I remember going to Trick or Treating with my cousins. All of us would meet up at my aunt's house and a group of about 9 of us would go from house to house collecting candy.
These days, there are a little more precautions to take than skipping a scary house or walking in groups. The American Red Cross came up with a list of precautions when you go out on the Hunt for Sugar this Halloween.
Walk, slither, and sneak on sidewalks, not in the street.
Don't hide or cross the street between parked cars.
Accept your treats at the door and never go into a stranger's house.
Plan your route and share it with your family. If possible, have an adult go with you
Museum favorites The Hipwaders are back this Saturday at 11 a.m., playing their irresistible blend of witty lyrics and pop-rock tunes. Their fresh spin on such classic subjects as siblings, math and toys will get everyone in the house dancing.
Their latest album, Educated Kid, got a rave review from the SF Bay Times: "Pulling off some brilliantly fun and surprisingly hip songs extolling touchstones of childlike glee including art cars and dinosaurs. With Devo influences the post-mod-rock trio lays some serious grooves and invokes the best spirits of They Might be Giants, Schoolhouse Rocks and The Beatles’ veiled odes to decadence that were so brilliant no one cared what they were about."
Check them out on their web site, where you can watch a video and download a few free tunes too.
Music is a great teaching tool and has been studied as such for many years. Babies are soothed when moms sing to them and kids learn their ABC's through song which begins a lifetime of learning.
The Museum also encourages fun and learning through sounds and music. Our programs include the ever popular, Miss Kitty and Music Together with Stacy Walden. Our visitors also love when we bring artists into Discovery Theatre for special Saturday performances.
So we would. We would play in the dirt, look at bugs, chew on sour grass and smell dandelions thinking they were flowers. That type of unstructured play seems to have slipped through the cracks when kids go outside these days.
SF Chronicle reporter, Tom Stienstra, brings to attention the need for outdoor education. The benefits of teaching children about nature, wilderness, animals and the outdoors are highly essential to the preservation of the environment. He says that one of the rewards of outdoor learning is "Children who are active and enlightened in the outdoors grow up healthier and wiser, especially in science, are self-aware and excited about nature."
He believes that educating children on the environment is essential and will enrich their lives. Not only does it aid in early child development but it's a long standing way to live a more healthy and active life. Read more here.
And of course, here at the Museum we offer 2.5 acres of open-ended area to play in. Lookout Cove offers plenty of room for exploring the outdoors and discovering the natural, cultural and built icons of the Bay Area - from the San Agustin shipwreck to the Bonnie fishing boat, a gravel construction pit to the Golden Gate Bridge under construction, to nests and webs. Come play outside with us today!
Well, actually meet Wednesday Kirwan, author and illustrator, as she reads from her new book Minerva the Monster, today at 3 p.m. in the Art Studios. She'll sign copies of her book, and help lead a mask-making workshop so all of the participants can pretend to be monsters!
You may remember Wednesday: she's our former lead art guide, and the author of Nobody Notices Minerva, one of our favorite books to read during daily storytime at the Museum. Her new book features loveable - and mischevious - Minerva as she dons a monster costume—and starts behaving like one, too. Whenever Mom asks her to eat her green beans or Dad tells her to put on her pajamas, she just growls and says that monsters don’t do that! But Minerva is about to find out that sometimes being a real child is better than being an imaginary beast.
Drop in for our boat building workshop this Sunday at 3:15 p.m. This 1 1/2 hour drop-in program is designed for kids ages 4 and up. Children experiment with materials to explore the science concepts of flotation and balance. They construct boats using a variety of recycled materials, and test their seaworthiness on our racing table, while observing how wind, water and waves affect the crafts. Parents and children are encouraged to stay, make modifications and discover what sails... and what sinks!
Can't make it on Sunday, October 26? We'll have a second Boat Building workshop on Sunday, November 23 at 3:15 p.m.
The first show of our second annual Hip Kid's Music Series is this weekend!
Check out the energetic blues, R & B, funk and rock of the Baby Blue Blues Band on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Discovery Theatre, presented by Wells Fargo. Clap, sing and dance along with their mascot, Ray the Rhino!
We talked with band leader Alex Delucca: "We sing blues songs, but not in the typical sad way. We have fun songs like Daddy’s Scratchy Face. We play funk, surf rock & reggae. It’s music that parents can dig, too. A lot of dancing, Ray gives high fives to the children the whole time." Get the whole scoop and take a listen at their web site.
And as our thanks for reading our blog, use the coupon code boogie to save $1 on each ticket. This code is only good for advance tickets bought online.
I love Halloween! Seriously...it's my favorite time of the year. Yes, I'm 29 but still I love to dress up and watch scary movies, but most of all I love to hand out candy and decorate the house. My brother, sister and I began to decorate our house once we got too old to trick or treat.
It's a great activity to do the weekend before Halloween. It gives the family something to do together and it includes the older kids who can't necessarily go trick or treating anymore. It also makes your house one kids just have to stop at! Here are some decorating tips:
Spider Bush: Get an old black sheet, pillow case or t-shirt. Cut it open an drape over a round bush. Take strips of the black fabric and make eight legs coming off the spider's body. Add yellow fabric eyes and yellow spider fangs.
Dead Body: Stuff an old long sleeved shirt, jeans, and socks. You can use an old pillow for a head. Assemble the stuffed body into a person and add a hat over the head. You can now sit the "body" in a chair by the door to welcome Trick-Or-Treaters.
Cobwebs: Buy cobwebs from the store and drape over windows, doors, eaves and trees to create and old abandoned look.
Tombstones: Grey poster board makes for easy tombstones to place in your yard. Write funny things like: "See, I told you I was SICK!" or "Here lies Good Old Fred, a great big rock fell on his head."
Halloween lights: Take white or orange lights and lay them along the path to your door. This will give the kids something to follow without hurting themselves and can light up the tombstones as well.
Music: Forget the Halloween tape! Download the Phantom of the Opera intro and loop it over and over. That organ music alone is more creepy than a pseudo witch cackle.
This was always so much fun to do each weekend before Halloween. ...
A new study suggests that children are only able to learn from their mistakes after age 12 - in other words, negative reinforcement doesn't work. What does work? Positive reinforcement.
Researchers hypothesize that young children learn from positive reinforcement ("Way to go, good job picking up your clothes!") because it is easier to keep doing something that worked, rather than change it ("Don't leave your clothes lying about.").
Researchers at the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab used functional MRI (fMRI) to observe areas of the brain in the cerebral cortex responsible for cognitive control. 8-year-old children's brains didn't active when receiving negative feedback, but strongly lit up during positive feedback. The opposite result is true for children ages 12 - 13, and adults too.
I've often read about the importance of regular positive feedback - and it's difficult to turn off the negative feedback with a 3-year-old sometimes! - so it's nice to have some empirical evidence to back it up.
