My family has our kid-friendly favorites in and around Rhode Island—everything from the tastiest hotdog to the best shady park to the orchard where we pick our apples. What follows is our current list, but I know it will change and evolve as my kids and my husband and I keep exploring and day-tripping around the area.

Read the A-list here. I invite you to share your kid-friendly favorites and feel free to add categories as well. (Enter “Reader A-List” in the subject line.). We will post the Kidoinfo Reader A-List in the fall and randomly select one of our readers to win a $50 gift certificate to a local restaurant! Deadline: September 15, 2008.

By Katy Killilea

After a night of fireworks, why not spend a day on the East Bay bike path? If your kids have outgrown their bikes, co-pilot seats, enclosed trailers, or trail-a-bikes, good used equipment can be found at tag sales, Craigslist, or with friends who have slightly older kids. Everyone seems to be shedding equipment at this time of year.

East Bay Bike Path highlights for Kido cyclists include:

• The view of Providence—especially if you live in Providence—from the causeway.
• Waving to other kids going in the opposite direction, and spotting sleeping babies.
• A stop at Del’s in Warren for frozen lemonade, Fruity Cow in Warren for palatas (Mexican popsicles,) or DariB in East Providence for an ice cream cone. All are located right along the bike path.
• A visit to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island Environmental Education Center in Bristol. For cyclists, this is an ideal pit stop. It’s right on the path, and offers plenty of bicycle parking. Step into the cool building, enjoy the exhibits, get a drink at the bubbler, and use the rest room.

This April, a huge fire destroyed the wooden walkway leading from the bike path out into the marsh, so it is closed. But the rest of the center’s property is open for exploration, and some kids may be very interested to see if they can spot lingering effects of the fire. Admission is FREE this Saturday (Free admission the first Saturday of the month).

If you head out for a ride, pack plenty of water and a picnic. Get ideas from Katy or Anisa’s picnic basket. Bike path picnic spots: Haines Park in East Providence, on the giant rocks along Brick Yard Pond in Barrington, or in Colt State Park in Bristol. All have shade and ample room for pulling over with a family’s worth of bicycles.

Details:
DariB - 240 Bullocks Point Avenue, Riverside, RI
Phone: (401) 433-1931

The Fruity Cow - 7 Turner Street (corner of Child Street), Warren, RI 02885
Phone: (401) 289-2089

Del’s Lemonade - 65 Child St., Warren, RI 02885
Phone: (401) 247-2210

Audubon Society - 1401 Hope Street (Rte 114), Bristol, RI 02809
Phone: (401) 245-7500
Website

If you head out for a ride, pack plenty of water and a picnic. Read what Katy and Anisa pack in their picnic basket.

Bike path picnic spots: Haines Park in East Providence, on the giant rocks along Brick Yard Pond in Barrington, or in Colt State Park in Bristol. All have shade and ample room for pulling over with a family’s worth of bicycles. Email us and tell us what’s in your picnic basket.

Photo credits: DariB by Douglas Itkin for Kidoinfo, Map from RI Department of Transportation

Cooking is fun for kids and getting them interested early may be a great way for them to develop healthy eating habits and explore their senses—sight, smell, and taste—as they discover what it takes to make a meal or snack from “scratch.”

Besides offering delicious recipes, cookbooks are wonderful guides that teach our kids helpful tips about the ingredients, the tools, the process, and the techniques necessary for preparing whatever dish that strikes their fancy. Cookbooks also present an opportunity to teach kids at every developmental stage –toddlers may learn about colors and textures while helping with the ingredients, preschoolers learn about the different food groups, and grade-schoolers can practice their reading and math skills.

A recent New York Times article discussed the growing number of kids’ cookbooks on the market today. Why the increase?

Because parents who have a keen interest in cooking encourage their young children to spend time in the kitchen and new titles take a more sophisticated approach to children’s food.

Thanks to this growing interest in cooking with kids, we now have an abundance of cookbooks to choose from—from targeting specific age groups, to healthy cooking to global cuisine–many with fabulous photography or illustrations and brand ties-ins (such as cookbooks by celebrities, stores and TV Shows).

I personally love when the cookbooks—like our recent library find, C is for Cooking—give helpful suggestions for what steps in the recipe young kids can handle (measuring, stirring, cracking an egg) and what steps are best left to an adult (chopping with sharp knife).

