KinderTown, Author at KinderTown

How Creative: Opening Ceremony

Summer Camp is for parents and kids to work together, exploring the world around you with activities that will take you outside, inside, and as far as your imagination will go! Learn more by reading the Welcome to KinderTown Summer Camp! blog post.

This week’s theme is How Creative; download the weekly planner.

Download the weekly planner for How Creative!

Remember there is not one right way to conduct camp. Complete as much or as little as you can. We hope your family engages in many of the learning experiences we have laid out for the week, but the key is to do things together!

Be sure to post your accomplishments online by using the hashtag #KTcreate. We’d love to know what you are up to! Check back on the blog each weekday to see what others have done, app connections, and additional activities.

Thanks for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

How Creative! Giveaway

Take photos of your family enjoying a summer/creative activity at home and upload them to social media with the hashtag #KTcreate or upload them below to enter.

Related Blog Posts

How Creative: App Connections
How Creative: Demme Learning Day
How Creative: Closing Campfire (8/6)

Next series: Master Builders.

The Great Outdoors: Closing Campfire

Thank you for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

We hope you found the week a valuable learning experience for your family. Please post your accomplishments on social media using the hashtag #KToutside.

Here is a printable certificate that you can share with your kids!

Please join us next week for How Creative!

Related Blog Posts

The Great Outdoors: Opening Ceremony
The Great Outdoors: App Connections
The Great Outdoors: Grab Bag
The Great Outdoors: Demme Learning Day

Next series: How Creative!

The Great Outdoors: Demme Learning Day

Nature Scavenger Hunt

Math-U-See® is a complete K-12 math curriculum produced by Demme Learning. This unique program develops by level, rather than by grade, presenting mathematical concepts incrementally. Students use manipulatives at most levels to establish an understanding of the concepts and then move on to solving problems until they have demonstrated mastery.

Geometrical shapes aren’t just manufactured: they’re everywhere! In the lower levels of Math-U-See, students learn to identify basic shapes; later, they explore the characteristics of shapes, such as symmetry, and learn how to draw lines and shapes on a coordinate grid. This nature scavenger hunt provides a fun way to apply these mathematical skills.

Download this PDF file to follow along with the activities.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preschool-Early Elementary: Have your child collect at least 5 different objects from nature that have different shapes. Ask: which objects have shapes that are close to circles? Which are close to squares? Rectangles? Triangles? Ovals? Hearts?
Elementary: Have your child collect at least 5 different objects from nature that show symmetry around a line. (Fig. 2) Ask: where you can draw a line to divide the object into two mirror images? Can you do this in more than one way?
Upper Elementary: Have your student collect 5 interesting objects from nature. He should choose one to place on the coordinate grid (Fig. 1). Draw a dot wherever the edge of the object meets an intersection on the grid. Have your student label each dot with an ordered pair.

EXAMPLE:

Now remove the object from the grid. Show your grid and objects to another member of your family. Can that person guess which object fits inside the dots?

Related Blog Posts

The Great Outdoors: Opening Ceremony
The Great Outdoors: App Connections
The Great Outdoors: Grab Bag
The Great Outdoors: Closing Campfire

Next series: How Creative!

The Great Outdoors: Grab Bag

At KinderTown, one of the ways we enjoy the great outdoors is by sitting quietly in it, and enjoying being a human, nice and still.

As a parent of young children, you might be in a stage of life where quiet and still only happen around 11pm, when kids have run out of excuses to get out of bed, and have finally given in to weighty eyelids. We’d like to optimistically suggest you seek out quiet time together this week.

Maybe you have rockers on the front porch, or just a front stoop. Find a bit of horizon, even if you have to travel somewhere to get it, and know that it’s okay to be quiet together. Don’t bring an agenda of things to talk about; keep your eyes on the sunset when you’re tempted to fill the silence with chatter.

In July in Pennsylvania, the sun sets before 9pm. On a clear evening, it sets so slowly, you might not even notice how the last light of the sky passes to the fireflies, then the moon; the branches are filled with the hum of cicadas, and you realize it’s been dark for a half an hour.

Given the right conditions, the quiet and beauty of the outdoors can steal over a group of people, and you could find you’ve spent whole minutes together in a silence more profound than any conversation or learning activity.

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The Great Outdoors: Opening Ceremony
The Great Outdoors: App Connections
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Next series: How Creative!

The Great Outdoors: App Connections

There is no substitute for enjoying the outdoors with your children, but if your child wants to learn more about nature, these apps make great connections to what you’ve experienced outside.

Toca Nature

In this nature-based app, you can dig big holes to create a water hole, use an ax to cut down a tree, or take a closer look at the natural world with a magnifying glass. The creator behind Toca Nature loved to explore the woods in a special clearing, and this is the basis for the exploration in Toca Nature. Toca Nature presents a world for your child to play in and discover connections between plants and animals. Inside the world you create, you decide how many trees to plant, which animals exist and when to add more plants. After planting different varieties of plants, harvest the food to feed to the animals. Which animals like which plants? It’s all inside Toca Nature for your child to discover. Toca Nature is $2.99 and available for iPhone and iPad. Parents, you’ll love the pleasing soothing music that accompanies the app.

