By Elyse Major

One spring as preschool was coming to a close, I thought, “What will my boys and I do all summer to keep busy and have fun?” Wanting to provide stimulating experiences without the expense of a formal program, I decided to start my own camp. Armed with a background in advertising and public relations, I was compelled to package the idea with a catchy name, a logo (see T-shirt above), an itinerary, even a song! Over a power-lunch at Newport Creamery, my boys and I decided we would name our venture Camp Cricket. Although summer is over, your camp or club can be adapted to your schedule and the current season.

Gathering Campers
I emailed all of my mom-pals. Knowing that even a brief phone conversation can be difficult to have at my home, I had acquired email addresses from other moms over the years. I sent a message pitching the idea of meeting once a week to eight moms. They were in. After all, the camp was really a moms’ group in green and brown (camp) packaging.

Putting It Together
My M.O.: The goofier we all are, the more fun this will be for the kids. And goofy I got! I created a Camp Cricket logo and printed it on iron-on transfers for each mom and camper to put on old T-shirts. I borrowed a preschool tune and came up with quick lyrics (Camp Cricket time is here/It’s time to clap and cheer/For fun and friends and summertime/Camp Cricket time is here). I developed a loose itinerary:

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My boys’ book collection grew over the holidays thanks to the generosity of a second cousin cleaning out her teenage sons’ outgrown book collection and because books are a popular gift in our house any time of year. Although we find it difficult to part with any book in our home, we had no choice since our bookshelves and floor were now overflowing with books.

My boys made a project of sorting all the new and old books to create their own mini library. We cleared the bookshelves and divided the books into piles—to keep, to save (somewhere other than their bookcase), to give to their younger cousin and to donate to their school or a local shelter.

The “keep pile” includes age appropriate books for a 7 year old (e.g. books the boys can read on their own like Magic Tree House and books we read together like Stuart Little), toddler and preschool books that the boys love and still want to save (Frog and Toad and anything by Eric Carle), and books the boys read with us or will read on their own someday (like Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter VI). Once we made our “keep pile”, the boys had fun sorting these books and creating their own categories; chapter, big chapter, storybooks, reference (including encyclopedia, nature, science, etc.), fantasy, music and sound and a rather large and popular category in our home—Star Wars. The boys made labels for the shelves and are still deciding whether they will also make library slips (using post-it notes) for the books every time one is removed from the shelf.

For now we have a tidier bookshelf and a pile of books the boys are happy to donate to their school and their younger cousin. And all of those Star Wars books? Well they required their own mini bookshelf.

Once you sort your books you may discover you need some new titles on your shelves, peruse the Kidoinfo book archives.

Reviewed by Katy Killilea

I would like to grab you to suggest you try this sour cream we made. But since I can’t, I will just recommend this book. The Home Creamery walks you through making your own butter, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, ricotta, and more. This is an attractive, neat paperback book with thoughtfully selected fonts and precise drawings, similar to those used in Cooks’ Illustrated. It also includes recipes that require lots of the cheeses and yogurts you’ll be producing. Which is handy, because once you get going, you will probably want to make a lot.

The chemistry of your home dairy gets more complicated when you venture beyond sour cream and yogurt, but I think most people will be motivated to try ricotta and mozzarella once they savor the great result of the sour cream formula. These are “easy” as far as cheeses go, but you will need a bit more equipment.

Sour cream is easy. In fact, it is easier than toast. Children can join in the tiny bit of effort required, and they will be proud of the result. Everyone will ooh and ahh over it. It’s the perfect weekend project, because it takes at least forty-eight hours. Five minutes of preparation, and 23 hours and 55 minutes of waiting in suspense. Then twenty-four more hours of refrigeration for the sour cream and eager anticipation for you. So if you start on Friday afternoon, you’ll have your own sour cream for Sunday dinner. Doesn’t that sound sweet and old fashioned?

Homemade Sour Cream, Method 1 (from The Home Creamery)

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When your baby is old enough to start eating food—well, more like play with it—it is time to find him or her a suitable high chair chair. And since your child will be spending a great deal of time in a chair—eating, experimenting, and testing your patience as a parent—it is important to find one that works for you, your budget, and your lifestyle. Easier said than done. Maura Keating offers reviews of four high chairs she tested with her son and with a number of other moms, babies, and young kids.

High chairs reviewed: The Stokke Tripp Trapp, The Svan, Boon Flair chair, and Kuster K1 (Special discount on K1 chair for Kidoinfo readers, see below.)

Get Stoked: The Stokke Tripp Trapp

The Stokke Tripp Trapp looks like no other high chair and it functions like no other high chair. It might be hard to get used to the idea of a high chair without a tray, but once you’ve gotten past the idea, you’ll wonder why you ever thought that you needed a tray. The Tripp Trapp is designed to be pulled up to a table just like any other chair. Dinner time becomes an inclusive activity. My son still plays at dinner, but he doesn’t play WITH his dinner as much as he did once we ditched the tray. He has also joined in with family conversations, paying attention when other family members are speaking and offering his own contributions to mealtime dynamics.

