Category Archives: On Beyond Zombie
Winter is upon us. LittleMan and SunnyGirl have been enjoying sledding down the small hill in our backyard and there is talk of putting up the Christmas tree soon.
One of my favorite classic winter decorations is the humble paper snowflake. A great exercise in creativity, an excellent way to study symmetry and early multiplication, as well as being fun fine motor practice. For the little ones, a simple circle with some triangles and diamonds cut out is wonderful, but the older we get the more complex our designs tend to become. This year I decided to take a little extra time and design our snowflakes after some of the symbols we find in the Harry Potter universe. It took a bit of time but I’ve made my designs into a simple template so that all you Potterheads can recreate these snowflakes to decorate your own windows at home with.
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Awhile back I shared our handprint Yoda and I mentioned that there were other Star Wars handprint crafts in the works. Well, I finally got around to taking some pictures of one of our other Star Wars handprint crafts. All you need to make this is some white or grey paint, construction paper (I used black to get a strong contrast for these pictures but you can use something different.), and a Sharpie marker.
Start off by painting your child’s hand like so:
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There was a time when the term “geek” wasn’t something that people proudly proclaimed. A time when someone called you a geek and it was hurtful. They were saying you didn’t belong, you were weird.
Now days being a called a geek isn’t an insult, nor is being a geek a lonely experience the way it once was.
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When I was a little girl in school, I remember everyone in my class having a caterpillar on the wall. Every time we read a book, we got to add a segment to our caterpillar. It was so fun to watch those caterpillars grow and grow.
Not every child cares for caterpillars though. And even those that do may not find caterpillars to be particularly motivating.
There is one thing though that this generation does understand: the thrill of unlocking an achievement in a video game.
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The following is my un-bias review of the Marvel Super Hero Squad Chutes and Ladders board game. Both pros and cons will be covered as well as my personal recommendation to buy or not to buy.
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Halloween is my favorite holiday and I am always on the look out for new ways to play and learn with pumpkins. We have been interested in the brain quite a bit lately, and have especially enjoyed making brain hats. It occurred the me the other day that brain hats we’ve been making, if slightly altered, could be used as a pumpkin carving template. Once I made this realization, the rest was too easy.
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I’ve written before about how any activity could be made into a Doctor Who activity, if only a little creativity is applied. A few extra moments of thought, barely any extra effort, can take a normal homeschool lesson and turn it into something a little Whovian would love. Today I’m going to expand on that idea by sharing the exact same activity I shared last week, Make a Vortex in a Jar, only this time I’m going to show you how easy it is to make it into a DW themed activity.
Just like last time, you’ll still need a clear jar or bottle with a lid, water, glitter, and dish soap. This time you’ll also want some blue food dye, super glue, Sharpie marker, and blue craft foam. (more…)
The brain is such a cool thing. Human life relies on its function, we use our brains everyday, and yet there is still so much we don’t understand about it, so much that is still being studied and researched after all these years. And who knows, maybe the child who is struggling to hold his pencil correctly today might be the leading neuroscientist of tomorrow.
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Back in March I did a series of posts called “the ABCs of Raising Well-Rounded Geeklings” Everyday there was a theme which I either wrote about or I shared an activity for, and for every theme there was a linky party. Those linky parties are all forever-linky parties so they are an on-going, growing resource for ideas. The goal of my original series was to create the ultimate resource for geek parents to go and find fun things to do with their children and I like to think we did pretty well. However, I realized after the series was over that there were SO MANY aspects of geek parenting that I failed to address. I couldn’t fit it all into a mere 26 days. It reminded me a lot of the Dr Seuss book, “On Beyond Zebra!
” A-Z was covered but there was still so much left! That is how the idea of “On Beyond Zombie” was born.
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