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The Fruit of the Season
August brings many great fresh fruit options. Here are a few tips for children, provided by mypyramid.gov and the “Fruits & Veggies – More Matters” campaign.
• Set a good example for children by eating fruit every day with meals or as snacks.
• Offer children a choice of fruits for lunch.
• Depending on their age, children can help shop for, clean, peel, or cut up fruits.
• While shopping, allow children to pick out a new fruit to try later at home.
• Decorate plates or serving dishes with fruit slices.
• Top off a bowl of cereal with some berries. Or, make a smiley face with sliced bananas for eyes, raisins for a nose, and an orange slice for a mouth.
• Offer raisins or other dried fruits instead of candy.
• Make fruit kabobs using pineapple chunks, bananas, grapes, and berries.
• Pack a juice box (100 percent juice) in children’s lunches instead of soda or other sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Choose fruit options, such as sliced apples, mixed fruit cup, or 100 percent fruit juices that are available in some fast food restaurants.
• Offer fruit pieces and 100 percent fruit juice to children. There is often little fruit in “fruit-flavored” beverages or chewy fruit snacks.
Cooking Around the Campfire
As you head out on a late summer camping trip, gather around the fire-pit in the backyard, or get together at the barbeque in a local park, Campfire Cooking (G & R Publishing) offers some meal planning ideas. Designed just for the campfire, this cookbook features more than 100 recipes that can be prepared six different ways — in a pie iron, wrapped in foil, on a stick, on the grill, in a Dutch oven, or in a skillet. With everything from Barbeque Chicken Pies to Sailor S’mores, this spiralbound book will make you a hit in whatever wilderness you find yourself sharing.
Bonding with Baby
Postcards from the Bump: A Chick’s Guide to Getting to Know the Baby in Your Belly looks at pregnancy in a new and unconventional way—from the inside out. Authors Ame Mahler Beanland and Emily Miles Terry believe that pregnancy is not a burden to wait out, a bun to bake, or a lullaby to practice—it’s an opportunity for pregnant women to bond with their baby long before the birth.
Full of anecdotes, quotes, and bits of wisdom from savvy mothers as well as medical experts, Postcards from the Bump puts a positive spin on pregnancy, inspiring moms to look to their babies—the kicks, cravings, rolls, and hiccups—for fun and fulfilling connections that allow them to embrace their little ones long before birth day.
Pick up a copy of the new 2009/2010 Treasure Valley Baby magazine, or view it online at www.treasurevalleyfamily.com/tvbaby.htm. The issue is full of helpful resources, local baby information, fun articles, and useful suggestions.
Magic Planet Exhibit at Discovery Center of Idaho
Discovery Center of Idaho’s new Magic Planet, a permanent exhibit, will be a great tool to help visitors imagine what views from outer space may really be like. Magic Planet is internally illuminated with projected images that provide a wide variety of global surface simulations that move in full motion to show activities on earth. Magic Planet is used by NASA, many U.S. museums, and Fortune 500 companies as a superior educational tool, and simulator of growing global challenges.
Unlike a planetarium, where the viewer looks out toward the heavens, Magic Planet users watch from outer space as the earth turns below them. Using a touch screen, visitors can select images that show earth’s land masses and oceans, the development of hurricanes and tsunamis, the movement of the earth’s crust and location of volcanoes, the projected impact of climate change, and many other phenomena. Magic Planet can also be used to zoom in on virtually any location on earth for a closer look, or zoom out to examine the stars in our galaxy.
The Discovery Center of Idaho will also be hosting Idaho Space Days 2009, August 3–8. For a complete schedule of events, including special guest speakers, rocket launches, and exhibits, visit www.scidaho.org/Discover/SpaceDays.php.
Fun Summer Project
What to do on a long hot August day? How about a tie dye project! The Jacquard Funky Groovy Tie Dye Kit is perfect for ages 5 and up (with adult supervision). The kit, a great introduction to the art of tie dye, includes everything a parent needs to supervise the creation of up to five adult t-shirts. You will get great results in just three easy steps. The kit comes with pre-measured dye in red, blue, and yellow, plus 1/3 pound Dye Fixer, 3 squirt (mixing) bottles, a pair of rubber gloves, a bunch of rubber bands, and easy-to-follow instructions with suggested tying patterns.
Helpful Book for Parenting Teens
Parents who struggle with typical and troubling adolescent behavior have a powerful new tool. Based on new breakthroughs in teen brain science and decades of clinical practice in family therapy, Getting to Calm: Cool-Headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens and Teens offers parents a deep understanding of the reasons behind their child’s behavior—and the skills to stay calm while coping with it.
Drs. Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt provide a realistic and ultimately useful guide, laying out the 14 most common sources of family strife during the teen years, and then giving parents clear and approachable strategies for tackling them. Among the tough times addressed: when a teen is rude and sarcastic; when a smart teen does something really dumb; when teen problems drive a wedge between parents; when a teen is acting like a spoiled brat; and when a teen experiments with sex or drugs.
For other great teen resources – including helpful teen articles, a teen planner, local volunteer opportunities and support agencies, a weekly blog, and much more, visit www.treasurevalleyteen.com. At this site you can also sign up for our monthly Teen e-News Update.
CORRECTION
In the July issue of Treasure Valley Family Magazine we provided an incorrect price. In the story “Where to Get Wet” we noted that the price of a shuttle, returning you to Barber Park after floating the Boise River and taking out at Ann Morrison Park, is $2. The cost of the shuttle is actually $3. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
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