Summer is great -- for parents and kids. But do you ever worry that as they while away the days, kids are forgetting what they learned in school last year? It's a real problem, says Johns Hopkins' Center for Summer Learning, which notes that teachers typically spend 4 to 6 weeks at the beginning of each school year going over forgotten material.

But learning in the summer can and should be fun. If you're looking for ideas, check out ReadWriteThink, a Web site from the International Reading Association. It has age-appropriate, interactive activities, such as a "Comic Creator" for kids ages 8-11.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Which movies are right for your kids? Even Disney can easily be too scary for some. Today's Web site, Kidspickflicks, offers insights from kids and parents to help guide your viewing.

Let me know if you agree with the site's picks, and whether you have other kids-review-movies sites to recommend.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

This may be a little off-topic for Father's Day Week, since it seems that moms are still the ones who keep up (or, in my case, don't) the scrapbook that chronicles Junior's life. But I've been getting word lately of several Web sites that are vying to help you handle your memories virtually.

Totspot calls itself "Facebook for Babies," which I personally find just a little scary, even though the site assures you your page stays very private. (A Newsday story offers tips on how to use the site effectively.) You can upload photos and video, make a growth chart and record 'firsts' like first tooth, first meltdown, etc....and family members and friends can comment and write their own memories.

Kidmondo, a similar site, also launched recently.

Are you likely to use these, and if so, how widely will you share them? Or would you rather stick with paper journals?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Did you wait with bated breath for pictures of Suri Cruise? Stay up at night wondering whether Ashlee Simpson really got married because she was pregnant? Then Celebrity Baby Blog, our Web-surfing destination for this Sunday, is the place for you to feed your addiction. It's got news on all the Hollywood moms and dads.

Then come back here and tell us if there's any hot gossip we missed.

(Photo of Halle Berry, who recently gave birth to a baby girl, by Toby Canham, Getty Images)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I posted the other day on the question of whether our kids, in addition to being overscheduled, are over-supervised -- so carefully monitored by pedophile/big dog/bolt-of-lightning-fearing parents that they never learn how to navigate situations on their own.

Today, I'll follow up with the web site of the woman who started this latest debate, Lenore Skenazy. She got plenty of heat recently -- but also quite a bit of support -- after she reported that she left her 9-year-old son alone to find his way from Bloomingdale's to their Manhattan home. He had "a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters," she writes, but no adult, kid, or even cell phone with him. And he made it home fine.

She's got other things to say, about letting kids ride skateboards and eat snow.

I'd love to hear what you think about her philosophy.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Today's site should be inspiring for kids who love to ride their bikes and parents who want to see the world. Family on Bikes is chronicling a family's planned bike journey from Alaska to Argentina, which is to start in June. The family? Mom, Dad, and 10-year-old twin boys. The bikes? Two singles and a tandem. The length of the journey? 20,000 miles, in about 2 1/2 years.

The kids are going for a Guinness World Record as young cyclists to complete the Pan-American Highway. The parents, both teachers, will school their children on the road and blog about their odyssey, and hope to be hooked up with classrooms where students can follow what they're doing.

Tell us about your bike trips with kids. And try not to feel intimidated by this family's plans. If it makes you feel better, I can barely bike down the block.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In the couple of months that I've been writing this blog, I've been trying to gather information about moms' clubs around the area to tell you about.

Mother's Day Week seems like a good time to publish what I've got so far. Maryland parents are all over cyberspace (and sometimes they get together in person, of course). Here are some groups I've learned about:

(Click below for the list. ...)

Continue reading "Finding a moms' group" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)
                    

Since it's Mother's Day Week, we're going to be talking a fair amount about so-called "mom bloggers" (perhaps at my peril). For the two of you who are not already reading the excellent Finslippy, I'm going to commend you to her blog today. Her motto is "wading in the shallow end since 2004," but she clearly understands that the shallow end is also the deep end.

Her last few posts in particular capture the absurdity and the heartbreak that comes with being a parent. Ever tried to ask a kid about his day? Read this post. Tried to protect him from marauding germs? Check out this one. And, sadly, her latest -- about her miscarriage last week -- is a sparely written account of a tragedy too many parents will recognize. I'd add to the 783 comments-and-counting under that post, but I have no words for this one except those that have been said: I'm so sorry.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

It seems fitting to kick off Green Week with a web site about green parenting. The Green Parent, written by an environmentalist mom, is dedicated full-time to the subject, with posts about recycling, eco-friendly crafts, saving water, and more.

Speaking of Green Week, please don't forget to answer my call for images of your kids' fantastic art to showcase on the blog. E-mail them to me here. Or you can snail-mail to:

Kate Shatzkin, The Baltimore Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278.

But please send only copies if you want to keep the art; I wouldn't want to lose anything precious.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Spring is here -- and your school-age kids are probably bringing home buds in baggies, earthworms to feed, and other charming signs of the season. They're probably itching to get outside, and full of questions about what's growing there -- questions for which you've probably forgotten the answers. (At least I have, if I ever knew them.)

Backyardnature.net is a fun source for projects and knowledge about the backyard, with subjects ranging from "the many kinds of fungi" to 101 Things to Do This Spring.

(Photo of the fallen blossoms my children gathered in a pile in our front yard, by me)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Looks like I started something I didn't intend here.

