Ever since we had the opportunity to review KiwiCo’s entire line of educational subscription crates, we’ve been waiting to see what new product they would come up with for this holiday season. The wait has ended. The Atlas Crate has arrived. Is it as good a value as the other subscription boxes made by KiwiCo? More important, is it as fun? Read on to find out. I’ll begin by sharing some information about the Atlas Crate, but scroll down if […]
Category: Parents
11 Best Telescopes For Kids In Love With Astronomy
Using a telescope and exploring the skies can be a hugely rewarding, enjoyable and fascinating experience for kids of all ages. With a huge selection of telescopes for beginners out there, it’s sometimes hard to choose the right one that will bring the moon, stars, and planets up close and personal. Don’t worry! You’ll find our picks below, along with a list of the items to watch out for when you are buying a telescope for kids. Best Beginner Telescope […]
Top Cool Toys and Unique Gifts for the Kids Who Have It All!
Searching for the perfect gift for the kid who has everything? Want something out-of-the-box? Foldable? …Buildable? …Throwable? We’ve compiled a list of seven cool toys that’ll be sure to surprise and delight anyone, even the picky and the hard-to-please. There’s a gift for every interest, from sports to robots, and everything in between! Cool Toys and Unique Gifts 1. Cozmo “Cozmo is a real-life robot like you’ve only seen in movies, with a one-of-a-kind personality that evolves the more you hang out.” […]
Top 11 Musical Instruments for Kids With Rhythm
Music teaches kids lots of skills. Learning to play music requires commitment and discipline and if you splash out on an instrument, you need to know your child is going to put time and effort into practicing their skills. Children can learn rhythm, beat, pattern recognition and even math from music. Musical instruments for kids can also help to cultivate social skills while collaborating to make music together. Parents rarely have to be convinced of the merits of teaching their children the alphabet […]
7 of the Best Ant Farm Options for Your Eager Entomologists
Ants are amazing creatures. They scurry around all day long, searching for food, building the nest, caring for their young and protecting the queen. In many ways, an ant colony is like an industrious human city: everyone has a job to do and they get on with it. Older ant farms were very simple. They consisted of sand between two pieces of glass. Newer ant farms use brightly colored gel to create a stable ecosystem for the ants, so they […]
Our Soft Glow Silent Timer and Light Review – Hands-on Experience
Most people hate the sound of alarms. I’m one of them – it’s why I evangelize the use a light simulation alarm clock that usually wakes me up with light before the alarm goes off. But for some people, loud noise is a problem anytime of the day. Buzzers and loud bell rings can cause anxiety and worse in this part of the population. There are other times where you want a timer, but it’s just not appropriate to have […]
7 Great Zipper Binder Picks for Students Young and Old
Handouts are a teacher’s best friend, but they can be a student’s worst nightmare. It’s difficult to keep track of all the papers that students throughout the school year. Folders hold up for a few weeks, but after a few assignments, they’re almost entirely useless. Regular binders serve their purpose for longer, but it’s easy to lose track of the important papers once a binder fills up. It’s nearly impossible to keep track of old papers in a regular binder, […]
5 Tips To Help Your ‘Organizationally’ Challenged Child
Misplaced clothing, messy bedrooms, tripping over toys, forgotten homework books, and other scary surprises in backpacks frustrate parents. The irony is that, although the child is disorganized, you could be helping it along. There is a difference between being the child’s organizational reminder and implementing organizational strategies. When a parent keeps on telling the child what to do, the parent becomes the external reminder. The responsibility isn’t shifted to the child. The child’s brain doesn’t need to create reminders because […]
Reading – Everyone’s Assignment For The Summer
The children are home, and the summer activity routine has taken over. The day is full of driving to baseball practice, swim lessons, and trying to fit in some fun time at the beach as well. Maybe you have found the time to get your children involved with a monthly STEM subscription, Khan Academy lessons, or some other scheduled “school-lite” activity. Have you remember to include daily reading – both for your child AND for you? Is Summer Reading Important? […]
When Your Child Doesn’t Like to Read
“I just can’t get her to read!” I often hear protests like this from parents when I suggest that their child read more for fun. Because it’s an important lifelong habit that I want my students to cultivate and because I know reading more will have a huge impact on their success in school, I encourage parents to become proactive whenever their children don’t read outside what’s required for class. Once a child hits the middle or upper elementary school […]
Letting Go Of Parental Guilt
Have you ever wanted to eliminate the feelings of guilt you carry around as a parent? When my daughter was born, I spent the first 12 months of her life racked with feelings of guilt and inadequacies. Was I looking after her well enough? Was she healthy? Was she happy? Would she be OK if I went off and studied one day a week or I left her with my mother in law for a couple of hours while I […]
Is adaptive clothing actually more expensive than standard children’s clothing?