I love the modern style of the Tripp Trapp. It is a stand-out and it makes my kid-friendly farmhouse table look modern and somehow more chic. The chair is available in a variety of colors, enabling you to match your décor with wood tones or to complement or clash with new brightly colored offerings. The Tripp Trapp is designed for use from the time that Baby can sit up through adulthood. I’m not sure if my son will still be using this chair in his middle years, but I know that I’ll find a use for it somewhere in the house. I imagine that it will look pretty cool as an occasional desk chair.

The Tripp Trapp is constructed from solid beechwood and is sturdy enough to withstand plenty of abuse. The chair has a small footprint and doesn’t scream “BABY.” It can be pushed into the table like any other dining chair. The chair is adjustable, designed to enable Baby to sit at adult height at the table, and an adjustable footrest provides extra support and comfort. Now that my son is a little older, he uses the footrest to climb up on the chair himself.

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Patricia Raub from the newly formed Providence Community Library group shares a little background about what has been happening with the Providence Public Library in recent months and about this newly formed organization. Providence Community Library has set up a number of public community forums to discuss the issue of saving the PPL branches slated to close by summer. Representatives from both PPL and Providence Community Library will be on hand at these forums to present their respective plans for the coming fiscal year, and elected representatives from the neighborhoods will be participating in these forums as well.

The forum at the Rocahambeau branch last week was well attended. If you missed it or want to learn more, here is a list of upcoming forums:

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Chess is fun for kids and can be appreciated on many levels. The board itself and the pieces seem to be magical and remind children of faraway lands and stories about knights and castles; then there are the special rules for each piece (which can be fun for kids to memorize); and then there is the thrill of the game itself. Since chess can be tricky to master, parents can make it easier by playing alongside their kids until they feel confident to play alone. We now leave our chessboard set up so the kids can keep games going for days. The Russian chess set pictured above lives at my sons’ grandparents house.

Chess. Read about it, watch it played, and learn the game from others. Here is list of chess resources for kids.

Read about chess:
DK Chess for Kids by Michael Basman
Usborne First Skills: Starting Chess by Harriet Castor

Watch a movie about chess:
Searching for Bobby Fisher: A prepubescent chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer. Rated PG.

Play chess outdoors:
When the weather is nice (and not so cold), pack a bag of chess pieces and snacks and head to a park that has a built-in chess/checkers table. We play on the East Side of Providence at Lippitt Park (at the intersection of Hope Street and Blackstone Boulevard).

Play indoors:
Several local coffee shops have chess boards available for customers to use. We visit Reflections on Wickenden Street or Blue State Coffee on Thayer Street to play.

List of local chess clubs:

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By Martha Iachetta

I share space with the school nurse at the high school where I work in western Rhode Island. She is perfect for the job in many ways, offering just the right dose of pragmatic sympathy to the sick and weary who walk through the door. Her gift is to normalize their sore throats and sniffles as typical “winter” or “fall” or “you-fill-in-the-blank” colds that should be muddled through and simply accepted as part of life. And she practices what she preaches. She’ll come in with a red nose and insist that she’s fine, and I really think she is. I, however, identify with the students who remain unsatisfied with her diagnosis and insist they need to lie down, want to whine a few extra minutes, or, horrors, just want to go home.

For those of us who are lack the iron clad mettle possessed by my school’s nurse, I truly believe there is a part of us that does not want to muddle through at all. All we really want is the impossible: to be chicken souped, ginger ale-d, TV’ed, and napped, preferably without one moment more of actual discomfort. We want that elusive day off, without consequence or worry, assured of our health’s return and comforted by knowing the world can go on without us.

Remember the sick days of youth? By the time I was in fourth grade, my mother worked full time, so I stayed home alone when I felt under the weather, complete with free reign of the house. I’d play records and sing at the top of my lungs, oddly enjoying the irritation to my throat and the sexy voice that followed. Sometimes one of my three siblings would be sick on the same day and, depending on which one, we’d either resent the intrusion or keep each other company–television watching, book reading, and ice cream eating our way through the day. In elementary school, I loved morning cartoons and was bored by the afternoon soaps. By junior high it was exactly the reverse. Once high school hit, being sick was accompanied by the worry of catching up on school work. Since then, the free pass for a day out has never really been the same.

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By Katy Killilea

Through the thicket of kale and mustard greens at the Wintertime Farmer’s Market is a glimmer of spring: it is time to select and sign up for your CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) plan.

Although the 2009 harvest is months away, local farmers are ready to accept your CSA dollars. Farmers use the money to get their new crops growing. In return, your family gets a weekly supply of fresh produce for about twenty weeks from late spring through the fall. It’s not just lettuce: many farms offer Narragansett Creamery cheeses, free range eggs, scallops, flowers, honey, and other locally-produced provisions. Some CSA shares offer participants the chance to visit and work on the farm. You might even get invited into the chicken coop to look for eggs in the henhouse.

