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Accident Prevention and Playground Sets
When it comes to playground sets safety must come first. Wood swing sets are your wisest choice because they are simply more durable than plastic or metal. They are rooted into the ground, they don’t fall over easily, unlike metal swing sets that become giant rockers after a winter or two and they don’t snap and break like plastic. In fact both metal and plastic can develop seams and cracks that you cannot see and that can eventually break.
Yet another thing to consider is that wood can support a lot of weight, and that means it can support the weight of growing children. Even adolescents can’t resist swinging off the trapeze on wood swing sets. Wood swing sets have triple joints and also bolts that often slide completely through the wood in a way that is embedded. This means that if something does happen to compromise the structure the bolts will still keep the lagging structure together. Your child is not in danger of collapsing and falling like they would be if they were standing at the top of a plastic or metal set.
Another thing to consider is that wooden swing sets are not made of toxic materials. Plastic materials give off gas fumes that can be toxic, especially in really hot weather.
A big part of accident prevent is choosing playground sets that are age appropriate. The great thing about today’s wood playground sets is that you can assemble them in components that suit your child’s age. To have fun your child does not have to go up a ten foot metal ladder and risk a fall. You can get a five foot slide that attaches to a fort-like or tent-like enclosure that is lower and offers less of a drop should your child slip.
Yet another way to prevent accidents is to make sure that any swings on the set are at least 22 inches apart. This prevents them from clashing with each other when two children are swinging on the set at once.
Quality playground sets have guidelines that tell you what components are appropriate for what age. For instance a climbing wall is more suited for a kid over age seven rather than a toddler. Tire swings suit ten-year-olds better than little seats with bucket swings.
Finally, it is a good idea to make the area beneath playground seats a bit softer by placing it in a “bed” of cedar chips or shredded rubber. Make a rule that the area must be kept free of any clutter, such as branches, skateboards and toys, as a falling or slipping child might risk injury.
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Author: Todd LeavittThe laughter of children is like music to a parent’s ears. This is why Tree Frog Swing Sets builds quality wood swing sets and playground sets to give children more fun and enjoyment.
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The Best of Children’s Arts and Crafts
This book is an enormous collection of activities for children, all designed to exercise busy fingers and stretch fertile minds.
Step by step instructions are designed to stimulate imagination and confidence assist with coordination, concentration and problem solving and to encourage experimentation. Good instructions with easy recipes and hints on cleaning up, excellent photos of real kids making these projects. => http://bit.ly/zAWiE2
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Understanding Boys
Hopefully, society is well past the “politically correct” theory (an oxymoron in a democratic society) that the ONLY difference between a male and a female is in socialization-that aside from reproductive organs, there is no difference between the sexes neurologically, psychologically, or emotionally.
A boy measures everything he does or says by a single yardstick: “Does this make me look weak?” If it does, he isn’t going to do it. That’s part of the reason that video games have such a powerful hold on boys. The action is constant; boys can calibrate just how hard the challenges will be; and when they lose, the defeat is private.
With this in mind, it’s important to remember that PUBLIC competition improves performance, but NOT LEARNING. Some students will practice for hours spurred on by the competitive spirit in music competition, athletics, or speech contests. These students are motivated to compete. Competition can be fun, as witnessed by the hours that young people invest in such activities. However, competition is devastating for the youngster-especially the boy-WHO NEVER FINDS HIMSELF IN THE WINNER’S CIRCLE. Rather than compete, that student drops out by giving up.
As an elementary school principal and the elementary committee chair for one of the regions of the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), I recommended that the entry age to kindergarten be raised, not lowered. I had seen first hand how so many young boys were not cognitively developed enough to handle some of the “sitting still” academic challenges facing them.
More recently, at my presentations I receive an increasing number of kindergarten teachers who each year continue to tell me that their current crop of young boys is the worst they have ever had. For a number of reasons, these young boys are simply not socialized enough before thrusting academics at them.
More and more young boys will become “at-risk” as early as kindergarten because the feeling associated with weakness in the academic skills negatively impinges on their self-talk and self-esteem. I repeat a recurrent theme in my presentations: “People do good when they feel good-not when they feel bad.”
Boys would rather drop out by losing interest and misbehaving than show that they can’t perform. Weakness does not motivate them to want to participate. It takes a masterful teacher and parent to encourage them to persevere.
The three principles to practice of (1) communicating in positive language, (2) reducing coercion by prompting choice-response thinking, and (3) sharing how to act reflectively rather than reflexively can be of significant assistance when dealing with young boys.
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See the teaching model at http://www.marvinmarshall.com.
Dr. Marvin Marshall is an American educator, writer, and lecturer. He is known for his program on discipline and learning, his landmark book Discipline Without Stress® Punishments or Rewards – How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning, and his presentations about his multiple-award winning book Parenting Without Stress® – How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your Own. Visit http://www.MarvinMarshall.com for more information.
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An Attention Span – Your Child’s Basic Foundation For Success in School and in Life
“May I have your attention?” With that request made daily in thousands of classrooms, teachers make an important assumption: Attention must be given from within the child. The ability to mentally focus, attend, and sustain concentration is an internal process within the human brain-mind. Because it’s an internal ability the human attention span has to be protected, nudged, and nurtured along in childhood and adolescence. The right ingredients from the external world will ensure the attention’s span development. The wrong ingredients can hinder its development, and even extinguish it. => http://bit.ly/wsedgl -
Learning … and teaching!
Ah, to be a teacher under these circumstances!
“Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
- Winston Churchill
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Brett Ratner to direct the 39 Clues
Because I know many of you just get all giddy when prospective new Brett Ratner films come up, here’s his latest potential project: The 39 Clues, which is not an Alfred Hitchcock remake, but an adaptation of a young-adult book series. It sounds a bit like a kids’ version of National Treasure, and all the details are after the break. => http://bit.ly/khLmBw -
Children’s authors rail against Michael Gove’s reading lists
Children’s authors rail against Michael Gove’s reading lists
Michael Rosen and Alan Gibbons line up to reject proposal for primary schools floated by national curriculum panelMichael Rosen has said he would profoundly distrust prescribed reading lists for primary school children. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Children’s authors are gearing up for a fight over whether schools should be given government-approved lists of books that children should have read by the time they reach a certain age. => http://bit.ly/lXMPKh -
Charles Roger Hargreaves and the Mr Men books
Charles Roger Hargreaves was born on this day in 1935!
“What does a tickle look like?”
This was the question asked by a six year-old boy of his father, one morning in 1971 that inspired Roger Hargreaves to create a little orange man with a big toothy grin, a blue hat and extraordinarily long arms. And so, Mr. Tickle, the first of the Mr. Men, was born!
Amazon has a range of collections and the individual books here => http://amzn.to/jpoVXA
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Child Development and Helping Your Child Excel In Life
A breakthrough tool in child development from Awake2000.com. This tool helps the child develop their mind using the power of their own suggestion, parents guidance, and their subconscious mind.
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Allan Ahlberg – a life in writing
“If I get stuck for an answer, I can just start reading the walls,” Ahlberg says, and although he’s rarely lost for words, he is constantly reaching for evidence to illustrate what he is saying – reading out poems-in-progress to reinforce an anecdote about his home town, or showing a page of intricate early drawings for his 1981 story Peepo!, to explain how he and his late wife, Janet, worked together on picture books.
Read the whole article => http://bit.ly/k6nFyC
