Parent/Child Activities

Parent/Child Activities

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Teach your children!

How does time spent with your children help the environment?

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A typical child growing up in North America today spends an average of 3 hours per day watching TV. In many cases, this is more time than spent with his/her own parents.

TV presents our children with a constant barrage of commercials and consumer values. Children today are obsessed with the things money can buy - do they understand the cost to the environment of needless consumerism?

Above all else, children crave time spent with their parents. Seize the opportunity while they're young to teach them your values, and indulge them with your own undivided attention.

Here are some sites which offer activities, ideas and inspiration for parents and children to explore and enjoy together:

Build-It-Yourself Toy Laboratory
There is a great deal of talk today about the need to expose children to more science and math, to develop a recycle mentality, to promote family time together, and to merge the virtual world with the real world. Build-It-Yourself addresses all these important issues in a playful way. Build-It-Yourself has won the support of kids, parents, teachers, community businesses and the media.

Apogee Model Rocketry
Do you build or want to design your own model rockets? Do you need some help getting started? Even if you do design your own models, would you like to make them even better and more unique? This web site offers basic information on model rockets, construction plans, parts, flying tips and technical information.

Curious George
Here are some simple ideas for hands-on engineering, math, and science activities that you and your child can try at home. Use them to encourage your child's natural curiosity and to have fun making discoveries together.

Build a Child's Wheelbarrow
The scale of this project is just right for a parent/child activity, a great way to teach your child basic woodworking skills. A child who has helped build his/her own wheelbarrow will use it with pride. Click here for the plans.

Hunkins Experiments
Hunkins' experiments were designed by a cartoonist for inquiring minds. Using cartoon-like examples in topics like food and clothes and light and sound, families can make an edible candle, learn to use a watch as a compass, drawing water from a desert or making a rubberband, for instance. Simple but engaging.

Seadercraft
Inexpensive wooden model sailboat kits with realistic sailing action. Actual sailing models are controlled by line from shore. Learn about sailing and sailboat design with this unique hobby and craft. All ages. "What kites are to air, our model sailboats are to water."

Flying Pig
A unique range of animated models for the parent/child to cut out, paste and assemble. These paper craft kits are especially appealing as father-son activities. A good way to learn the principles of levers, cams, ratchets, linkages, gears and more. The creator of these kits is a British school teacher who uses the models in classrooms to teach kids about mechanics.
Suitable for children aged 12 and up, younger with adult help.

Detailed Play Systems
Wooden forts and swingsets. Detailed plans and kits you can assemble yourself for backyard play. Large assortment of designs which can be downloaded instantly from the site. Good pictures and thorough explanations of the play systems offered.

Is Treated Lumber Safe?
98% of the wood sold for outdoor use in the US is treated with chromated copper arsenate. Much of this wood is used for outdoor play structures for children. Read more

Whitewings
The best in paper gliders. Choose from a large selection of models from simple to complex. Build your glider from a kit, using paper, balsa, glue and a rubber band for propulsion. Great parent-child activity, and a good format for learning construction, principles of flight and aerodynamics. Inexpensive and rewarding - these little paper gliders are fun to fly!

Advocates for Children
A large list of activities for you and your fmily to try. Includes animal crafts, crafts requiring adult help, crafts by age group, family-centered crafts and holiday crafts.

Canada's Creative Kids
Canada's site for creative kids' fun. Good resource for parents and educators looking for new ways of teaching and entertaining children through the use of stories, brain-teasers, jokes, games and many other activities which keep children occupied and thinking. A site designed for kids, but with parents in mind.

Family Fun
This is a large website with many items of interest in the area of family living. Activities for parents with children of all ages: craft ideas, holiday activity ideas, birthday party ideas, after school projects, weekend projects and more.

Craft Kits for Kids
Provides all the supplies you need (minus the few basics you can find around the house like water and scissors) to complete each craft. Our goal is to provide you with everything you need, so you aren't running to the store for that one supply you don't happen to have on hand. All craft kit ideas are courtesy of FamilyFun.com.

Gamequarium
A portal to 2000+ free online learning games and activities for Preschool - Grade 6 students. Readquarium, a section of Gamequarium, will help your child learn to read.

Model Boating Sites
A portal to many small model boatbuilding plans, clubs and resources. Most of these are for radio-controlled models you can build. This is a good resource for parents and children looking to get into model boat projects.

Creative Kids at Home
Each month this website posts new ideas for childrens craft activities and science projects that kids and adults can do together. These free childrens crafts and science activities should be fun for one or more kids as long as the adults plan to be involved too. The crafts supplies needed will be items commonly found in most households.

Your suggestions are always welcome!

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