Family Activities

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read?

* Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading?

* Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms?

* Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school?

* Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong?

SRAs DISTAR® is the most successful beginning reading program available to schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by the DISTAR® method outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read.

Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It's a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here -- no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions -- just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together, while giving your child the reading skills needed now, for a better chance at tomorrow.

The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections

Between work and school, music lessons, and sports practice, there is less and less time to connect as a family. Those few moments together are often spent making meals, doing homework, or watching TV. In this inspiring book, Amanda Soule, a young mother of three, presents simple ways to use arts and crafts and other forms of creativity to deepen family connections.

For parents of all backgrounds, The Creative Family offers unique creative activities for the whole family. The range of projects includes: imaginative play such as dress-up, home theater, and parlor games; arts and crafts such as family drawing time and knitting with children; nature explorations such as creating garden journals and using natural toys; and family celebrations that include making music and displaying children’s art. These fun and engaging alternatives to television, video games, and the computer are meant to captivate children’s imaginations, celebrate their achievements, and express love and gratitude as a family.

The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun, Revised Edition: Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder

The revised and updated edition of a groundbreaking special-needs activity guide

This revised edition of the companion volume to The Out-of-Sync Child includes new activities that parents of kids with Sensory Processing Disorder can do at home with their child, along with updated information on which activities are most appropriate for children with coexisting conditions such as Asperger's, autism, and more.

I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature

Oh, what fun a child can have by jumping in mud puddles, collecting bugs, and listening to the birds! And yet, many children today have become so  occupied with TV, computers, and video games, that unstructured, outdoor play is sadly becoming a thing of the past.

I Love Dirt! is a call to parents, educators, and caregivers to help children recover one of the great joys of childhood. Through fifty-two activities, readers will find a wealth of creative ways to actively engage children, ages four to nine, in nature. Each project is meant to promote exploration, stimulate imagination, and heighten a sense of wonder.

Organized by season, and appropriate for both urban and country settings, each activity is accompanied by a fun fact to help further a child’s understanding of the natural world and open up a conversation.

The Toddlers Busy Book

365 fun, creative activities to stimulate your toddler every day of the year.

This book contains 365 activities (one for each day of the year) for one-and-a-half to three-year-olds using things found around the home. It shows parents and day-care providers how to:

• Prevent boredom during the longest stretches of indoor weather with ideas for indoor play, kitchen activities, and arts and crafts projects.

• Stimulate a child's natural curiosity with entertaining math, language, and motor-skills activities.

• Encourage a child's physical, mental, and emotional growth with ideas for fun music, food, water, and outdoor activities.

• Keep toddlers occupied during long car trips or cross-town errands.

The Toddler's Busy Book is written with warmth and sprinkled with humor and insight. It should be required reading for anyone raising or teaching toddlers.

Baby Play (Gymboree)

Direct babies with interactive activities that are easy, skill building, and fun! Over 100 activities for babies 0 - 12 months. A variety of activities organized by appropriatemess for each month of life. Developed in consultation with the play experts at Gymboree.

Team-Building Activities for Every Group

107 interactive games and activities can be found in the pages of this easy-to-use book. Each game is fun, experiential, easy to lead, unique, and requires minimal resources. With 65 team challenges and 42 activities that help any team get to know one another, become comfortable with each other, and open up, there is something for every group.

If you work with youth, corporate groups, therapy groups, church groups, scouts, families, school groups, sports teams, at camp, or with any other group who must work together you will find helpful games and activities in this fun, energetic, and purposeful book!

Unplugged Play: No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun.

From the joy of smearing glue on paper to the screaming delight of a bubble-blowing relay, kids love to play. In fact, it's every kid's built-in tool for experiencing the world at large. A parent-friendly encyclopedia, UNPLUGGED PLAY ("A wonderful guide," says Daniel Goleman) offers hundreds and hundredsof battery-free, screen-free, chrip-and-beep-free games and fun variations that stretch the imagination, spark creativity, building strong bodies, and forge deep friendships...and keep kids busy at the table while mom or dad makes dinner.

Too much TV? Too many hours spent on video games? Tired of hearing "I'm bored"? The answer is here. The Unplugged Play Book celebrates the pleasures and virtues of old-fashioned play while addressing the growing concerns of parents who worry about the time their children spend in front of a screen.

Written by Bobbi Conner, the creator and host of The Parent's Journal, the long-running, award-winning public radio show, The Unplugged Play Book is the family bible of hands-on fun, a parent-friendly encyclopedia of over 700 games and variations, with not a screen, plug, chip, disk, or battery in sight. Here are games to play alone and games to play with siblings and friends. Games to play indoors and games for outside. Toddler games, ten-year-olds' games, and games for the whole family. There are craft projects, puppet ideas, music activities, card games, guessing games, plus loads of ideas for keeping little kids busy nearby. There's stuff to do with cardboard boxes, with balloons, with muffin tins, with paper grocery sacks. There's how to draw a sidewalk masterpiece in chalk, design a castle, organize a treasure hunt, make silly hats from plastic tubs, build forts and ramps for toy cars and trucks. And dozens of special-occasion games, including birthday party ideas, themes, and activities. Woven throughout are not only the reasons to play unplugged—why it's essential for whole development, how it builds intelligence, encourages problem-solving and self-control, boosts creativity and inner strength of character—but also invaluable help for parents, from lists of best toys (and gadgets turned into toys) to dealing with issues of sharing, shyness, party meltdowns, safety, and much more.

Preschooler's Busy Book: 365 Creative Games & Activities To Occupy 3-6 Year Olds

365 FUN, CREATIVE ACTIVITIES TO STIMULATE YOUR PRESCHOOLER EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR

This book contains 365 activities (one for each day of the year) for three- to six-year-olds using things found around the home. It shows parents and day-care providers how to:

• Save money by making your own paints, playdough, craft clays, glue, paste, and other arts and crafts supplies.

• Prevent boredom during even the longest stretches of indoor weather with ideas for indoor play, kitchen activities, and arts and crafts projects.

• Stimulate a child's natural curiosity with fun reading, math, and science activities.

• Encourage a child's physical, mental, and emotional growth with ideas for music, dance, drama, and outdoor play.

• Celebrate holidays and other occasions with special projects and activities.

• Keep children occupied during long trips or cross-town errands.

The Preschooler's Busy Book is written with warmth and sprinkled with humor and insight. It should be required reading for anyone raising or teaching preschool-age children.

Learn to Swim: Step-by-Step Water Confidence and Safety Skills for Babies and Young Children

Learn to Swim guides parents of babies and children from ages 6 months to 4 years, through progressive, baby-friendly lessons that not only build confidence and help control sleeping problems and tantrums, but are proven to stimulate intelligence and concentration, increase emotional and physical development, and boost immunities.