Autobiographical Cube

Inspired by an activity in Multiple Intelligences in the Elementary Classroom: A Teachers Toolkit by Susan Baum, Julie Viens and Barbara Slatin.

Take a square box (or die) and put 4 of your child’s FAVORITE multiple intelligences on the sides and two of your child’s LEAST favorite MIs.

Have your child roll the “dice”. Whatever side they land on, they have to talk about one of the ways they MOST enjoy flexing that mind muscle.

Next, you roll the dice. Now talk about the way YOU most enjoy flexing that mind muscle.

Invite other family members to join the game.

Do you find similarities? Differences? Based on your child’s responses, can you think of new activities or pursuits to which you’d like to introduce them?

Have each participant roll the dice at least 10 times. At the end, each participant should have revealed at least 10 ways they feel they are SMART. Note them on a piece of paper you keep handy. If discouragement crops up at any time during the school year for your child, remind them of all the ways you randomly discovered they were smart during this exercise…and how the other participants’ “smarts” differed from theirs.

Remind him or her to not ask IF they are smart…but HOW they are smart.

Extra Credit: Make TWO autobiographical die. Roll them simultaneously. How does your child like to use these intelligences in concert? (E.g. logical & linguistic intelligence together in whodunit puzzles…creating new lyrics for music blends linguistic & musical intelligences…creating art from natural elements…etc.)

Audible Feast

As we all know, variety is the spice of life…but many of us get stuck in a rut when it comes to the musical genres to which we will listen.

When you think about it, though, music is much like food in the sense that just because you don’t like salmon cooked a certain way at one restaurant doesn’t mean you won’t devour it when it’s cooked differently by another chef.

Commit to spending at least ONE hour this week experiencing an out-of-the-ordinary musical genre as a family. You don’t need to love it, but try to appreciate the layers and complexity of each “taste” you get just as you (the parents, of course) would if you went wine tasting.

Luckily, this exercise is piece of cake in the age of cable, satellite TV and the Internet. Go to one of the music channels that you wouldn’t normally select on your preferred device, put on the timer for an hour, then PUT DOWN THE MOUSE or remote.

Unless there’s a lot of profanity in the lyrics, don’t change the station or turn off the channel.

What instruments do you hear in the music? Are they different or similar to the ones used in the music you nomally listen to? How do the rhythms differ? What do you think of the lyrics? Is the music melodic or dissonant? Is there more of a variation in dynamics (e.g. transitions from loud to soft or vice-versa)?

Just like you would find in your normal genres, you’ll hear artists you enjoy listening to more than others…and if you’re using a service like Pandora, Slacker, or Spotify, you can customize the new genre to suit your family’s musical “taste buds”.

So, belly-up to a Song Smorgasbord this weekend and sample some new musical delights.

Bon appetit!

Cardboard Kingdom

Developed by Laura Manriquez of Santa Barbara’s Kids Love Art! program. Used with permission.

The parents I know always remark after birthdays and holidays that their kids seem to have more fun with the BOXES than the toys inside. This activity makes boxes into toys with a visual/spatial project for the kids, too.

All you need is a standard sized moving box and tempera paints, but extra construction paper, paper towel rolls, cardboard, etc. can help make the kingdom more intricate and really flex those spatial smarts.

The resulting kingdom (or whatever your child wants the diorama to be…a firehouse…or fortress…or racetrack.) is the ideal size for Polly Pocket, LEGO people, Fisher-Price little people, GI Joes or matchbox cars to call home. Which is the real genius in this project—the Kingdom can also create a home on a shelf for all the little toys you have lying around the house.

Get in Gear for Back-to-School :: LANGUAGE ARTS

One day closer to the first day of school…

Below, we’ve compiled our favorite 10 language arts activities we’ve featured over the summer (as well as our Summer Reading Lists) to make sure your child gets in gear ahead of time and practices some of the concepts that they learned last year—in a FUN way—below. (That is, if your school follows the Core Standards.)

• Paint by Part of Speech – or make up a new “legend” based on grade level standards (e.g. long and short a-e-i-o-u in words)
• Color De-Coding – for word decoding and spelling “trick” practice
• Worldly Words – skim, scan and summarize informational texts
• Skillful Singing – for lyrical language rule reminders
• Become a Story Sleuth – for reading comprehension detective work
• Tongue Twisters – an active way to brush up on sentence structure
• Scripted Summer – for dramatic reading fun
• Starstruck Storytime – celestial mythology
• Innerspace List Poems – for poetry practice
• You’ll Hit It Out of the Park with Me in Your Corner – idiom fun

Want more? Several others are included here:

Check out all of our posts filed under Linguistic / Verbal Intelligence.

RECOMMENDED READING LISTS
for kids that particularly enjoy dabbling in specific Multiple Intelligence types.

• For the Picture Smart Child (AKA Visual-Spatial Intelligence)
• For the Nature Smart Child (AKA Naturistic Intelligence)
• For the Number Smart Child (AKA Logical-Mathematical Intelligence)
• For the Music Smart Child (AKA Musical Intelligence)
• For the Body Smart Child (AKA Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence)
• For the Self Smart Child (AKA Intrapersonal Intelligence)
• For the People Smart Child (AKA Interpersonal Intelligence)
• For the Word Smart Child (AKA Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence)

Get in Gear for Back-to-School :: MATH

The countdown to the school bell on the first day of school is officially upon us! In fact, many teachers were required to report for duty today.

We’ve compiled some of our favorite math activities we’ve featured on our blog to make sure your child gets in gear ahead of time and practices some of the concepts that they learned last year—in a FUN way—below. (That is, if your school follows the Core Standards.)

Math Frisbee Golf – for active nature lovers.

Become a Story Sleuth – for “word smart” kids.

Score Well in Math – for sports lovers.

Now You’re Cooking! – for worldly/foodie kids.

Thumb Ball – for fast-paced family time.

Sew Cool – for crafty kids.

Touchy Touchy – for dramatic kids.

Calculation Compositions – for musical kids.

Room Re-Arrangement – for visual/spatial kids.

Nutrition Math – for healthy families.