Usually, here at SpecialKids.Company HQ, we like our weekly installments to be all about giving back to the community in any way we can. This is typically through top tips and advice for parents to help make life with a child with complex needs that little bit smoother and happier for everyone in the household. This week, we thought we would do something a little bit different with our blog posts. We’d like to address the common question we see […]
Moderate to Severe Developmental Disability: Eight Essential Skills for Living
Most evaluation tools and curricula arrange skills according to the way a typical child might acquire them. Essential for Living by Patrick McGreevy, PhD BCBA-D et al takes a different approach. They group skills into categories of “must-have,” “should-have,” “good-to-have,” and “nice-to have.” This instrument also identifies deficits in functional skills that might be the root cause of maladaptive behaviors. In this way, educators, therapists, caretakers, and parents can prioritize skills on an education or service plan according to how […]
13 of The Best Water Tables For Kids
When the sun comes out and that thermometer starts to rise, there is no better fun for children than getting wet. Whether it’s a quick trip down to the beach, a cooling dip in the pool, or simply running around in the sprinklers, water is the perfect catalyst to getting out and having fun in the sun. But how about some water toy fun that is a little more portable though? A little more engaging? A little more colorful? A […]
Why I Love The Library
The worst year of my life was the year I was in eighth grade. I was fourteen, had braces on my teeth, and was, according to our grumpy and insensitive doctor, ‘chubby’. I found boys baffling and icky, and had lost my best friend who had moved back to Ohio while I languished in New Jersey. I was attending one of the worst public schools in the country staffed by right wing lunatics who were out to get me because […]
Why Teach Digital Citizenship in 2018
Bryan likes to tell his children – unlike a diamond, what you do on the internet remains intact forever. The web is a tool – one that leaves a lasting impression with your actions, both good and bad. Whatever you do online is for the world to see. What is the digital legacy you will leave behind? What are you doing online today that will impact your future? Are you a good digital citizen? Every decision you make, no matter […]
Fractus Giveaway #1: Summer Game Giveaway
We at Fractus Learning are excited to announce our first prize giveaway. These games should provide some time away from the electronic screens this summer. The details are below: [giveaway height=1400 id=1049860] Good luck! Giveaways
The Best 15 Books to Raise Children’s Emotional IQ and Teach Empathy
One of the best tools to raise your children’s emotional IQ and empathy are books. Reading a story with your children gives you ample opportunity to talk about the story, the cause of the emotions and what is the best way to act and react in a similar situation. Help your children improve their coping mechanisms by raising their emotional intelligence. Improve your child’s ability to interact with others by making him aware of his own emotions. Emotional intelligence helps […]
“If You Could Change One Thing” – Education Experts Share Their Thoughts
As our society ages, and bureaucratic ossification creeps into our lives more often, we often need to remind ourselves change can be good. I took that to heart this month. During April, I decided to try something new. Our writers possess so much intellectual and experience-driven firepower waiting to be tapped, yet I’ve never really asked them a “big-thinking” question. I wanted to ask them a question that should be near and dear to anyone that cares about students and […]
The Importance of Female Role Models in STEM : Showing Girls They Can Build the Future
When I was little I dreamed of becoming a writer. At the age of nine I declared that I would be famous for writing a series of short stories entitled, “The Eraser that Ate my Pen” which followed the crazy antics of my pink eraser and his insatiable appetite for red pens. I was inspired to follow in the footsteps of my mother who created magic when she put pen to paper, writing everything from song lyrics, to poetry, to […]