How To Archive of Useless information - corroboratory.com

The Internet is an amazing tool, available for use by millions upon millions of people every day. Unfortunately, just as many people abuse the resources provided by the Internet. Sexual predators abuse the Internet by using it to stalk vulnerable people, collect personal information, and plan their attacks.

Before giving your child Internet access, have a conversation about both the benefits and dangers of the Internet. Lay down a set of rules to govern your child’s use of the Internet and be sure to include the following:

Explain the importance of keeping personal information private. Explain what personal information is. Younger children may not understand that addresses, phone numbers, school names, and parent names should be kept private.

Keep the computer in a public place. Children should not need privacy while using the Internet to network with friends or while they are doing homework. You should be able to monitor your child’s Internet use at all times.

Make sure your child knows that he can, and should, let you know if anyone he meets on the Internet makes him feel uncomfortable. The same applies to information or websites that your child may accidentally access; knowing how your child gained access to dangerous information will help you to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Prohibit the exchange of personal photographs, especially with strangers. A picture, combined with any other personal information that may have been obtained, will increase a sexual predator’s chances of locating and harming your child.

Make sure you have access to your child’s user ID’s and passwords, not only for e-mail accounts but also for any website that requires the input of personal information for private access.

Prohibit your child from meeting online friends in person. If there is a reason for you to allow a personal meeting, it should be in a public place and in your presence. Your child should not gain the impression that it is ok to meet other people without your permission.

While teaching your child about the dangers of others on the Internet, be sure to explain that your child should not abuse the system or hurt others. Incidents of children bullying classmates on the Internet have increased as well, and your child should contribute to keeping the Internet a safe place for his friends as well as himself.

Once the rules are set, make sure they are strictly enforced. Not backing down will let your child know you are serious about his safety. It may not seem like it at the time, but your child will thank you later in life.

Writing a story is hard work, even for authors. There are characters to create, dialogue to deliver, plots to plan, tension scenes to capture, endings to invent and starts that have to sizzle so much they superglue your reader onto a chair.

Then you have to put it all into interesting sentences that flow smoothly. Whew! Breaking the complex process of writing into chunks makes helping kids with their writing more effective - and far more fun too.

Here are two ‘chunks’ you could try to help your child write with more impact.

Show, Don’t Tell

As we read words, pictures form in our mind. See what happens when you slowly read the lines below:-

• Snow glistens, thick and white on a mountain top.

• Orange and yellow poppies stand tall and cheerful in a vase.

Our job as writers is to create these pictures in the brains of our readers. That’s what Show, Don’t Tell is all about.

However, how can we do this when the idea is more abstract - like emotions? That’s much harder for kids to write as there is no picture. Therefore we need to show them how to create one. For instance:-

TELL: My brother is lazy.

SHOW: ‘Your turn for the dishes Tank,’ said Mum. ‘Yeah, later,’ he said, yawning, and turned up the TV louder.

‘No, now,’ said Mum. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed. She knew later in Tank’s mind meant somewhere between the year 2012 and infinity. Once, as punishment, Mum put all the dishes and saucepans Tank had forgotten on top of his bed. He just dumped them on the floor. A week later they were still there, a shoe in the spaghetti sauce, sweaty socks on the plates and a really bad smell wafting out the door.

Ah, now we have the picture for our minds. It takes much longer to write - but as readers we are far more convinced.

How to Write Tension Scenes

Imagine a birthday party, a top restaurant, friends and family - and a massive earthquake that ends in disaster.

Here’s the starting point by a 9 year old boy:

We were having fun in the restaurant when suddenly the ground started to shake. I didn’t believe it. Then glasses started to break all over my plate. My sister tried to stand up, she was afraid. The ground was trembling, there was noise everywhere…

Tension scenes are one of the hardest parts of a story to write. Kids often make them too basic and short. Why? Well, we say ‘write what you know’, but children often don’t have enough ‘emotional experience’ to imagine this sort of thing.

However, other people do - and their words are all in a dictionary or thesaurus.

So try this: Get your child to underline key words in the story - and then use a thesaurus to help bring the scene alive. You can actually do this BEFORE they write as well. Just ask, ‘what are some things which will happen?’ and make a list for them to use.

e.g.

fun - delight, enjoyment, amused, teasing, laughing, happy

shake - shudder, shiver, quake, quiver, buzzing, tremor,

break - crumble, disintegrate, collapse, crush, shatter

afraid - scared, fearful, terrified, panicked

tremble - quiver, shudder, beat, vibrate, grind

The idea is NOT to merely substitute one word for another. It is to give a greater variety of words/inspiration/ideas to the writer - and let their subconscious do the melding.

After:

The waiter smiled as he put down a hot chocolate pudding right in front of me.

‘You’re not going to eat all that!’ said my Dad. ‘Here, I’ll help!’ He reached across with his spoon, teasing me. I pulled my plate away fast. Everyone laughed.

‘Just a little bit,’ Dad begged.

I shook my head. It was weird, but there was a strange buzzing sound as if everything was not quite real. I lifted my spoon, my hands felt like they were shivering. Or was it really the floor shaking? It wasn’t possible, but now all the glasses were starting to clink. Suddenly one fell, shattering glass across my plate and into the dark chocolate. Then the noise hit me, harsh, grinding, vibrating right into my brain…

Get the idea? See how the word ‘fun’ has turned into something more specific - teasing and Dad trying to steal chocolate pudding. A simple ’shake’ now has triggered ’shivering’ and a ‘buzzing’ in the head. Best of all look at that last line; the words suggested from ‘tremble’ have now made this incredibly evocative and powerful.

