A guide for the kids

Friday, August 17, 2012

Phrase of the Day

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on the Treasure Island.

- Walt Disney -

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Your own quick sand!

Making experiments with kids is fascinating. And the'd love to make quick sand. Let's see how it works.

You will need...

Half a cup of water

1 cup of maize cornflour

A plastic container

A spoon

Steps

a) First, mix the cornflour and water in the container to make your own instant quick sand. Remember not too solid ok?. Then, stir slowly and drip the quick sand to show it is a liquid. Stirring it quickly will make it hard, so you'd better do it fast. Remember that quick sand is messy, try to play with it outside and don’t forget to stir just before you use it. You just need t stir instant quicksand just before you use it. It's always like that!

The phenomena explanation

If you add just the right amount of water to cornflour it becomes very thick when you stir it quickly. So, Stirring slowly allows more water between the cornflour grains, letting them slide over each other much easier. Moreover, if you poke it slowly it doesn’t mix up the mixture in the same way, leaving it runny. It works in much the same way as real quick sand.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Homemade fabric fragrance

Typically people buy fabric perfumes on market. They are not expensive and some of them smell really good. But there are others, who never buy these things, but they would like to try one of this, at least once. Normally, I prepare this myself, because I never find the smell I like, so I guess this is a good alternative for you too. Let me show you how to produce a homemade fabric scent, with very little money. You can use it either for curtains, kids’ cushions, clothes, carpets and so on.

You’ll need the following…

1) Cereal alcohol

2) Water

3) Essential oils.

4) One unused spray bottle where to pour our perfume.

Steps

a) Choose the scent you like the most (or the one your kids adore). If you want to create a lively atmosphere you can choose lemon, orange, or mint. On the contrary, if you want to generate a relaxing atmosphere you may choose lavender or vanilla. Or if you want to create a fruity perfume, you may combine strawberry, plums, blueberry and apple.

b) Pour 15 drops inside the bottle.

c) Fill in half of the bottle with cereal alcohol, and half with water.

d) Put the bottle lid and shake for some minutes. After this, put the bottle in a dark place, it can be a kitchen drawer or somewhere in the garage. After 2 days, shake it again, and spray over a surface to see whether it needs more scent or not.

If you like it the way it is, start using it around your house. Kids will love it!

Phrase of the day

Whatever you are, be a good one.

- Abraham Lincoln -

Monday, August 13, 2012

Bilingual Books

It's been a long time ago since I've been reading bilingual books. Since I was a 6-year-old child, to be more precise, and... believe me, that it has proved to be really good for my language development.

My mother tongue is Spanish, but I've started learning English as a child. My father used to buy fairy tales or fabules which they brought a casette (lol a casette people, that WAS a long time ago). So, while I was reading I listened to the narration on the casette. Believe it or not, I was incredibly hooked by this kind of books.

As I told you before, these books were bilingual. That means, one side of the casette contained the Spanish version (my mother tongue), whereas the other side had the English version. Wasn't it awesome? For me it WAS, because once I've listened to the spanish version I listened to the english one. But... Where was the text in english to follow? you may wonder... It was in the bottom part of the page, in lower case.

Today, I know that there are books which bring two versions, that is, one page in english and on the other side page the spanish version (or other languages). If I had to recommend these books, I would highly suggest parents buying at least one of them, because they expose kids to two languages at the same time. Pictures also help them distinguish among meanings and analogies, which you may know, it's not easy work. Nowadays, market offers books with cds, containing both language versions (as casettes used to be). So, getting one of these books for kids, would be a nice way of introducing abother language to them. They'll discover they can read the same story they already know in their mother tongue, in another language. And that, in the long run will be really profitable.