Family Traditions- Are They Meaningful?

Family traditions are those little rituals that are passed down from generation to generation.  The greatest thing about family traditions is that they don’t need to cost a dime.  It’s the little things, not the big things that are remembered over time.

I fondly remember helping my grandmother make Springerle cookies at Christmas. It was a special time between my grandmother and I that was repeated every year. I don’t recall one single gift that my Grandmother ever gave me for my Birthday or for Christmas, but I clearly remember the good smells, and overwhelming sense of love that I felt as a result of this simple tradition.

 We all have busy lifestyles, but adding a small tradition here or there can make a huge difference in a child’s life.  Family traditions give children a sense of belonging and memories they will hold for a lifetime.  It’s simply a routine with meaning and all children love rituals and repetition.

By the way, I hate the way Springerle cookies taste.  After our baking was complete, I always took a small nibble and secretly stashed the rest in the garbage. The cookie was not was mattered, it was the opportunity to celebrate a relationship that was important to me.

So what is your favorite family tradition?

Baby Talk:a lecture series for parents and caregivers

The Louisville Science Center is offering a series of free events called Baby Talk that will run from September through December. These discussions are for parents, grandparents and caregivers on the growth and development of young children. Topics range from nutrition and tips on how to make your own baby food to the importance of mental and physical exercise to “Baby Boot Camp.” Click the link for  More Information …

Onion Peel Eggs

Instead of dyeing eggs this April with a kit, try turning the craft into a science experiment by using onion peels. This is a traditional German way to dye eggs that I learned from my grandmother. She was even featured in a local paper back in the 1970s.

The process is easy, and there are many ways to play around with the concept. You will need yellow or brown onion peels, but you can try other colors for different results, although purple peels do not result in purple eggs. You can also lay other items on the eggs, such as a clover leaf, before adding the peels to create images on the eggs. The results are beautiful, interesting and unpredictable.

What you need:

• yellow or brown onion peels
• light colored eggs
• string

 What you do:

1. Soak the onion peels in water just long enough for them to soften.

2. Wet the eggs and wrap them in a layer of peels. Wrap and tie with string.

3. Boil the eggs for 12-15 minutes.

4. Unwrap them; dry them; and shine them with shortening or oil.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count begins this Friday. What a perfect way to observe nature with your kids and participate in a national science project. Just last week, I noticed a huge number of American Robins in my backyard. There were hundreds of them, many more than I usually see, so I researched online to find that many robins migrate. While some may stay in an area all winter long, most move in flocks place to place to find tree and shrub berries that ripen in late winter.

Science is that simple with children. I observed something in nature, had a question about it and looked for the answer. Answers can come from many different sources. Check a book out of the library or keep watching those birds to see if you can come up with your own answers. The important thing is to keep watching nature with your children and talking to them about what they see. With spring coming, the animals outside are all busy getting ready, and the plants are starting to awaken. I just saw my first flower yesterday!

How can I participate? All you have to do is identify and count the birds in your backyard over a 15 minute time period and log them into the website (www.birdsource.org/gbbc). Details, instructions and bird activity ideas can also be found on the website.

Why does it help scientists for us to count birds? Birds move over vast areas and can do so with great speed.  This makes tracking them difficult for a small group of scientists, but if they have help of people across the USA, they have more data to work with and can gain an understanding of our bird populations. This bird count is done every year, so data can be compared year to year to study the effects of weather, diseases, migration patterns and timing, as well as how populations in rural areas compare to suburban areas.

Clean Mud

Clean Mud

• 1 Roll of Toilet Paper
• 1 Bar of Ivory Soap 
• Vegetable Peeler 
• Water 
• Large Bowl

1. Take the roll of toilet paper and tear the sheets in to small pieces.
2. Place the pieces of paper in a large bowl.
3. Use the vegetable peeler and shave about a quarter (1/4) of the bar of soap into the bowl filled with the paper.
4. Add warm water to the mixture. Start out with just enough water to dampen the paper.
5. Have the child mix the ingredients, working the “clean mud” in between her fingers.
6. Slowly add more and more water to the mixture to create a slimier feeling.

 Less Mess: Place the mixture into a Ziploc bag and allow the child to feel the “clean mud” from the outside of the bag.

 More Mess: Mix small items (such as coins or small plastic beads) into the mixture and have the child find the hidden objects.

Karo Syrup Color Mixing

At a recent training with teachers involved in the PNC Grow Up Great with Science grant, we explored the properties of liquids and some unconventional ways to experiment with color mixing. Karo syrup provides a unique experience, because the colors don’t mix immediately but instead slide over one another creating a variety of shades and patterns and sometimes allowing the primary colors to re-emerge. If you are looking for an activity that is mesmerizing, try this one out. Just look how transfixed these teachers are!

Materials: Karo Syrup, Food Coloring, Large Waxed Paper Plate

Instructions:

• Put a large drop of Karo Syrup in the middle of a paper plate.
• Add one drop of yellow, one of red, and one of blue food coloring on opposite edges of the syrup. 
• As the child holds the plate vertically and lets the syrup run, the colors begin to mix and make other colors. 
• Keep turning the plate so that the syrup does not drip off. 
• What colors do you see? Can you make any new colors?
• Turn it again. Do you see any of the colors you started with?

Noticing the Details

I don’t know about your life, but mine seems to get busier and busier every day juggling work, home, family and friends. There always seems to be reasons to do things faster, just to get them done, to have time to do more things in the limited hours of the day. But the issue with faster and more is that there is little time to appreciate the details in life. Noticing details is a hallmark of a good scientist. Up close is where the discoveries are waiting, the ones that spark curiosity, make you wonder why or how or what and invite you to take another look, examine closer, or read more.  

Life can be full of these moments of wonder, but you have to slow down to find them. Have you ever noticed that drops of water cling to your fingers before falling off or examined salt to that see each individual crystal is a cube? Have you ever wondered why little rays of light seem to dance on the table when shining through a glass of water or why cream swirls in a cup of coffee? These are the types of observations that invite your mind to question and ponder how the world works, which is exactly what we want our children to be doing. What do you notice? How does it feel? How does it smell? Does it remind you of anything? What do you think would happen if…? The right question at the right time can help children focus on details, make connections and lead them to deeper learning.

One thing you should know about me is that I carry a pocket microscope in my purse, and I use it all the time. Just today I was showing my coworker, Brenda, an insect I found outside our door. It was some type of beetle I had never seen before, but the colors were amazing; lines of emerald green running down its wing edged with magenta, iridescent blues, purples and copper on its back, silver eyes made of hundreds of tiny lenses. Noticing these things myself makes me a curious person, but sharing what I am curious about with others is when the magic happens; when Brenda gets curious and calls to another coworker inviting her to look closer. We wondered together what kind of insect it might be, why its eyes have so many lenses and what the world must look like through them. You don’t have to wait for rainbows to feel the wonder of living, and the more you can model wonder for children, the more children will appreciate the world around them and want to know more about it.