What does it cost? For a family-size share, about $600 up front. Ouch. But that’s about $30 per week—which is probably less than you spend on produce for a week’s worth of meals. Ledge Ends Produce in East Greenwich (CSA pick-up also offered on the East Side of Providence) estimates a share’s value during the summer weeks to be $50. Smaller shares (for households that consume less than a big box’s worth of produce each week) are offered by some farms. And Wishing Stone Farm in Little Compton (CSA pick-up options in Barrington and Providence) offers a flexible plan, allowing you to choose whether you want to get jam and goat cheese or pound upon pound of tomatoes.

An even bigger issue than the cost and how much food a share provides is this: where will you have to go to pick up your share? Getting in a hot car to drive twenty miles in July is incredibly unappealing. It’s also completely counteractive to whatever good carbon-footprint karma you’ve earned by supporting local farms.

The Kidoinfo Resource Directory lists local CSA’s and will guide you to the CSA that matches your family’s food, budget, and geographical profile. Have a favorite farmer? Do your kids have a favorite Rhode Island vegetable? Please share your insights by posting a review in the directory.

Check the Farm Fresh RI website to learn more about the Rhode Island farming community.

Rescheduled to: Wednesday, February 4 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM

There is a growing concern among pediatricians, mental health experts, educators and environmentalists that more and more children are growing up today with little or no opportunity for unstructured play, especially outdoors. A new documentary film, Where Do the Children Play? examines this issue. Providence Children’s Museum joins Lincoln School and Southside Community Landtrust to present a free public screening of this film on Wednesday, January 28. An audience discussion about the ideas explored in the film will follow.

Where Do the Children Play? grew out of Elizabeth Goodenough’s work on “secret spaces of childhood” at the University of Michigan. The film was written and directed by Christopher Cook and produced by Michigan Television.

“Children need free time every day to discover their own abilities, desires, and limitations,” says Goodenough, who also edited the film’s companion volume, A Place for Play. “Open-ended exploration and play in woods, fields, vacant lots, or other semi-wild spaces enhances curiosity and confidence throughout life.”

A marked decline in children’s spontaneous and creative play is a key factor in their increasing mental health problems, according to a recent statement from an international group of educators and children’s advocates. They called for “a wide-ranging and informed public dialogue about the intrinsic nature and value of play in children’s healthy development.”

Their letter echoed a recent warning from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): children have far too little time for unstructured play, which leads to increased stress in their lives. Causes of the demise of play cited by the group include parental fears of “stranger danger” and the explosion of electronic entertainment—to the point of addiction for some—in the lives of today’s children. These and other issues are explored in the film.

The lead author of the AAP report, Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, appears in the documentary, along with Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, British “playworker” Penny Wilson, and other experts in child development, psychology, and urban planning.

Most striking, however, are the scenes of children themselves engaged in the rapt state of self-directed play and then talking about the importance of time and opportunity for free play in their increasingly hectic lives.

The Details:
Where Do the Children Play?
Location: Lincoln School’s Ebner, Elson, Hart Music Center – 301 Butler Avenue, Providence, RI
When: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM
RESCHEDULED: Wednesday, February 4 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM
Cost: Free
For more information about the screening, contact Giovonne Calenda at gcalenda@lincolnschool.org.

Related Articles on Kidoinfo:
• Play Power
• Play Everywhere

Image Credit: From the film, Where Do the Children Play?

This important Chinese holiday celebrates the beginning of a New Year according to the lunar calendar. It starts on a New Moon and ends with the lantern festival on the full moon about 15 days later. Although in some areas the lantern festival is on a weekend for convenience. Celebrations can last up to a month with big family gatherings, gift giving, the eating of symbolic foods and displays of festive decorations—all focused on bringing good luck for the new year and celebrating the coming of Spring.

Celebrate with your children
• Read about the holiday, Happy New Year! / Kung-Hsi Fa-Ts’ai! by Demi or Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin
• Red is the symbol of fire and believed to drive away bad luck. Wear red clothes; decorate the house with red decorations.
• Make paper lanterns with construction paper.
• 2009 is the Year of the Ox. Make an ox pin or magnet
• During Chinese New Year it is common for children to receive a red envelope containing money as a gift from family members. Make your own red envelope and fill it with good luck wishes or money.
• Make a colorful dragon mask and have a dragon parade.
• Read the Kids Craft Chinese New Year Newsletter for more project ideas and how-to’s
• Make a chinese feast at home or order food from Lucky Garden on Smith Street.
• Learn more about Chinese culture, learn the language and attend some local events.
Visit Mei Mei and Me–a great local resource in Rhode Island.

Upcoming events to celebrate the Chinese New Year locally:

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