Parenting Sites 411

Today is Panic Day. As a parent, it is sometimes necessary to withhold signs of panic, but today it is ok to let it go.
As strong as the march winds, so strong can the passion of parenting be. Let your kids know how you much you love them and are concerned for their future. After celebrating Panic Day, visit How to tell your kids you love them, for some common sense ideas to implement in your home.
Mom is Teaching has some great ideas for St. Particks Day fun.
For some fun ideas for play dough, visit Parenting Children. Play dough is one hting oyu can never get too old for, and the things you can make are endless.
If you are looking for ideason how to cook food that improves brain power, visit Parenting Under The Stars.
Cooking is fun to do with the kids too. For some fun and healthy ideas to cook up with them, read Kids Recipes at Family Fun.
Whatever you do with your kids, or for your kids, remember that the time spent with them is well worth every moment, and will be what they remember as the best timesof their lives.

With spring just around the corner, or at least we in the North East hope it is, it’s a great time to enjoy some indoor fun while we wait.
There is a new site that is called We Heart Cats, by April Gilford. It is especially for kids an parents who love cats and anything to do with cats. There are games, puzzles and interesting facts about our favorite feline friends. Check it out with the cat lovers in your life.
For the little girls who love to pretend princess and fairy, here is a great article by Summer M., Make Faeries Real. For indoor fun, the crafts she mentions are simple and fun, with results that will make your little girl feel beautiful.
For you lego fans, read about the Lego Gunship at our toybender site. Legos have been a favorite indoor fun toy for a long time, and there is no end to what you can build with them.
And finally, for you who can’t wait to get out, bring the outdoors in with some indoor gardering. Check out Garden and Earth.

Have you ever wanted to do something with your kids that will make memories that will last a lifetime? That is my desire, to give them good memories that will make them cherish their childhood and family life.
Family Fun is one site with a lot of good ideas on things to do with the whole family.
Another good site for ideas is Parents Talk Online. They offer advice from other parents of activities, crafts, and other things to do together.
For Outdoor Activities, visit here for some good ideas.
No matter what we do with our kids, they will have wonderful memories of being with us and having the best thing we can give them, our time and attention.

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Homework Help!!! (Please Help!!!)

Math: Dot to dots
The Math Worksheet Site
Science; Enchanted Learning

History:Way Back (PBS)

Handwriting; Basic Handwriting

All Subject: Homeschool Activities

The Homeschooling Mom

School Express
Preschool Activities
Soft Schools
High School, GED

While thinking about this time of year, and experiencing the boredom of being house bound with my own kids, I thought it might be fun to suggest some mid winter activity ideas.
This site talks about throwing a theme party. I have done this with my kids in the winter, and it was a hit. throw a beach party, or a Hawaiian party in the living room.
Another fun thing I do, and the kids love it, is make them do physical activities that normally wouldn’t be allowed, in the house. I have them compete to see who can do the most, and they call it “the contest”. Here is a site for great exercises to have them compete with each other, or beat their own time.
Another fun thing to break the winter blues boredom, is crafts. Our favorite is scrapbooking. Here is a site to help with ideas for themes, and materials for kids.
Please feel free to share ideas you use with your own kids. Winter can be long and drawn out, especially with late winter snow, and sub-zero temps.

I know that not everyone who reads this blog homeschools, but all of you are looking for good ideas of things to do with your kids, or information regarding parenting.
Today will be mostly of interest to parents who are hands on with their kids, either with homeschooling, or just having fun.
Check out Mom is Teaching for homeschooling links, ideas and fun.
If you are looking for some good coloring pages, check out PapaJan.
Find some great lesson plans and ideas from First Preschool.

I thought I would pass along this site for Parental Rights. They are trying to pass legislation for less Government interference in family life.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like to have fun. I also don’t know anyone who knows all there is to know about having fun, especially when it comes to having fun with the kids.

At PBS Parents you find all sorts of ideas for games, coloring pages, history and science lessons, and tips for parents. If you search the site, you will see a section with a lot of interesting history trivia. All of the kids programs are represented with activities for parents and kids to do together. There are articles on things concerning parents and parenting.
There is a great site about American Presidents and other American History at PBSkids WayBack. Iti s full of interesting trivia and bitsof information that may not be important, but is fun to learn.