If you want rich writing, give kids plenty of rich ingredients to work with.

© Jen McVeity, National Literacy Champion.
Try our FREE Creative Chatterbox to find over 500 story ideas.

The Seven Steps to Writing Success program, designed by successful author, Jen McVeity, is used in over 900 Schools. Suitable for the home school curriculum and gifted children, it has been shown to rapidly advance children’s writing skills and enjoyment.

Visit our website at http://sevenstepswriting.com/ to learn about all the Seven Steps to Writing Success and to find more free writing resources.

Childhood obesity has become a national epidemic. The statistics are clear. Eighteen percent of children are overweight and eight percent are obese. These are serious statistics. What can parents do to help this situation?

1. You should be involved with your child’s life.

What does this mean? Children hate parents interfering with their life and the least hint of control can and probably will turn them against you. However, the problem is serious. Parents should first form a team within themselves and discuss strategy on how to talk to the child. Then, appoint one parent to have that discussion. Keep trying. Never give up. You should have an idea of your child’s life. What do they do day to day and on weekends? Invest some time getting involved with Project Child. It can be frustrating and may seem like the child will want to get rid of your involvement. However, you must persist and do it gently. You must approach it from a point of view of love, that the three of you are a team. The child’s problems are your problems. Create harmony and approach the conversation from a point of view of harmony rather than a top down approach.

2. When you get past step one, then plan out where the time is spent.

Where is the time being spent? Obviously, you should get some activity into the child’s life. Where can the change be made? Can you or both parents be involved in that activity? Are family activities a possibility? Explore family swim time, hike time, snowshoeing time and others. Make it a group activity. If the child resists family events, then try to organize a group activity with the child and their friends. This might also be difficult. However, give it a try. Volunteer to take them somewhere on a group hike, bike ride, snowshoe trip. You can’t take the top down approach of “You need to be more active”. You must come up with a plan where there is involvement of other people.

3. What is the food situation? You should take stock of your child’s eating habits.

What is going on? What are the meal plans? Take ownership of this issue and start planning out their meals. Take the extra time to make their lunches and snacks. My client’s daughter started working at a restaurant. She never ate her own meals properly during the time she worked. She just ate whatever was lying around in the restaurant’s kitchen. Most of the time, this would be bad food, like chocolate cake. The daughter ended up gaining weight. My client then took matters into her own hands and planned out her lunches and snacks. She made them in advance and took that extra time out of her day to do that. She also planned snacks and set them out around the house so that the daughter always had healthy snacks to choose from.

Following these three simple steps can help to alleviate childhood weight issues. It is because we let things go that these issues arise. Food is always the first resource to get rid of feeling bad. Make sure this is not a frequent issue by following the three steps in this article.
For the past 20 years Hema has worked with many individuals, including executives at large corporations, to reduce stress, improve general health and workplace productivity. A variety of personal interests and professional paths have led Hema to her current role as a certified personal trainer, yoga instructor and nutrition and wellness specialist. Hema is listed in Who’s Who in the World and is an author, lecturer and Can-Fit-Pro certified personal trainer who specializes in body-mind-spirit consulting and training women.

Hema offers keynote speeches, group workshops, and sees clients one-on-one in the Ottawa/Toronto area. Sign up for her free newsletter at http://www.getshanti.com

How it Started!

Learning how to draw Pokemon is very simple and works off of basic geometric shapes. Pokemon hit the television airwaves in the 90s and with the interesting characters that were developed, many people began to want to learn how to draw Pokemon.

Keep it Simple for Poliwag!

Poliwag is one of the simplest Pokemon characters to draw. Begin with a large, egg-like shape that will be the basis of his body. You want this circle to be large enough that will allow you to add in all of the detail without a problem.

Draw another circle slightly to the bottom of the circle. This will allow you enough space to draw the face. These two circles should be similar to an egg with a yolk in the middle. Now you will want to add eyes and nose at the top of the second circle. The eyes should be half ovals that drop down for the top of the large circle. Now you can simply add a tail, feet and the spiral on the body. Add lips to the little nose circle and you have a Poliwag to color how you wish.

Popular Pikachu!

Pikachu is one of the most popular Pokemon characters and to learn how to draw Pokemon Pikachu is very simple. It takes less than ten steps to draw this character. Begin by drawing a basic outline for the head. Make one arched line for the top of the head and then two disjointed lines for the side of the head. The ears will be drawn where you have left spaces. Next, draw two long lines down from the two side headlines. Arch these lines out slightly to form the body.

Give Pikachu Feet!

Add the feet to Pikachu by making simple jagged toes and then connect the feet with a curved line that arches upwards slightly. Next, draw two long and pointed ears with a small line near the points of the ears. Draw two simple cartoon eyes with pupils, a small upside down triangle nose and a mouth. Add two arms to the front of the body with several pointed fingers. Finally draw a zig-zagged tail with a small zig-zag near the base of the tail, and add in the two semi-circles on his cheeks.

As you can see, learning how to draw Pokemon is very simple and the characters are very basic.