With all the options on the bookshelves today, deciding which cookbook to use can be challenging. Here is a list of books mentioned by the New York Times—we have not tried them all yet. We tend to use our local library to sample cookbooks so I plan to reserve some of these titles with my library card and will report back on what we think of them. We sometimes purchase the books we use over and over for our collection—then we don’t feel so bad if the ingredients smear the page or the edges are worn from repeated use.

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The Kidoinfo family has certainly grown over the last year and there are now over twelve regular contributing writers. Our computers, Wi-Fi, and email allow us all to work virtually anywhere and anytime—especially helpful if juggling multiple jobs, childcare or sick kids. The downside is since we don’t need to see each other to get our articles written and posted on the Kido blog, we often don’t see each other. I am a big believer in face time and connecting offline—and although I love my computer and use it quite a bit—I decided it was time to meetup in person with the other Kidoinfo writers.

We met at Jake’s in the jewelry district, conveniently located for people driving from all parts of the state and a groovy place to have food and drink inside with a great jukebox or outside on the patio. They have free Wi-Fi as well in case you need it. What a blast. People met for the first time, found out more about each other, decided on ways we can all stay in touch, shared ideas about future stories and more.

Kidoinfo writer meetup (pictured above L to R, except for Martha Iachetta (thinking mom) who had not arrived yet): Jill Davidson (education), Maura Keating (product reviews), Michelle Riggen-Ransom (nature/nurture), Anisa Raoof (publisher), Erin Goodman (it’s a date), Nancy King (editor), Marianne Ruggiero (risd artplay), Katy Killilea (grocery news, food, general), Jaci Arnone (general)

Snacks and dollars for the jukebox—since it was so nice outside we decided to save our dollars for the next Kidoinfo meetup.

Other Kidoinfo contributors who were not able to attend: Mark Binder (story of the month), Megan Fischer (providence children’s museum), Adam Darowski (general), Geoff Griffin (general), Hope Foley (audubon society), Katie Mulligan (nutrition), Christina Mitchell (pediatrician), Melissa Brusso (sports mom), Jen Morin and Kirsten DiChiappari (wellness).

By Michelle Riggen-Ransom

This “Meet a Parent” is a little different than usual. To kick off a summer of gardening, I interviewed my friend and avid gardener TJ Sondermann about his gardening habits. TJ is a librarian who is currently at home with his almost seven-month-old son. He’s also a committed urban gardener, a fount of techie and greenie information, and an all-around nice guy. Let’s meet him!

Where do live?
TJS: Providence, RI

What are you planting this year?
TJS: This year we’re removing lots of lawn to make room for perennials. In the veggie garden, we’re planting corn (which we grow mainly to make the dry stalks into fall decorations as the squirrels always eat all the corn), lots of assorted greens, eggplant, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, our regular assortment of herbs, and we’re experimenting with Brussels sprouts.

We’re also planting a neighborhood BYOS (bring your own scissor) herb garden on the side of our house this year. Come on over for a sprig of thyme if you need it.

Where do you garden?
TJS: The first day we looked at the house that would become our own, my wife was asking all sorts of appropriate questions about taxes and heating bills. Me, I had my eye on about sixty square feet of space in the backyard that was screaming, “Clear me out and plant some veggies.”

I’m also volunteering a bit at the Mount Hope Community Garden this year. I can’t think of a better way to get your family involved in the fabric of your neighborhood than by standing shoulder to shoulder, knee-deep in compost with the diverse group of folks who generally make up a community garden.

Who do you garden with?
TJS: Generally with my wife and a small group of friends whose children range in age from 4 months to 6 years of age. We all pitch in (with advice or manual labor) from time to time at one another’s backyard plots and share the bounty either directly or through weekly dinners. Last year a few of us (kids included) plucked many pounds of basil leaves from stems and had a pesto making party. Everyone went home with a few containers of freshly made pesto.

What is your favorite thing about gardening with your child?
TJS: I’ve been hooked on gardening since my grandfather sat me on his lap at age 5 and showed me a cucumber that he had grown inside a beer bottle (Michelob, of course), and I cannot wait to do the same for my son.

Thanks, TJ! Happy Gardening to you and your family.

