Check out the short video below… Astronaut, Chris Hadfield wrings out a washcloth on the International Space Station. 

It’s so cool!  Show it to your kids and watch it.  It will make you feel like a kid again.

Here’s a link to our current books and apps.

The Día! Diversity in Action 2013 Celebration is only a month away, have you registered your library or school’s program yet?  Register your Día Celebration in the 2013 Día National Program Registry to build a national database that showcases all types and sizes of Día programming and receive free bookmarks, stickers, and buttons!

Visit the Día website at http://dia.ala.org to learn more about how you can celebrate diversity and connect children to a world of learning through books, stores and libraries.  Explore and download the free bi-lingual Día booklist, poster and resource guide to help make your program a success!

Día is a daily commitment to linking children and their families to diverse books, languages and cultures. The celebration is intended to be year-round, culminating on April 30^th.

All kids should watch this video below for inspiration… it’s a good answer the question, "Why should I do well in school?"

No one really knows what music sounded like in ancient Egypt, but we do know what some of their instruments used during that time looked like. A close look at some of the beautiful hieroglyphics found in the pyramids and in archeological ruins show that Egyptian musicians enjoyed playing harps, drums, hands drums and also used a unique rattle called a sistrum.

A sistrum is a hand-held percussion instrument, that was most often played by priestesses or the court musicians who entertained pharaohs and nobility. Instead of shaking it around like you might play maracas, the sistrum was moved back and forth and the rattles or jingles on the instrument would create a “swooshing” sound.

Can you make your own version? Yes! It’s easy… for a wooden sistrum you just need to find the right branch in the shape of a "Y", then add the wires plus the jingles to create your version of this ancient instrument.

Here are supplies needed for creating a wooden sistrum:

-A tree branch shaped like a “Y”
-Assorted buttons, jingle bells or metal washers
-A small amount of floral wire, jewelry wire, fishing twine or embroidery thread
-A wire-cutter

Thread different kinds of buttons, jingle bells or metal washers onto a small piece of floral wire or jewelry wire. [You can also use fishing twine or embroidery thread, but wire is better at keeping the bangles in place.] Tie or secure the wire in place on each side of the branch by twisting the wire securely around the branch (making sure no pointy parts are sticking out). 

Then try out your instrument. It should make a pleasing sound when “swooshed” from one side to another. Enjoy!

You can find almost 2 dozen multicultural music crafts on DARIA’s world music for kids site.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful craft with us Daria! –Mama Lisa

This is cool…

Radial symmetry is where an organism has almost identical looking parts if cut into a pie.  Only the top and bottom look different.  

The sea anemones in this print display radial symmetry.

The video below shows how to create radial symmetry artwork.  It helps teach kids this scientific concept.

Check out how cool it is!

Image at top is a plate from from Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (published between 1899 and 1904).

Here’s a video of the song Dem Bones for Halloween.  It’s a longer version to actually teach kids about dem bones…

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…

Enjoy dem bones!

Mama Lisa

Psst… here’s what they are…

Passion (do it for love, not money)
Hard Work
Get Good at It
Push (through self doubt, etc.)
Serve Others Something of Value
Ideas
Focus
Persistence (through failure, etc.)

(Warning: There’s one bad word used at the end of the video – the a word.)

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa

How to create land art:

1,  Use stones and dead wood to create nice shadows in the sun.

2. Make a "snail tree" using branches and rocks.

3. Outline someone’s shadow with stones or wood (or both) and then spray water inside the outline to enhance it.

4.  Throw dust in the air and take photos.

5.  Pile up stones to create sculptures.

This last one makes me think of people going on a procession….

[Interestingly, I've been seeing more and more rock sculptures like these on my nature walks here in New York. –Mama Lisa]

6.  Build a giant bird’s nest.

7.  Build a bridge made out of sticks over a bush.

What great ideas! 

I like the impermanence of these projects…  teaching kids the value of living in the moment… to simply enjoy the process and experience.

Many thanks to Monique Palomares for sharing these nature art projects and photos with us.  Monique works with me on the French and Spanish versions of Mama Lisa’s World.

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa

Most kids in the US have to learn where all the 50 states are at some point in elementary school.  My daughter had to learn them for a test this week.

We tried apps for the iPad and Android to help her learn them.  None of the ones we found were very helpful.  So we went back to the old way… I printed out some blank maps and had her fill in as many states as she knew.  She compared that to a map with the states already named on it.  Then she filled in the ones she didn’t know on her blank map.  After doing this several times… she finally learned the location of all the states.

Here’s a link to the best printable blank map of the 50 states that I found.

Here’s a printable map of the states with their names.

Feel free to share any resources you like for learning about the states, or about learning geography in general, in the comments below.

Thanks!

Mama Lisa

Happy Pi Day!  Pi is the mathematical constant π which represents the ratio of any circle to its diameter.  This number is approximately 3.14.  Today is 3/14 and that’s why it’s held today.  You can celebrate pi day  by eating some pie!

Bon appetit!

Mama Lisa

Here are some of the languages you can find links for…

Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yiddish.

Check it out!

One drawing my daughter did was an illustration of the expression "follow your nose". 

"Follow your nose" can mean two different things… one is to do something based on intuition, to trust your feelings.  The other is used when giving directions and means go in a straight line (though I’ve personally never heard it used the 2nd way here in New York).

Here’s my daughter’s illustration of the literal meaning of "follow your nose".  Notice the little nose in the bottom right part of the drawing!

This is a great way to teach idiomatic expressions in any language.  Have your class, or child, draw a picture of a saying and explain its idiomatic meaning.  Have fun with it!