From the comments under my Dooce and Sweetney posts, and from a thread on Sweetney today, I can see some folks thought I was trying to make fun of these two parenting bloggers. When, actually, I was trying to make fun of myself while noting how well they've done with readers, and trying to explore with you why.

That went well.

So, for the record, please know that I didn't mean to insult anyone, and that I'm sorry if anyone took it that way. Because Dooce was in the news, it seemed logical to introduce those of you who might not have known about her to Sweetney, a local blogger who's achieved success as well. I thought their similarities were interesting, and might say something about what attracts readers to their blogs. If you read their blogs, you already know that they obviously do have their own personalities and their own takes on things.

That said, I'd still like to get back to the larger issue of what draws readers to parenting blogs, and what parenting blogs you'd like to share with others. Please comment below.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

On the subject of successful mom bloggers, it occurs to me that the writer of Baltimore's own Sweetney --Tracey Gaughran-Perez -- bears no small resemblance to Dooce. Like Heather Armstrong, she's been invited to appear on parent-blogger panels, gotten her blog linked on ParentCenter, and started recommending products, on a separate blog in Gaughran-Perez's case.

She's got the same cool blond bob, salty language, a little girl she takes lots of pictures of, and -- key -- a dog.

This is a newspaper blog, so cursing's out for me. But if only Rex were still here, I could compete. If I got a blond wig.

(Photo of Tracey Gaughran-Perez by Sun photographer Kim Hairston, 2006)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
                    

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Salt Lake City mom named Heather Armstrong is the nation's top parenting blogger. I was in a raving jealous rage over impressed with her numbers: her site, Dooce.com, gets about 4 million page views a month. (I get nowhere near almost that many. OK, only in my dreams. But I'm new. We'll get there, right?)

Back to the point. ...With all those page views, some of you must be reading Dooce. A lot. I'd like to know why. And I'd like to know what other mom and dad blogs/sites you read, and why. We're phenomenally busy people, we parents, and yet we make time to read even more about parenting. (And please don't stop doing that. See above.) What makes one parenting site stand out over the other 200,000 out there?

One feature I like on Dooce is Armstrong's monthly newsletters to her daughter, Leta. For one thing, even though they're quite personal, they're a bit of a window on how kids of a certain age can change from month to month. For another, they'll be a great record for her family some day. Haven't we all vowed to write down all the wonderful things our kids say and the bizarre things they do, only to forget?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

Today's web site comes from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which has an excellent kids' site. Through the interactive art component, a child can create his own still life, abstract painting, virtual mobile, or geometric sculpture, etc., while learning about various art forms.

Elsewhere on the site are other activities, such as counting the colors in a Kandinsky painting.

You never know; your young artist might become another Marla Olmstead, the 4-year-old prodigy whose paintings were featured in last year's film "My Kid Could Paint That."

Do you have favorite art-making sites? Please tell us in a comment below.

(Sun file photo of "The Painting Ocean," by Marla Olmstead)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Tomorrow is opening day at Camden Yards, so it seems fitting to point you to a great baseball site for kids and adults to enjoy. The Web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame fills the bill. You can watch video biographies of Hall of Famers and relive great baseball moments, from Ted Williams' game-winning homer in the 1941 All Star Game to Cal Ripken Jr.'s 2,131st consecutive game (and his induction into the Hall of Fame last year). 

By the way, you can find The Sun's coverage of Ripken's road to the Hall of Fame here.

What are your favorite baseball web sites?

(1995 Sun photo of Cal Ripken after he broke Lou Gehrig's streak of consecutive games, by Karl Merton Ferron.)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

When I got home on a recent evening, I knew I had this Sunday's web site nailed. My 4-year-old was glued to kidsastronomy.com, and insisted on going over the planets with me. Though he can't quite read yet, he pointed out each one correctly by its shape and distance from the sun.

Then he said, "That's Pluto. I'm so sad about him. He died."

Well, not quite, honey. Pluto was just fired from being a planet.

Anyway, this is a great site. You can play games to learn the constellations, watch how the night sky changes and hear songs to help you remember why we need the sun. I'd say it's appropriate for preschoolers and kids in the early elementary grades.

Do you have favorite web sites for kids who are interested in space? Please post below.

(Photo of Jupiter flyby in early 2007 provided by NASA to the Associated Press)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

If you can't get your teenager off the Web, maybe you can at least get her to visit a cool site about books. With a name like Favorite Teenage Angstbooks, this one has a chance to hook your high-schooler.

It's written by a woman in her late 30s, but it has fun graphics and reviews of lots of good books about the teenage experience.

The site owner tells me she's taking a break from posting new content while she pursues some other projects, but there's enough there in the meantime to pique some -- gasp! -- offline interest in a book.

What's your opinion of this site? And what are other favorite sites for teenagers?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Though they're young, my kids are already clamoring to use the computer. In our house, we allow a little bit of adult-supervised computer exploration every day, but it counts toward a set limit of "screen time" (including TV).

That said, there is a lot of cool stuff on the Web that can help kids of all ages explore the world. Periodically, I'll highlight some educational and experiential sites I think your families would enjoy.

If you have either a bug-lover or a bug-phobe of elementary school age that you'd like educate, you might want to check out PestWorld For Kids. It has facts on all sorts of "amazing pests" and some entertaining learning games.

What are your favorite sites for kids? Please give us an age range when you post.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)