If you visit the Family Education site, you will find ideas to do with each age group, as well as articles for parents. There are valentine ideas, among other fun things to do. There are also parenting message boards, printables, and games.

If you look for parenting ideas on a search engine, there are many valuable resourses available.

Have fun with your kids. Learn new and interesting facts with them. Teach them things that may confuse others (such as what the president’s dog’s name is), and enjoy learning together.

My name is Jean, and I am the new writer for ParentingSites 411. I hope to bring a lot of valuable information, ideas to refresh you, and encouragement along the way.
If there is anything you would like to see with this blog, please throw your ideas my way. I will always answer your comments.
I also write Parenting and Religion, and Marital Talk. Check them out for family and relationship information and ideas.

Welcome to another installment of the best posts from the parenting blog world that I found this week. Again, it was a quiet week around here and I do apologize for that. If you do have any ideas of great posts for me, do let me know. I feel as though NaBloPoMo has sapped my creativity. Speaking of which, NaBloPoMo has made this a great week for reading blogs. Not only has there been just a lot of posts to read but people have really been pulling out all the stops and posting some great stuff. I love November! It’s hard to come up with something to post every single day but the payoff is worth it. Everyone likes lots of blog posts to read, after all!

• “That satisfying crunch” from sweet | salty. A lot of times posts where moms talk about how they’re going more organic make me uncomfortable because I feel like I’m letting everyone down. But as usual, Kate has such a way about her that the post is entertaining and informative and actually INTERESTING. And most importantly, it made me think.
• “Three strikes and you get a second date” from moosh in indy. Casey has been posting the story of how she and Corey met, fell in love, got married and how the Moosh came to be. A lot of people do these stories but hers is especially interesting and funny and I find myself hanging on her every word. This is installment three in the story and about when I started realizing that this series rocked my socks.
• “I remember when weekends were relaxing” from Purple is a Fruit. Linda seems to have cemented her place on my YNTR column but this post was just funny and so dang true. Plus, it’s an interesting look at what it’s like to be a working mom to an energetic toddler. I imagine this is a lot how my husband feels at the end of the weekend.
• “Dear…” from Loralee’s Looney Tunes. I love posts like this, where the author writes little notes to different people in their life (even if it is the checkout girl from the grocery store). It reminds me that I want to do a post like this sometime.
• “Money Changes Everything” from Rockstar Mommy. YES. I’ve had this very same post (nearly) running through my head for weeks now and eventually I’m going to post it. In the meantime, go read RSM’s post about how aggravating it is to have a materialistic friend and why that lifestyle is just not for her.
• “How many Storches does it take to screw in a light bulb” from Amalah. Any of you who have been reading Amy for any length of time probably remember The Tire. In this installment, Amy gives us a resolution to The Tire Story and introduces a new peeve of hers. And, as always, is hilarious.
• “Drama. Not really.” from Oops! Did I say that out loud? This was a great post from Lizarita about dealing with her ex-husband and his new wife and how they all actually *gasp* get along. It’s refreshing and truly gives me hope for the world. There doesn’t have to be drama everywhere, after all.
• “Trying my best to stand by my man” from Hollow Squirrel. I’m sure at some time, all of us women have complained about our husband’s work hours (generally, this only applies to stay at home moms), but I think Mrs. Squirrel takes the cake here. The other night her husband worked until 7 am! I would have collapsed into a pile of frustrated goo by now, so she gets points for keeping herself together!
• “I May Have Ruined Her Life” by Petroville. Wow, this was an amazingly insightful post about how she wished she’d urged a cashier to go to college instead of to drama school. Trust me, it’s a good read and a thought provoking one too. Are you encouraging your children to go to college? I think, as parents, it’s one of the most important things we can do.

That’s all for this week. Whew! My browser is smokin’. I hope everyone has a great weekend, see ya next week!