-Mama Lisa

To celebrate Thanksgiving this year in school, my daughter’s 5th grade class invited their families to an event called "Poetry and Pie".  Instead of the traditional little Thanksgiving meal in class, the kids read poems and afterwards served seasonal pies to their families. 

Each kid chose their own poem to read.  They practiced reciting their poems in class and at home in the weeks leading up to the event.  Then they read them in front of an audience (consisting of their parents) in the classroom.  It was an informal setting, so they could feel more comfortable. The parents were delighted and the kids had a chance to practice speaking and performing in front of an audience.  What a really great idea! 

Gulliver’s Travels is a novel written by Jonathan Swift in 1726.  It’s about the extraordinary travels of Gulliver. He travels to exotic lands, including one country where everyone is little and he’s huge in proportion to them.  This land is called Lilliput and everyone there is about 6 inches tall! 

Then Gulliver travels to Brobdingnag, where everyone is huge and he’s the little one. There a 72 foot tall farmer finds the "normal" size Gulliver and brings him home.  Gulliver’s adventures continue from there.

You can see how Gulliver’s Travels will intrigue kids.  However, the original version is fairly long and in my opinion, it has some tedious parts.  So when teaching grade school kids, an abridged version might be better. 

One of my daughter’s teachers used Gulliver’s Travels to teach her students about proportions.  The students were to imagine themselves in Brobdingnag, the land of the "giants". They were to imagine coming across a little object, like a domino.  How big would the domino be in proportion to the student?  This is what the kids worked on.

The kids had to choose a little object and blow it up to the size of an object in Brobdingnag – literally!  They had to make larger versions of the object in proportion to the original.

Most of the kids chose simple objects like dice and dominoes, though some chose harder objects like Legos and multisided dice.  The teacher had them measure the actual object and them multiply all the dimensions by 15.

Once the kids figured out their dimensions, they had to work out out to make their object.  Most of them used foam board or cardboard and glue guns to make the base of the model.

I assisted the kids in making their models.  The first step was making outlines in pencil on the foam boards to create all of the sides of the object. 

Then the adults used exacto knives to cut out the shape.  When scissors worked for cutting, the kids were able to help.

Then the adults did the gluing since we used hot glue guns.  The students helped to hold the sides together.

Here’s a partially assembled domino…

Here is a Lego and some dice before they were painted to look like the real objects…

Here are the final projects.  The blue one at the top is an index card.  In the photo, you’ll also see a few dominoes, some dice, a Monopoly house, and some Legos.

That was really an interesting, educational, yet fun project do work on!

UPDATE: Check out Gulliver’s Travels for Children, with Recordings for links to an online children’s edition of Gulliver’s Travel and recordings of it.

There are also original poems by some of the students in the book.  Here are a couple of them that I particularly liked…

A poem written by Yésica Martinez López, 4th grade:

The Dark Sky

like a huge
hole in the world
I see through my bedroom
window tiny stars
shining on
the dark sky

This poem includes a Spanish version:

El cielo oscuro

como un gigante
hoyo en el mundo
yo veo por la ventana
de mi cuarto chiquitas
estrellas brillando en
el mundo oscuro

A poem by Moisés Bello. 4th grade in Spanish with an English translation:

De los sabores

El mango amarillo y jugoso
escurriendo jugo en tu boca
como limón cayendo
al pescado caliente

Of the Flavors

The yellow and juicy mango
dripping juice in your mouth
like lemon dripping
on a hot fish

Cyclops Wearing flip-flops can also give teachers useful ideas for teaching poetry and translation to students. 

I highly recommend this book for students and teachers alike!

Enjoy! 

Mama Lisa

A while back, Monique Palomares told me how she went to see a show held by a scribe museum in France about the old pens that used to be used in school.  She remembers using them!  Here’s what she wrote about it…

The show reminded me of when I was a child and someone would bring a brand-new dip pen with a sort of small hole to look through in the handle.  It would have a tiny magnifying glass inside and when you put your eye up to it you could see some monument – like the Eiffel Tower, if it was from Paris, or Notre Dame de la Garde if it was from Marseilles, etc. 

Our regular pens had a simple wooden holder. I loved writing with a dip pen once I was no longer obliged to. When I was a child it was quite another story: we would blot our notebooks, sometimes we’d pierce them, our fingers were usually stained in violet.  We would write with violet ink while the teacher would correct with red ink.  There was often gook in our pots of ink, such as tiny bits of thread or wool from our clothes and they would make messy blots when we wrote. Sometimes someone would put a small piece of chalk in the pot and it was a mess.

When a page of our notebook was blotted/dirty, the teacher would tear it off and we’d need to write everything again. Later there was a wonderful product called "Corrector" – I suppose it was the brand name. There were two little bottles, one with reddish liquid that you’d smear with a sort of pipe on the blots, then you’d smear a transparent one from the other bottle and all would disappear form the page (even the guide lines to write).

I wrote with dip pen during my grade school years 1957 till 1962. From 6th grade on we used fountain pens. My friend Marianne who’s some years younger than me wrote with a dip pen in first grade to learn with and then they used roller pens. I suppose it depended on whether you lived in a small town or a city.

The exhibition wasn’t just about dip pens, there was also all the stuff that used to be in our classrooms a long time ago.  There were Roberval Scales with the weights in a box.

There were tins for measuring capacity, frames with large pictures for geography, history and sciences…  Anatomy, I remember one picture showed a healthy liver and a another showed a liver degenerated by alcohol.  These were for the upper grades.  For the lower grades there were pictures to learn vocabulary and literacy.

Monique works with me on the French and Spanish versions of Mama Lisa’s World.  She writes to us from France.

Thanks for sharing that with us Monique!

Mama Lisa