The Lorax

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss is a classical story about what happens to nature and our world when those who live in it do not take care of it. It’s told in a creative way that kids enjoy. The character, the Lorax, speaks for nature when others do not think of the effects of their actions. As a family, have an older child read the story aloud and record the narration for younger children to enjoy later. The book is colorful and includes the option to have the story read aloud, or to read it yourself. An important book to enjoy again and again. The Lorax is $3.99 and appropriate for children 4-8.

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The Great Outdoors: Opening Ceremony
The Great Outdoors: Grab Bag
The Great Outdoors: Demme Learning Day
The Great Outdoors: Closing Campfire

Next series: How Creative!

The Great Outdoors: Opening Ceremony

This week’s theme is The Great Outdoors; download the weekly planner.

Download the weekly planner for The Great Outdoors.

Be sure to post your accomplishments online by using the hashtag #KToutside. We’d love to know what you are up to! Check back on the blog each weekday to see what others have done, app connections, and additional activities.

Thanks for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

Related Blog Posts

The Great Outdoors: App Connections
The Great Outdoors: Grab Bag
The Great Outdoors: Demme Learning Day
The Great Outdoors: Closing Campfire

Next series: How Creative!

Sports of All Sorts: Closing Campfire

Thank you for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

We hope you found the week a valuable learning experience for your family. Please post your accomplishments on social media using the hashtag #KTsports.

Here is a printable certificate that you can share with your kids!

Please join us next week for The Great Outdoors.

Sports of All Sorts Giveaway

Take photos of your family enjoying a summer/sports activity at home and upload them to social media with the hashtag #KTsports or upload them below to enter.

Related Blog Posts

Sports of All Sorts: Opening Ceremony
Sports of All Sorts: App Connections
Sports of All Sorts: Demme Learning Day

Next series: The Great Outdoors.

Sports of All Sorts: Demme Learning Day

Newspaper Free Throw

People who are interested in sports often like to record data, such as the number of points earned, the time it took to complete a challenge, or the percentage of games won. Students at all levels of Math-U-See study different types of data analysis. Young children record results with tally marks (Primer, Lesson 23), elementary-aged children learn how to make graphs (Beta, Lesson 30), and older students calculate percentages (Zeta, Lesson 11).

As you prepare to play today’s “sport,” you can refer to this PDF to review data-recording techniques.

MATERIALS:

Old newspapers (Other types of paper may be used, as long as the pages are all the same size.)
Bucket or basket
Pad of paper or marker board for keeping score

INSTRUCTIONS:

Wad up each full sheet of newspaper into a ball. Try to keep the size of the “balls” somewhat uniform.
Create a free-throw line with chalk or tape. Set up the “basket” a designated length away from the free-throw line. (You may want to adjust this distance based on the age of the contestant.)
Each contestant stands behind the line and throws the newspaper balls into the basket. Another person should record the number of times the balls go into the basket. The person who shoots the most “baskets” wins. (NOTE: If you only have one player, that person can throw the balls three times and write down all three scores.)
Complete the appropriate activity to record the data.
Preschool – Early Elementary: Have the child record the scores with tally marks and report the totals at the end of the competition.
Elementary: Make a bar graph to compare the scores of the contestants or a line graph for the three trials of an individual player.
Upper Elementary: Count the total number of balls and calculate the percentage of successful baskets for each player or trial.

If you want to learn more about Math-U-See, visit our website.

Sports of All Sorts Giveaway

Take photos of your family enjoying a summer/sports activity at home and upload them to social media with the hashtag #KTsports or upload them below to enter.

Related Blog Posts

Sports of All Sorts: Opening Ceremony
Sports of All Sorts: App Connections
Sports of All Sorts: Closing Campfire (7/23)

Next series: The Great Outdoors.

Sports of All Sorts: App Connections

While we are focused on staying active with our activities, another important component is maintaining a healthy diet. These apps present a fun way to think about being active and eating healthy!

Eat and Move-O-Matic

This app was developed to encourage your children to develop and maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. The app is simple in nature and shows two rolling bars that display a type of food, and then an equivalent activity that would be needed to burn that food off. For example, if you eat a slice of pepperoni pizza,you can burn it off by biking for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The app includes pro tips at the bottom, as well, “pepperoni is high in fat and calories. Choose low-fat meat instead like chicken or ham and add veggies to the top.” The app is free and appropriate for children ages 5 and up.

Sports of All Sorts Giveaway

Take photos of your family enjoying a summer/sports activity at home and upload them to social media with the hashtag #KTsports or upload them below to enter.

Related Blog Posts

Sports of All Sorts: Opening Ceremony
Sports of All Sorts: Demme Learning Day
Sports of All Sorts: Closing Campfire (7/23)

Next series: The Great Outdoors.

Sports of All Sorts: Opening Ceremony

This week’s theme is Sports of All Sorts; download the weekly planner.

Download the weekly planner for Sports of All Sorts.

Be sure to post your accomplishments online by using the hashtag #KTsports. We’d love to know what you are up to! Check back on the blog each weekday to see what others have done, app connections, and additional activities.

Thanks for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

Sports of All Sorts Giveaway

Take photos of your family enjoying a summer/sports activity at home and upload them to social media with the hashtag #KTsports or upload them below to enter.

Related Blog Posts

Sports of All Sorts: App Connections
Sports of All Sorts: Demme Learning Day
Sports of All Sorts: Closing Campfire (7/23)

Next series: The Great Outdoors.