Welcome to another weekly installment of YNTR.  I hope I have some great sites for you to visit and interesting posts or you to read.  Without further ado, here are this week’s picks:

• “Let’s go down to the ER and have ourselves a scare” from Parental Discretion Advised.  Bree learns what happens when you are busy all day and don’t have enough time to drink all the water you should be having while you’re in your last months of pregnancy.  It’s a lesson we must all learn at one time or another.
• “Insecurious elephantitis” from sweet | salty.  Isn’t it something that now, years and years after we’re out of school, we start learning that everyone went through the same issues that we did?  Kate, in her usual poignant fashion, captures just what it was like to not quite fit in in school.
• “We don’t even have any flavored kinds” from Kerflop.  Jessica details what is a somewhat embarrassing obsession her daughter has with some certain prophylactics.  Well, I’m sure it’s embarrassing for her, but hysterical for the rest of us.
• “Ash and Ye Shall Receive” from Dad Gone Mad.  From his regrettable front row seat, Danny lets us know just what it’s like to be a witness to the L.A. fires.  As always, he gives a new perspective on things and my heart goes out to everyone who has been displaced down there.
• “How do they get the air inside the bubble wrap?” from Rancid Raves.  Cagey revels in the differences between the good days and the bad when parenting two children under two years old.  Some of what she says scares me about what lies ahead for me when my baby is born but most of it is a comfort and I can’t wait.
• “Running Off at the Mouth” from Her Bad Mother.  HBM discusses the fine art of cursing and her propensity to be doing it more and more often (now that the grips of pregnancy hormones have her) in front of her impressionable young daughter.
• “The first of many unwelcomed milestones” from misszoot.  This a fantastic post I read just this morning where Zoot talks about how after she got done bawling out her older son the previous night, her two year old daughter proceeded to mimic her angry outburst.  Zoot has the uncomfortable feeling she was being mocked and knows more of the same is sure to happen in the future.

That is all the reading material you need for the weekend.  When you aren’t glued to the computer, reading fabulous blog posts, why don’t you get out and about with your families and enjoy one of the last beautiful weekends of fall?

Today is the sixth anniversary of the day that rocked our nation.  It’s difficult to believe it’s been six years already, isn’t it?  I know to me, it feels like that day was mere months ago, the events of that horrible morning are burned into my memory.  However, my son was not quite 2 years old that day and he has no memory of what happened.  He doesn’t remember me staring at the television in horror as the events unfolded, as the towers fell and more planes crashed.  He was playing with his toys in his pack n’ play, oblivious to the drama and pathos that was going on.  And that’s as it should be.  But as a child who is nearly 8 years old, it’s time he knew more about what happened that day.

I saw this article on ParentDish yesterday and it got me thinking.   Author Jennifer Jordon talked about why and how to discuss this with children, when is the best timing.  I think it’s very important to talk about 9/11 with your children when they are old enough to understand.  They need to see how you feel about what happened.  They need to understand why the events of that fateful morning are so important to the history of our country and how they’ve shaped our world since then.  If children won’t learn of this from you, where should they?  It’s not a comfortable subject, that’s for sure.  But it’s an important one.

Yes, I’m still completely obsessed with BlogHer.  I’m having a hard time thinking of anything else at the moment.  And if I do think of something else, it’s “God, I need some sleep” because I’m still completely exhausted.  If you went to BlogHer 07 and are as obsessed as I am (is that possible??) or if you didn’t go and would like to hear some of the dish from the conference, are you ever in the right place!!

If you’d like to see a bunch of posts about the conference (and most of these are from mommy bloggers so far so it’s not entirely off topic with this here blog!), check out this technorati search: http://technorati.com/posts/tag/blogher07 

If you’d like to see some photos of the festivities, anything from shots of the panels to candids from the cocktail parties to fun pics of some of the after parties, check out this flickr search: http://flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=blogher07&m=tags

For my part, I’ve been glued to both.  I NEED HELP.  Send the men in little white coats, STAT!

In the world of parenting blogs, there is a huge majority of mommy blogs and a rather small minority of daddy blogs. While the number of daddy blogs grows every day, they’re still almost the “oddity” of the community. But I mean that in the best way possible.

Daddy blogs offer us women a glimpse into the heart of our husbands, to see what they might really think of this whole “being a parent” thing we’ve gotten ourselves into. Danny, from Dad Gone Mad, is probably one of the most visible daddy bloggers there is, and for good reason. He’s a great writer and his humorous views on parenting are pure comedy gold. And when he pours his heart out, it’s time to go dash for the tissue.

It’s blogs like his that make me wish more dads out there had blogs to chronicle their lives as a parent. Am I missing any other fantastic daddy bloggers out there? If you know of one (or two or three), please leave a comment with a link so I can check it out. Just warn me if I’m going to need the tissue first, okay?