Moms Inspire Learning

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Connecting the Bottle Caps of Literacy ©Dawn Riccardi Morris

Literacy Lava 6 is available now! Read all about it, and download it here.

Get a sneak peek of Literacy Lava 6!

Susan Stephenson, editor of Literacy Lava online printable magazine, has put together a preview video of the 6th volume. So, please check it out to see what's erupting from the next issue!  This time, I contributed a post relating to math, literacy, buttons, and bottle caps. Please check back next week for the actual magazine. If you aren't familiar with it yet, you're in for a treat!

If you'd like to check out past issues of the magazine, you can find them all here.

 

 

 

Learning with Lemonade

As children start to head back to school, I wonder how many of them saved up some money this summer. I saw a few lemonade stands, which always bring me back to the time when I was a child. My lemonade stand was actually a homemade cookie stand!

A Nutty Alternative

Pistachios, Walnuts, and Cashews © Dawn Riccardi Morris

The food we eat has a lot more to do with the way we all look and feel than many of us realize. The more we eat as nature intended, the healthier and happier we will be.

It's not always easy to avoid the tempting processed foods which dominate the grocery store aisles. But there are simple ways to do so.

Truth Seekers Needed

Why does it seem that truth is in short supply these days? Every which way you turn, there are people caught lying and cheating. And they're often the most unlikely suspects.

For example, many of us think that someone out there is making sure that the food we're eating is safe. But, when you read an article like this one, you have to think twice. Not only are genetically modified foods not proven to be safe for people or the planet in general, but we're not even informed which foods contain them! Is this a democracy or not?

Food manufacturers should not be able to pull the wool over our eyes so easily. It's an outrage. I could go on all day about this. But I won't.

The bottom line is we need our children to be truth seekers, and not individuals who will cover up things just to make money.

So, while reading and discussing a wide variety of books is a good start, watching movies can leave lasting impressions as well. Two movies which have truth seeking characters are:

• 12 Angry Men (50th Anniversary Edition)- It's like you're a fly on the wall inside a jury deliberation. 11 men believe the defendant is guilty, but Henry Fonda is not so sure. To him, it's not so black and white. And with a gray area comes a lot of questions. How do you stand up for something (or someone) when no one else is willing to? Find your answer here.

• Quiz Show - What means more to you - money or trust? Travel back in time to the 1950's and watch a television scandal erupt right before your very eyes. If you ever thought one person couldn't make a difference, sit back and watch this.

If you have teenagers, these are great movies to watch and discuss together. I haven't received my copy of Reel Culture from the library yet (which was recommended recently by Angela of Bookish Blather blog), but I'm anxious to see if these movies are listed in it!

Can you recommend any other movies which have truth seeking characters?

In case you missed it, my recent post, When Being a Picky Eater is a Good Thing , also relates to food safety.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be treated like a guinea pig.

Have a great week.

Nonfiction Monday Roundup of Book Reviews

Since yesterday's Nonfiction Monday: Connecting the Patterns of Math, Literacy, Science and Art was a rather lengthy post, I decided to create this separate post with all of the great book review links for this week.

And here they are:

Nonfiction Monday: Connecting the Patterns of Math, Literacy, Science, and Art

Welcome to Nonfiction Monday! If you'd like to participate, please leave the link to your post in the comments, and I will add it to the post, Nonfiction Monday Roundup of Book Reviews, sometime between 9 am and 5 pm ET. If you're new to this weekly blog event, please check that post later tonight or tomorrow for a complete list of this week's great links to nonfiction book reviews.

Today, I'd like to return to the subject of math, which often seems to take a back seat to the teaching of reading during the early years of a child's life. It doesn't have to be that way.

From Dolphins to Sand Dollars

Dolphins off of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina  ©Dawn Riccardi Morris

Yes, we were this close to the dolphins on a raft last week at Hilton Head Island! A couple of days later, we went kayaking in the bay and saw dolphins again. They didn't come as close that time, but it was a thrill to see.

We learned that dolphins fight off a shark by working as a team to scare it off. They fight for one another and with one another.

It seems to me that this example could be used to teach children to stick together when a friend is being bullied. It seems common for friends to abandon friends when one is being picked on, and the strategy of standing together is an important one. There's a picture book I once mentioned which discusses this very issue.

After a trip like this, I often like to seek out related books at the library. Young children would love to read about dolphins after a trip like this! Off the top of my head, an enjoyable one for children between the ages of 4 and 8 is If a Dolphin Were a Fish, by Loran Wlodarski.

Anyway, we spent a lot of time on the beach as well. The water is clean, and the waves are not too rough. People can even ride their bicycles on the wet sand. While we were walking along one day, we found these sand dollars (howstuffworks.com is a great site for kids, by the way):

Sand Dollars at Hilton Head Island ©Dawn Riccardi Morris

Aren't they beautiful? They were in the dry sand, so we threw them back in the shallow water, hoping it wasn't too late to save them.

If you look really closely, hopefully you'll see that there's a flower-like pattern on each one. That pattern is actually part of the tube feet that allow the sand dollar to breathe. Pretty amazing, huh?

Anyway, I figured I'd give you a few highlights of our wonderful beach vacation. I hope you're having a FUNtastic summer!

Here are some other vacation related posts:

• The Nature of Vermont, Part 1

• The Nature of Vermont, Part 2

• As the Sun Sets on Summer 2009

• A Trip to the White House

• A Trip to Philadelphia

If you know of any other great family destinations, please do share!

A Simple Bowl of Cherries

Bowl of Cherries © Dawn Riccardi Morris

Cherry pie? Cherries Jubilee? Or, how about just a simple bowl of organic cherries (yes, they're on EWG's Dirty Dozen list as well)?

I found this really great quote (and an inspiring story) at Daily Good:

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."  ~Confucius

How can you make your life simpler? 

Circles of Literacy, Part 2

When I first wrote the post, Circles of Literacy, a few months ago, I was thinking about the many different forms literacy disguises itself in. It grows with us from birth, and flows like a circle throughout our lives.

Circles of literacy expand, contract, and most importantly - connect - in different ways during our lifetimes. The more we build upon them, the stronger our reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills become. 

Those skills have become essential to survival in this age of information. They help us to sort, prioritize, energize, inspire, and grow.

Like the fruits and vegetables we eat, the more colorful our experiences with literacy are, the more nourishment they will provide. We have the power to take our minds and bodies where we want them to go, if we only trust in ourselves.

It deeply saddens me to find that people of all ages think they don't like to read or write. They view these activities as work, because that's how it's been presented to them.

But it's never too late to put the color back into literacy. There's no line that ends. There are only rest stops.

So, if you find that you or your child need something to inspire a love of reading within yourselves, you might start with my 5 W's of Reading:

5 W's of Literacy © Dawn Riccardi Morris

Why read? © Dawn Riccardi Morris

 

What to read? © Dawn Riccardi Morris

 

Who to read with? © Dawn Riccardi Morris

When to read?  © Dawn Riccardi Morris

 

Where to read? © Dawn Riccardi Morris

If there's anything you do for yourself, or your family this year, please find more time to read (If possible. You may already read too much, like I do). Read alone, together, inside, outside, for five minutes, for an hour, in pajamas, in a bathing suit, or waiting to for an appointment. Your way. Any day.

It doesn't matter what, where, why, when, or who with. Just get the ball rolling, and keep it going. And if you find someone's lost theirs, please bounce it back to them!

And that's all I have to say about literacy for a while now...