Wow. The Maine Wood Company aka Casey’s Wood Products sells hundreds of gorgeous little wooden things (especially toys, things for the home, and decorations) for pennies.
As in, 35 cents for a wooden ruler. Go check it out!
Archive for the ‘education’ Category
Wholesale Wooden Things
January 2, 2008The Best Pregnancy and Baby Books To Buy
December 4, 2007Take it from someone who has read more than 100 books about pregnancy and parenting, these are the best available guides. Here’s why:
1. These selections are recent. Information about pregnancy, birth, and the newborn stage has changed rapidly, and books that are more than a couple of years old can be wildly out of date. This is especially true of books about birth, which may needlessly alarm you with disturbing statistics and “routine obstetrical practices” from the previous century. For that reason, I don’t recommend purchasing used books unless you know you’re getting the latest edition.
2. These selections are balanced. Rather than assuming you’ll be doing things their way, these books factually present the pluses and minuses of different choices and make evidence-based recommendations.
3. These selections are comprehensive and useful. I’ve picked the book you should read if you only read one book in each category with a *.
Pre-conception
* Taking Charge of Your Fertility
Getting Pregnant and the first chapters of The Mother Of All Pregnancy Books
Pregnancy
The Mother Of All Pregnancy Books
BabyCenter.com weekly pregnancy updates
Labor and Birth
The Big Book Of Birth
Breastfeeding
The Nursing Mother’s Companion
Baby Names
The Baby Name Wizard
Baby Gear
Baby Bargains
Child Development
What’s Going On In There? How The Mind and Brain Develop During The First Five Years Of Life
Wonder Weeks
First Year Guide
The Mother Of All Baby Books
Preventing SIDS
November 12, 2007
Image via www.prevent-sids.org
SIDS is the leading cause of death in healthy babies over one year of age.
From Wikipedia:
Prenatal risks
- inadequate prenatal care [citation needed]
- inadequate prenatal nutrition
- tobacco smoking
- use of heroin
- subsequent births less than one year apart
- alcohol abuse
- being overweight
- smoking and taking other drugs while pregnant
[edit] Post-natal risks
- low birth weight (especially less than 1.5 kg (~3.3 lb))
- exposure to tobacco smoke[2]
- laying an infant to sleep on his or her stomach (see sleep positioning below)
- failure to breastfeed
- excess clothing and overheating
- excess bedding, soft sleep surface and stuffed animals
- gender (61% of SIDS cases occur in males)
- age (incidence rises from zero at birth, is highest from two to four months, and declines towards zero at one year)
- premature birth (increase risk of SIDS death by 50 times)
As you can see from the chart at the top of this post, being a second or subsequent baby or being the child of a single parent also puts children at a higher risk of SIDS.
Some other tips:
1. Always put your baby to sleep on it’s back. The Back-To-Sleep campaign has helped dramatically reduce crib deaths.
2. Always keep your crib free of blankets, stuffed animals, toys, extra clothing, and loose or soft bedding. NEVER USE PILLOWS OR SOFT BUMPER PADS IN A CRIB. Most SIDS is caused by suffocation. Use a wearable blanket.
3. Get a new (not used) crib mattress and either wrap it in a cover specially designed to prevent SIDS or buy the HALO airflow mattress — the only mattress proven to reduce SIDS — and clean it regularly. Make sure your mattress fits tightly and that the sheets and pad fight snugly (but not so tightly they might pop off.) Use only 100% cotton sheets and wearable blankets.
4. Never allow a young baby to sleep on a sofa, pillow, cushion, or in adult bed that doesn’t meet the above requirements for cribs (i.e. being totally free of soft bedding).
5. Consider short-term pacifier use as a means of reducing your baby’s risk for SIDS.
Teaching Kids Their Logos
November 12, 2007Nontoxicreviews has put together a printable children’s book of colored logos (print it off and store the pages in a photo album.)
Rush, Little Baby
October 30, 2007The Boston Globe covers The Better Baby Institute, Baby Einstein, and early readers and concludes it’s better for children not to learn to read early (!).
The key excerpts:
Researchers from the National Institutes of Mental Health performed periodic MRI brain scans on children and teens ranging in age from 5 to 19, tracking the relationship between the thickness of the brain’s outer mantle, or cortex, with the subject’s IQ. They found that the people whose IQ scores put them in the “superior intelligence” category had cortexes that matured much later than those of average intelligence. The cortexes of the smartest kids peaked by around age 11 or 12, whereas the average kids’ peaked by around age 8. Jay Giedd, one of the lead researchers, says he and his colleagues were initially taken aback by the findings, but with more reflection they realized they made all kinds of sense. “By having this peak period of plasticity later,” he says, “the brain is adapting to the 12-year-old world, which is more complicated, more similar to the adult world, than the 8-year-old world.”