Nature/Nurture, written by Michelle Riggen-Ransom, is an occasional column with ideas and information to help kids and their families engage with the natural world in fun, interesting ways. Share your thoughts and explorations by adding your comment below, or contact us with your story ideas.

PHOTO CREDIT: From TJ Sondermann’s Flickr account

By Katy Killilea

Yum! Local strawberries are ready. Whether you prefer to buy them in cunning quart baskets at a farm stand or pick them by the bushel, it’s time to eat strawberries in Rhode Island. Every day. Possibly at every meal.

Many berry lovers in the Providence area associate U-Pick berry season with Four Town Farm in Seekonk. It is close by—bewilderingly close to Target—and the berries! Wonderful! Plump red beauties in quart baskets ($5.50) are available now but sell out quickly. Four Town Farm plans to open the U-Pick fields on Thursday, June 19. Most children are very helpful berry hunters and pickers. And tasters. And shortcake makers. It is a fun field trip, and even if you only have fifteen minutes of available kid-attention-span, you’ll be able to pick several pounds easily.

Inside the farm stand, local rainbow chard, rhubarb, spinach, lettuces, radishes, and scallions longer than your legs are beautiful and ready to buy. (Also available: ginger, avocados, apricots, and Diet Coke from who-knows-where.) Every year I am surprised anew that the produce at Four Town Farm is not more expensive than a grocery store (chard, $2/pound; avocados, $1.45 each). While the adults shopped for dinner, the six kids in our group agonized over which flavor honey stick ($0.20) to choose from the display. Tell me, if your favorite color is green, is it wise to get the greenish one even if you fear things that are minty? In an unfortunate turn of events, the honey sticks became extremely sticky weapons for dueling.

We left the farm with armloads of great stuff for dinner and plenty of berries for dessert, sticky and happy children, and a short trip home.

Four Town Farm - 90 George Street Seekonk, MA 02771
Hours of Operation: 9:00 am - 6:30 pm (Mon - Fri), 9:00 am - 6:00 pm (Sat - Sun)
Phone: (508) 336-5587

More:
• For berry picking information, go to farmfresh.org
• For a Super Kido-tested jam recipe, go to Making Strawberry Jam

Photo Credit: Katy Killilea

By Katy Killilea

Drive time from Providence, RI: @ 38 minutes (@ 28 miles) (directions)

Tiverton is home to some of Rhode Island’s best sandwiches and cookies (at Provender) cheese (at Milk and Honey Bazaar) and ice cream (at Gray’s), all of which make going for a family hike there a brilliant idea.

There are many enticing options for hikes in Tiverton. Weetamoo Woods is just half a mile from Tiverton Four Corners (located at the intersection of routes 77 and 179, and the home of the above-referenced delicacies) and makes for an exciting hike for a wide age range. Our group was comprised of two moms and four kids (ages 5, 5, 6, and 7.) We saw a family with young teenagers and a twelve-year-old who seemed equally well-matched for the hike.

Other than proximity to high-quality snacks, what’s so special about Weetamoo Woods? The hiking trail is what was once Rhode Island’s only highway. (History!) Stone walls and stone slab bridges are regular features, as mighty as the days they were built centuries ago. (Architecture!) As we ventured through the woods, we found princess pines, holly trees, onion grasses, and skunk cabbages. (Botany!) The stone bridges cross brooks of various depths and speeds. (Water to throw sticks into!) And then, at last, we reached High Rock.

High Rock is indeed a very large rock. When you reach the top of it, you find yourself up above the treetops. Our kids were flabbergasted by their achievement. (”This is the highest mountain in the world!” and “This is the awesomest place I’ve ever seen!”) The adults in our group ruled out a High Rock game of hide-and-seek that was percolating. It did feel slightly treacherous, and a younger child or someone uncoordinated could easily fall quite a distance and get hurt. However, my perception of danger may have been skewed by my poor choice of footwear (boiled wool clogs). Next time I’ll wear sneakers or hiking boots. Reaching and climbing High Rock was a reasonable goal for our group of moderately experienced child hikers.

