by Laura Turpin | Aug 17, 2022 | Children's
Helping a child learn to read seems like a daunting task, but it’s really not that mysterious. There are five simple activities you can do with your child that will help them develop the necessary skills. Talk. Ask your child open-ended questions. Encourage them...
by Laura Turpin | Oct 16, 2020 | Children's
Where does fake news come from? Fake people, of course! Spot the Troll is an 8-question quiz that tests how well you can spot fake social media accounts. These are accounts that pretend to be run by real people, but are really run by organizations that try to sway...
by Laura Turpin | Oct 9, 2020 | Children's
When the news becomes too stressful, sometimes it is best to take a step back, remind yourself that you’re not alone, and find a good laugh. And if we can’t laugh at today’s news, we can always laugh at yesterday’s. For example, one anecdote...
by Laura Turpin | Sep 11, 2020 | Children's
Recently I’ve become enamored of the Library of Congress’s website. The sheer amount of Stuff™ they have online is mind-boggling. They’ve recently started a new podcast called “America Works”. Each ten-minute episode features an...
by Laura Turpin | Jul 31, 2020 | Children's
Recently the St Croix Falls Festival Theatre hosted a writing contest for grown-ups. They asked people to write a play that 1 minute long, and they read the best ones aloud on YouTube. So I wondered: What would a 1-minute play festival for kids look like? So...
by Laura Turpin | Jul 10, 2020 | Children's
It can be fun to play with words! In this video, author Jason Reynolds challenges us to invent new words that mean something similar to words we already know. He turns “jump” into “updown”. I might turn “dandelion” into...