The idea is, patience pays off. “It’s like the tortoise and the hare,” says Giedd, a psychiatrist and brain-imaging specialist. “I’m not suggesting that we tell people to celebrate if their child is not reading at age 6. But for many people who didn’t read at age 2 – which is a ridiculous level – they may not only catch up, but actually surpass those few kids that did.” The point, he says, is “that until the brain is at a certain level, a lot of that instruction is wasted.“
Also:
A cross-cultural study of European children published in 2003 in the British Journal of Psychology found those taught to read at age 5 had more reading problems than those who were taught at age 7. The findings supported a 1997 report critical of Britain’s early-reading model.
How To Get Babies To Stop Crying
October 16, 2007Some suggestions compiled from The Happiest Baby On the Block and The Baby Whisperer:
White noise (Turn on radio static, a fan, a noisy appliance such as the vacuum or washing machine, some soft music, or an actual lullaby or white noise machine)
Movement (“Sleep dance,” put baby in a swing/bouncer, use a rocking chair, bounce on an exercise ball, or go for a walk or drive. Make sure breathing isn’t obstructed.)
Swaddling (With a specialty blanket (Swaddler, Miracle Blanket, or swaddling sleepsac) or an extra-large receiving blanket).
Warmth and Comfort (Try warming up a towel in the dryer to take the chill of the crib, or dressing baby in a warm sleepsac or removing extra layers for comfort. Make sure nothing is scratching, poking, or binding him or her.)
Space (Perhaps the crib seems too large – try a small basinet, pack ‘n play, or co-sleeper. If she likes being positioned in the swing/carseat/bouncer, try using a sleep positioner or crib wedge. Also, make sure baby is not afraid/distracted by the mobile/bedding/other décor. Try removing bumper pads or other extras.)
Stomach or Side (If you’re going to be sitting right there, try allowing baby to nap on her stomach.)
Discomfort, Gas, or Teething (Try teething tablets, gas drops, gripe water, a cold washcloth, ice, or an actual teether. Try infant massage. Try an upright position.)
Darkness (Try using blackout shades or tin foil to cover windows. If out, try draping a blanket over the stroller or car seat handle.)
Continuity (Overnight, try to avoid noise, playing, turning on the light, and diaper changes — use special overnight diapers.)
Study Finds Playing With Blocks Helps Language Skills
October 2, 2007Yahoo! News: Playing with blocks helps young children gain language skills, a small study concluded on Monday.
After six months, language scores among half of 175 children aged 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 who were sent plastic blocks were 15 percent higher than a matched group that did not receive the free blocks, according to the study by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Parents were given ideas about how to help their children play with the blocks, then kept diaries of their children’s activities over four days. Finally, all the parents filled out questionnaires that assessed their child’s vocabulary, grammar, and other language abilities.
Study author Dimitri Christakis, writing in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, said unstructured play with blocks stimulates thinking, memory and physical mastery of objects at a time when a child’s brain is growing rapidly.
“They are the precursors of thought and language,” he wrote of the skills learned from manipulating blocks. “Older children begin to make up stories or scripts for these objects …”
Such play may also substitute for less stimulating activities such as watching television, he said, adding parents ought to be skeptical of some toy-makers’ claims.
“An increasing number of media-based products are making unsubstantiated claims that they can make children smarter, more literate, and more musical,” Christakis wrote.
The study was funded by Mega Bloks, owned by Montreal-based toy maker MEGA Brands Inc.
Fun blocks:
Start with some basic larger blocks for babies: These minimalist black-and-white blocks or these beautiful embossed alphabet blocks that come in German, Hebrew, Spanish, French, and sign-language versions.
Basic wooden blocks can be very expensive new, but there are lots to be found on Ebay.
Big manufactures make some cheaper options, like the 50-piece Natural Brio blocks for about $18, or these multi-colored 200-piece wooden blocks (with tote!) for $20. Personally, if they’re going to be all over the living room floor, I’d go with the natural.
If you’re adding on, these Plan toys water blocks are great, as are the architectural building blocks from Haba in Japanese Pagoda, U.S. Capitol Building, Pyramid, Coliseum, Russian, and Romantic Church styles.
Travel blocks:Nonchalantmom sells Muji’s “Suburbia in a bag” — ironic blocks in a cotton drawstring bag.
A block-family toy for older kids: MagnaTiles
Drown-Proofing Your Baby
September 5, 2007The American Academy of Pediatrics says not to teach kids younger than 3 to swim, because you and they will get overconfident and the kid might ingest too much water. Hmm.
The American Red Cross, on the other hand, does parent-and-child Aquatics classes for kids as young as 6 months, but recommends waiting until age 5-6 for real swimming lessons.
This Slate article recommends dumping water over your kid’s head and putting them on their stomach in the bathtub.
Here’s two contrary-thinking books, How To Teach Your Baby To Swim and Waterbabies.
An infant lifevest may be the best solution of all.
How To Teach Your Baby To Read, Part 2
January 30, 2007The AAP recommends no TV for the under-2 set, but studies show that most of you will let your small children watch videos, regardless.
Here’s an idea: DVDs that actually teach small children to read (via the whole language approach). The Teach Your Baby website offers multi-level of DVD’s, flashcards, parent testimonials, and lots of videos of small children reading.
A demo video is also available on YouTube.
High-tech Baby 