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By Katie Mulligan

Schools want parents to think they are on board with fighting childhood obesity. They form wellness committees, hold health fairs, and improve the snacks in vending machines—all of which are wonderful improvements to our children’s school environment, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought too, until a mother came into my office last week with the lunch menu from her kids’ school, and what a shock. I had just finished explaining that her six-year-old daughter needs about 1,200 calories a day for adequate growth, and the school lunch that was highlighted in the “Nutrition Corner” of the menu had 746 calories! 746 calories in a single meal provides that child with 62 percent of her daily calorie needs, and she still needs to eat breakfast, snacks, and dinner. No wonder we are facing a childhood obesity epidemic.

So, what can you do, as a parent, to make sure your child doesn’t become a statistic? Prepare their lunch at home because the less you rely on school lunches to nourish your children, the better off they will be. Brown-bagging it, for children and parents alike, is the best way to ensure a nutritious and light lunch, and putting together a well-balanced lunch takes just a little bit of know-how. Ideally, every meal you serve your children should include at least three different food groups. You can choose from grains, vegetables, fruit, dairy, and meat and beans to pull together a balanced and calorically appropriate lunch for your children.

Follow these tips to ensure a healthy, kid-friendly brown-bag lunch:

• Choose three to four different food groups to pack, and make one of them a fruit or vegetable.

• Pack foods that add up to approximately 350 to 400 calories (depending on the age of your child) Use MyPyramid to help personalize an eating plan for your child’s based on their age, height and activity level.

• Make the grain a whole grain on most days of the week (see list of grains below).

• Serve child-size portions. Children’s bellies are much smaller than adults’, so keep that in mind when packing lunches. Half a turkey sandwich with cheese, an apple, and four graham sticks is an appropriate portion size for a six-year-old.

• Packable food ideas:

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5 Traverse Gallery presents a lovely family-friendly show of forty one bird paintings and drawings by father, Bill Shattuck, and son, Ben Shattuck. This tiny gallery located right off Wickenden Street (near Utrecht Art Supply store) is the perfect size and place to explore art with children. Make it a fun and educational outing for you and your kids—learn the names of the birds and see how a charcoal drawing of a Hooded Merganser can be very different from an oil on panel version by another artist.

Nearby snack joints located on Wickenden Street: Coffee Exchange and Blue Elephant.

Details:
The show runs until June 14, 2008.  
5 Traverse - 5 Traverse Street, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401-225-8784
Hours: 12pm - 5pm, Wednesday through Saturday.

By Katy Killilea

When expert fisher-friends invited us to join them at one of their hot family fishing spots this weekend, we were ready. We had just acquired fine rods and reels from a tag sale, the sun was shining, and we had half a box of peanut butter crackers already tucked into our beach bag—we were ready to go! And so we went on our way, for the very first time, to fish at Sabin Point Park in East Providence.

The kids’ ages were (a strapping, fearless) three years to (a patient, nurturing) seven-and-a-half, and casting off the tiny beach at Sabin Point suited them perfectly. The bait was clams. The expert family provided this bait, as well as hooks and bobbins. There were a few brief, harrowing moments when the inexperienced children waggled their rods and hooks a little too close to their mom’s face. Many lines got tangled in many Crocs. But the good times far outweighed the bad. And we didn’t even catch a fish!

The children stood so patiently in the water, casting over and over and reeling in seaweed. The knowledgeable parents instructed the rest of us on the art of casting, maintaining a line-unsnagging posture, and everything else we needed to know. Sabin Point is a beautiful part of Rhode Island. We spent most of our time on the beach fishing, but there is also a playground with tons of swings, little slides, and even those low basketball hoops with real backboards that are so hard to find. Ducks and minnows were easy to spot, as were jolly men smoking cigars. Lovely sea glass as well as ordinary sharp shards of glass are plentiful (so use caution where you walk or sit) . There are big rocks perfect for balancing and clambering and there’s even a two-hundred-meter track paved for tricycle and beginning bicycle riders.

Overcome with hunger for fish after two hours spent fishing at the beach, our group headed to Blount’s Clam Shack on Water Street in Warren. The Clam Shack is open for the 2008 season and is as brilliant as last year with a new trailer that serves Wildberry Frozen Yogurt and Gelato. On a sunny day, there is no better place to be. Many diners arrive by boat, so there is plenty to watch on the water. The sun feels more intensely bright there–the crushed white shell ground cover and the proximity to water are unbearable without sunglasses– so every table has an umbrella, and there are big white tents set up for extra shade.
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