The Best Toys by Tiffany Potter

The Best Toys
What kind of toy should I get for my child? How much money I spend? If you are a parent, probably you have asked these questions many times. Well, the good news is that the best toys may be the ones that are the least expensive.
"Kids benefit more from active manipulation and exploration than from passive watch- ing, so simple toys that demand imagination are better than flashy battery-powered cars or talking dolls, which limit what your child can do," says the book Motivated Minds- Rais- ing Children to Love Learning. The latter toys may be fun at first, but children usually lose interest in them quickly because they don't allow them to experiment, explore, or create.
Depending on a child's age, mentally stimulating toys include things as simple as build- ing blocks, empty boxes, paper, art materials, and even sand and water. "Small toys, like farm animals," says Motivated Minds, "will give [a child] a chance to match, group, and com- pare, and to develop his language skills by making up stories." The book also suggests sim- ple musical instruments-if you are prepared to endure the noise-because these allow child- ren to explore sounds and their patterns.
Children have imaginations, and they are eager both to learn and play. So why not help them In all three areas by choosing their toys wisely.
Tips: Families that make a success of learning. 1-Frequent communication of high but reasonable expectations to children, given in love. 2-Aview of hard work as a key to success. 3-An active life-style, not a sedentary one. 4-Many hours of home-centered learning each week and activities that include school homework,
reading for leisure, hobbies, family projects, and household training and duties. 5-A view of the family as a mutual-support system and problem-solving unit. 6-Clearly understood household rules, consistently enforced. 7-Frequent contact with teachers. 8- An emphasis on spiritual growth.
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About the Author
Retired great grandmom.

Children's Crafts For A Rainy Day by Candice Sabrina

Another rainy or snowy day and you are stuck at home with the children. They are full of too much energy and are driving you crazy. The weather is too bad to let them go outside and play so how do you keep your sanity and them busy at the same time? Regardless of the age of the children, there are literally hundreds of different children's craft projects that you can have readily available for such miserable days.
Plan ahead for these days and have a few special children's craft projects ready to pull out of the closet. Remember that they should be appropriate for the age of the child and something that will catch their interest and keep them occupied for hours.
Go to your local craft store and browse through the endless aisles of items. The employees there will be more willing to help you come up with a few ideas on projects that you can take home and keep available for future use. For younger children there are paint sets that include special paper, pens and brushes that only take the addition of water.
You let the child paint the picture and it colors each section automatically-after it dries, it goes back to a solid white that can be repainted again and again. No fuss or mess to clean up but it will amuse them for hours.
Give the children colored paper, blunt scissors, glue and crayons and have them make pictures of their family and friends. Teach them how to cut out special shapes such as baby dolls that come in a chain or even snowflakes.
You may want to consider a special needlepoint project for beginners. These come with everything needed to make a small picture and it usually includes the frame for hanging. This is especially good for a young girl who has watched their own mother do needlepoint while growing up. Now, she is a big girl and can also work on her own projects.
There is also special clay you can purchase in numerous colors that each child can make into different shapes. Consider having them make their favorite animals, stick people or special symbols that they enjoy. After each is shaped, you bake it in the oven for a few minutes, let it cool, and then you can paint them and glue magnets to the back.
The specific children's craft project you select is not as important as the quality time you will have with your children. The hours that would have been filled with bored children driving each other crazy and a frustrated parent will now be transformed into hours of fun.
Remember that your children will only be young once and that time goes by quickly. Planning for bad weather days with special children's crafts are just one way to create and enjoy quality time with your children. They will remember the times that you spent together working on their craft projects, laughing and just having fun.

About the Author
For more information on crafts, try visiting http://www.craftguidance.com - a website that specializes in providing craft related tips, advice and resources to include information on childrens crafts.

The Best Way to Learn Origami by Eric Pratt

Origami is the ancient art of paper folding to make intricate designs and models. People of all ages and demographics find joy in learning to make fun projects like origami flowers, animals, and much more. There are projects that offer a challenge to a wide range of skill levels, making origami one of those rare hobbies that can cater to young children and adults. If there is one drawback to origami, it's the difficulty in finding good, comprehensive instructions that are easy to follow.
Often times, origami books will give you a beginning section that outlines several preliminary folds that serve as the foundation of many models. This sounds like a great idea and is usually indeed a really helpful reference. The trouble is, publishers then usually skips these steps on the pages of the actually origami designs themselves. Rather than showing you how to make a "bird base" in the instructions of a model that requires one, they'll simply tell you to begin with that fold already done. You then have to flip back to the beginning of the book and find how to make this base before going back to the model's instructions and continuing. Since no one gets really fired up about learning preliminary folds first, this usually makes learning a new model tiresome until you become familiar with all those preliminary folds.

As with many things in life, learning origami is much more intuitive and enjoyable if you can watch someone do the folds and follow along. The usual issue with this is that you're watching a mirrored image of the folds, which can make learning the design confusing.

One of the best ways to learn origami, and keep it fun, is to merge the positive aspects of a live demonstration with the great vantage points that illustrations from books offer. This is accomplished through the use of first person videos. This way, you get the benefit of seeing the folds done with human hands but you also see them done as if you're the one holding the paper. You can then emulate exactly what you see and learn the folds without the frustrations that other mediums have.

Learning origami is like learning to play an instrument. If you start trying to solo to "Freebird" on your first day, you'll likely get frustrated, lose interest and stop playing. Origami is the same way. Start with basic designs and learn the preliminary folds. In no time you'll be making more complicated models and perhaps even conjuring your own designs.



About the Author
Eric Pratt has been practicing origami as a hobby for several years and runs a free website devoted to helping others learn. To watch free, first person, how-to origami videos visit his site here: Origami Folding Instructions.

Card model

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Card models, also sometimes called paper models, are models of real-world objects made usually of heavy paper or card stock as a hobby, or sometimes as a craft for children. They are generally more popular in Europe and Japan than in the United States.
Printed card models became common in magazines in the early part of the 20th century. The popularity of card modeling boomed during World War II, when paper was one of the few items whose use and production was not heavily regulated. Micromodels, designed and published in England from 1941 were very popular with 100 different models of architecture, ships, aircraft... But as plastic model kits became more commonly available, interest in paper decreased. The availability of numerous models on the Internet at little or no cost, which can then be downloaded and printed on inexpensive inkjet printers has caused its popularity to increase worldwide. Home printing also allows models to be scaled up or down easily (for example, in order to make two models from different authors, in different scales, match each other in size), although the paper weight must also be adjusted in the same ratio.
Kits can also be purchased inexpensively, and experienced hobbyists often scratchbuild, either by drawing their models by hand, or, increasingly, with software such as Adobe Illustrator. Software also exists to convert 3D computer models into two-dimensional printable models that can then be cut out and assembled. Because of this, there is no practical limit to the variety of models available. Automobiles, aircraft, spacecraft (both real and fictional), buildings, and animals are common.

Paper model of Mount Vernon
Sometimes the models can be punched out, but more frequently must be cut out with a hobby knife. Experienced hobbyists recommend cutting models out on a cutting mat and guiding the knife with a cork-backed ruler, scoring any edges to be folded with a blunt instrument such as the non-cutting edge of the hobby knife, and then gluing the pieces together with a thin coat of polyvinyl acetate glue ("white glue" "PVA") applied with a small paint brush. One of the features of this kind of modeling is that the models are usually pre-painted. When you have finished assembling the model, it is displayable, without the need for painting, although many people do customize their models with paint and added detailing.
To combat paper's tendency to warp, card modelers may seal the finished model. Reinforcing corners and long straight edges with pieces of wood is also common practice.