Here are Tracy's suggested sites for this week:

This is a great website designed to help adults share science with children, lots of experiments, games, animations and worksheets too.  You do have to register to get access to some of the website, but this is free.
http://www.sciencewithme.com/index.php

Do you want to help your children learn their multiplication tables?  Check out this website which has lots of free on-line lessons to help learn all the multiplication facts as well as lots of fun games.
http://www.multiplication.com

We came across this Critter Challenge recently when we were talking about different types of animals – can you classify the creatures?  Learn facts about birds, mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians.
http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/critters/critters.html

This site is full of soldiers throughout history ready to be printed off and played with or maybe used for a history project – lovely detailed print outs.
http://www.juniorgeneral.org/paper.html

Advert
Kids of Character: a collection of charming, traditional story books to read with your kids (and access to over 100 fun activities based on the stories..
Kids of Character

ACTIVITY VILLAGE POLL

We are thinking about creating craft and origami videos for Activity Village and would very much appreciate your input. Please take a moment to vote.
Activity Village Poll

THIS WEEK'S POEM

I Am The Earth
(Author unknown)

I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.
And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.
That's why we
Celebrate this day.
That's why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
Is dear, is free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.

THIS WEEK'S QUOTES

"Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children."
Kenyan proverb

 

Still can't find what you are looking for? Try here: