Flicks On The Field This Saturday August 25th! Featuring "SING"!

Join Parent Talk for a night under the stars featuring the movie "SING"

Needham, MA – Parent Talk is hosting it’s 12^th Annual Outdoor Movie Night, Flicks on the Field. The event will be held on Saturday, August 25^th *Rain Date August 26^th* at Memorial Field in front of Needham High School.

Friends and families from surrounding MetroWest towns will convene on the field beginning at 6:30 pm for children’s entertainment featuring Davey the Clown, face painting, music, games, and more. At sundown (7:45 pm), attendees will gather blankets and chairs and enjoy this year’s feature film, Sing, on the big screen. Light concessions and refreshments including popcorn and cotton candy will be available. The cost of the event is FREE. Families are encouraged to bring a food donation to help support the Needham Community Council. A big thank you to this year’s Flicks on the Field sponsors: Copley Motor Cars, Louise Condon Realty, and Wegmans, as well as our Parent Talk sponsors: Needham Bank, Charles River School, Dedham Country Day, and Goldfish Swim School.

Questions? Download our Frequently Asked Questions here: FAQs

 

Parent Talk Flicks on the Field featuring ‘SING’

Saturday, August 25th^th *Rain Date: August 26^th*

6:30 pm Children’s Entertainment, 7:45 Movie Begins

Memorial Field (In front of Needham High School), 92 Rosemary Street, Needham MA

Cost of entry: FREE! Please bring a food donation to help support the Needham Community Council.

For more information, please email flicksonthefield@parenttalk.info or visit www.parenttalk.info.

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About Parent Talk

Parent Talk is a community-based organization helping families with young children connect, learn, play, and grow together. We offer comprehensive enrichment activities designed to help members build relationships as well as educational tools and vehicles focused on child development and parenting. Our membership is comprised of approximately 500 families residing in Needham, Dover, Westwood, Natick and surrounding towns.

Parent Talk members enjoy numerous benefits including playgroups, lectures, free access to our indoor playspace, free museum passes, retail discounts, reduced rates on select children’s classes, family activities, and social events for children and parents. In addition, Parent Talk offers clubs and committees designed to engage members in the community and develop lifelong friendships.

Founded in 1991, Parent Talk is a non-profit organization run entirely by a network of dedicated volunteers and holds a large and active presence in the local community.

Educational Fun For Your Kids During Rainy Weather

Image Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Educational Fun for Your Kids During Rainy Weather

No matter the time of year, being stuck inside on the weekend or after school can be disheartening for kids. Thanks to the Internet, however, there are plenty of ways to have educational fun without relying on television or video games. If you’re running out of ideas on what to do with your kids during rainy days, here are some excellent ideas to consider.

Make Music

Even if you’ve never picked up an instrument in your life, you and your children can have fun by learning about and making music. If you are worried about not knowing how to teach them, don’t fear. There are plenty of websites out there that offer free lessons, specifically for kids. Of course, many require a specific instrument, so you’ll need to pick one out with your child. If that isn’t practical, you can play some musical games instead. Exposing your little ones to different kinds of music can be quite beneficial and even get them exploring new cultures. One study done by the Brain and Creativity Institute from the University of California suggests that music can speed brain development, so get the tunes going when you see gray skies on the horizon.

Have Fun Exercising

Exercising indoors can seem difficult, especially if you don’t have any indoor-safe equipment. However, thanks to video sites like YouTube, you can find fun, kid-friendly workouts that you can do in the comfort of your home. Make sure that whatever video you choose is age appropriate and has a warm-up and cooldown at the end. There are different forms of exercise you can explore, from yoga to dance to movement practice for toddlers. Most include music for your little one to enjoy, which helps to keep things fun at the same time.

Get Artistic

Kids of all ages love to draw. It’s fun and creative and can help stormy hours pass by. Did you know you can make it educational, too? You can find online tutorials for different things, including activities like teaching your little one how to create optical illusions or zentangles, abstract shapes used to create patterns or a scene. Art doesn’t stop with a box of crayons and paper, however. There are various crafts you can do with your children, using things you have around the house, to get them experimenting and expanding their creativity.

Tell a Tale

One way to pass the time together when it’s raining is to make up an impromptu story with your kids. If you’re unsure how to start, it’s easier than it seems. Pick a protagonist or main character. Come up with a backstory for this person with your little one. How old are they? Do they have a job? If they are a child, where do they live? Next, decide where this story is going to take place. Is it going to be a magical tale? Real life? In outer space? You’ll need something for your main character to be doing, so come up with a conflict or a surprise that they have to deal with. Do they need to raise money for a project? Are they trying to get home? Are they going on an adventure to explore the world or to find a missing friend or sibling? Once you have this figured out, take turns telling parts of the tale. You never know where it will lead.

Experiment with Science

There is nothing like a science experiment to get kids learning and laughing. It is never too early to stimulate a love of STEM in your child. If you don’t know how to begin, Earth Science Jr. has a bundle of free lesson plans to get your children learning about the world around them through experimentation. The great part about these experiments is that they only require what you have around the home, so you don’t need any special preparations to get started.

Being trapped inside can trick us into thinking our only options for entertainment are TV or video games. However, you don’t need to sacrifice education for fun due to rain or a storm. With a little preparation and some teamwork, you and your children can have an enjoyable time learning something new!

About the Author:
Jenny Wise homeschools her four awesome children. As any homeschooling parent knows, every day is an adventure, and Jenny has begun chronicling her experiences at SpecialHomeEducator.com. She hopes to use the site to connect with other homeschoolers and to provide helpful advice to parents who may be considering a home education for their kids.

Tech 101 for Toddlers & Preschoolers

As parents, the information on how much screen time (and what kind of screen time) our kids should have seems endless. It’s challenging to keep up, much less sift through it all and figure out what’s real and current. I’ve taught technology to elementary and middle school students for more than 15 years, and have two kids of my own under the age of 6. These basic guidelines (based on recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics) can help you navigate the muddy waters and figure out what’s really ok for your child at different ages.

Good guidelines to follow are:

• Children under 18 months should avoid any media unless looking at pictures or using video chat.
• Children 18 - 24 months may watch high quality programming if you watch it with them (and talk about it with them).
• Children 2 - 5 years may watch 1 hr./day of high-quality, co-viewed programming; at this age, it’s important for parents to help kids understand what they’re seeing and how it relates to the world.
• Children 6 years and older need enough sleep, physical activity, and face-to-face social interaction first and foremost – it’s essential that these be priorities. According to recent research, once these are accounted for, children are not negatively impacted academically, socially, or mentally by moderate amounts of screentime.
• A good rule of thumb is no screens half an hour to one hour before bedtime.

So, why are the guidelines the way they are? Children learn the most from direct parent interaction and connections with the real world around them (think of this as your fruits and vegetables). Next, they learn from co-viewing, which includes watching or reading with an adult. They learn the least from using media by themselves (think of this as junk food). You might have a cupcake once in a while, but you wouldn’t have it in place of your meals!

It can also be challenging to figure out which media is high-quality media. The best programs for kids are slower-paced, concrete, and real-world, with pauses for interactivity. PBS Kids has some good options including Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger, Mr. Rogers, Curious George, Doc McStuffins, SuperWhy, Wild Kratts, and Planet Earth.

Parents should be very careful with Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime. Content on these services is not filtered effectively for kids, and inappropriate content is just one click away; young kids should never view/navigate these channels by themselves. For example, on YouTube, videos that get a lot of attention bubble to the top; unfortunately, a video may seem like a cartoon initially, but a few minutes in shift to violent or other inappropriate content.

I’ll leave you with a few practical suggestions for helping your family navigate the technology-driven world that we live in:

• Ask permission before taking pictures. This seems like a simple thing, but we don’t do it. A sobering statistic is that more than half of all girls will be asked for a nude photo of themselves by the age of 14. Our children need to be comfortable saying “no.”
• It’s ok to have different rules for different kids. Kids are different from each other – one may need very firm limits, and the other may function well with more flexibility.
• Treat media time the same as you would reading books – sit together, and choose content that is language-rich and interactive.
• Re-enact things from a show; repetition and contextualizing things with kids help them process it. Talk with them about what they took away from a show.
• Eliminate background TV.
• If a smartphone is in the room, it’s affecting the quality of parent/child interaction; find a place to dump it.
• Technology doesn’t have to be just screen media. If you have old pieces of technology around your house (keyboards, phones, etc.), use them as “take aparts,” or spend time playing with Snap Circuits or Makey Makey.
• If you have an iPad for your child, keep one app on it at a time. When they get bored with it, they will naturally turn it off and go onto another activity. Periodically, change that app out for another one. Some good apps for young kids include Puppet Pals and Scratch Jr.

At the end of the day, parent-child engagement is key with media, as it is with anything. Following the practices outlined here will support your child’s development and set the foundation for a healthy relationship with technology in the future.

About the Author:

Steve Trust is Director of Academic Technology at Charles River School, an independent PreK - school in Dover, Mass., and father to a five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter.