What kids are doing all over the world!
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This week:
Playing with Mandarin- in Thailand
These Kids are Inventive- and we ain't lying!- U.S.A.
"No boy's or dad's or men!" Daughter of a famous Dad- U.K.
This Town is Run by Kids- U.S.A.
Create music- or get bored- U.S.A.
Young Kids, Ancient Way-Canada
Come into the Garden-and learn Math!- U.S.A.
The Sound of Music once again- from the Alps to the Rocky Mountains- U.S.A.
Learning about Life in South AFrica- U.K.
Don't see news of your country? Guess what? We didn't either. So what are you waiting for? Let us know what you and kids around you, are doing! We want to hear from you!
This is your chance to be a reporter.
Now read the news articles....
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http://www.nationmultimedia.com/page.news.php3?clid=12&theme=A&usrsess=1&id=9632
Playing with Mandarin
The Nation
Thailand, Feb 24, 2003-Adults find it an almost impossible language to get their tongue round, but starting at the right age it can be all fun and games for kids. Sending .. kids to Mandarin classes is a pretty astute move. With the continual opening up of the Chinese market it could be a language that will benefit ... kids in the future.
Realising that a kid�s nature differs from an adult�s, Guo-Ji Art and Language Learning Centre kicks off with its �Play and Learn� Mandarin classes for children aged three to six to promote a fun learning process through play, activities and some actual material.
Remember how we read a few weeks back about kids in New York learning Mandarin in Chinese schools?
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http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/5221535.htm
Kids take fresh approach
MOVE OVER, grown-ups
Beacon Journal
U.S.A.,Feb. 23, 2003-A lot of ideas for improving your world are coming from your kids.
While adults often focus on the limitations of an idea, a child's imagination is unrestrained, said Nick Frankovits, who has spent years nurturing the inventive spirit in America's youth.
``Kids aren't encumbered by preconceived ideas,'' Frankovits said. ``As you get older, you get more cautious, but kids just shoot from the hip.''
Frankovits is the executive director of the Akron-based Partnership for America's Future, which works with schoolchildren around the country and annually inducts youngsters into its National Gallery for America's Young Inventors.
Don't think kids are just interested in kid stuff.
Recent inductees to the National Gallery have created better hearing aids and more comfortable wheelchairs, biodegradable diapers and water pollution treatments, warning systems to prevent train accidents and the next evolution of anti-lock brakes.
Spencer was just 6 years old when he noticed how hospitalized children riding wheeled vehicles in the activity room had to be trailed by parents pushing the child's IV stands.
After he figured out how a car could be adapted to carry the IV bag, Step2 Corp. in Streetsboro gave Spencer several cars to fit with his special pole. Frankovits said the cars are being used in several hospitals in Pennsylvania and New York.
Some kids are just trying to make life a little easier or fun for themselves.
That's what was on Jon Pusateri's mind when he rigged some Rollerblades onto a wheelbarrow.
The Randolph Township 11-year-old was trying to move dirt to build ramps for his four-wheeler, but the wheelbarrow often became too heavy and he had to call for his father's help.
Then it dawned on Jon that if he could attach his in-line skate wheels to the metal resting bar, he could push the wheelbarrow without lifting it. His project came together easily with the help of a little duct tape.
``Now I use it all the time,'' he said. ``I've invented a lot of things like that.''
In the case of Ben Lorson, the idea for his ``Magna-Tex'' skateboard is still in his head, but he loves to daydream about how it would work.
The 9-year-old from Orrville, an avid skateboarder, figures a kid could more easily learn some tricky jumps if magnets would keep one's shoes stuck to the skateboard.
He hasn't tried to work out all the details of how his skateboard would work, but he knows the clock is ticking. When he got a toy at a fast-food restaurant last year that had a skater clinging to a magnetic board, ``that made me kinda mad,'' he said. ``I had that idea first.''
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http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/poetry/story/0,6000,898552,00.html
Children's favourite
The Guardian
U.K., February 19, 2003-John Hegley's seven-year-old daughter has left a notice on the kitchen table. "No boy's or dad's or men!" Isabella's use of the apostrophe is as precocious as it is wayward. Hegley laughs, and says that it is a coincidence; she didn't leave it for my benefit. So what prompted it. Oh, just the normal boy-girl stuff at school. Actually, he says, he and Isabella get on great and, despite appearances, she hasn't banned him from her room, let alone her life.
Hegley's house is crammed with Isabella paraphernalia - Plasticine models, plastic dogs, balloons attached to sink taps waiting to be blown up and exploded. Some of the models have obviously been made with Hegley's help.
Hegley is the entertainer who has made a career out of chronic childishness: the lefty singer-songwriter who performs on stage with a stuffed Hessian Hound; the man who introduced the potato to contemporary dance; and, most famously, the funny little poet in a funny little suit with the funny little poems that often save a kick for their last bathetic line.
He suggests that he is most effective as an anti-role model for Isabella. He opens his mouth and shows off a disastrous set of teeth. "Getting her to brush her teeth used to be a problem, but then I said, 'D'you want teeth like this?' And it worked - that was a good 'un."
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1784413
By PAIGE HEWITT, Houston Chronicle
U.S.A., Feb. 19, 2003-Eleven-year-old postman-for-a-day John Worsham, who was marching to the next destination, was flatly disinterested in talking to a reporter about the mail business.
He would never sacrifice company efficiency for a little personal fame. And besides, he didn't have time to talk until his break.
"I have promised these people and these companies that I would deliver the mail in a reasonable time, and quickly," he said. "That's what I have to do."
Police officer Gary Scales had his hands full as well.
He was taking a little heat from a judge for being, shall we say, a little on the eager side.
The pint-sized officer tried to be nice, but "everybody's breaking the law," he said.
Right about then, Keondra Lewis, a sales rep for the local newspaper, chimed in.
"Hey," she said. "You gave me a ticket for walking on the grass, and I wasn't."
But the officer stood firm: "You were walking on the grass," he said. "You were walking all over the grass."
The girl, who knew the ticket fine would wipe out half the money in her checking account, shook her head in defeat and glared at the officer.
Hey, Keondra: Welcome to our world.
Lucky for the Lockhart Elementary fifth-grader, the bitter reality was only pretend at a place called Exchange City, a kid-friendly operation offered by Junior Achievement, a national nonprofit that teaches young people about free enterprise and community.
But Exchange City, a town for fifth-graders complete with a city hall, a bank, a restaurant and other businesses -- all of which are staffed with youngsters -- is only a small part of what JA offers.
The program targets students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Each grade has a specific curriculum taught by volunteers, most of whom are college-educated and have professional experience.
Today, the program, which is now based in Colorado Springs, Colo., annually serves more than 5 million schoolkids worldwide.
Little Courtney Jolivet, who was recently at Exchange City, said that thanks to the program, she knows what she does not want to be when she's a grown up.
"It was fun being elected mayor," she said. "But now that I am mayor, it's kind of boring. I don't really do anything."
Instead, she says, she'll be a teacher.
"Just like my mom," she said. "Then I can help people learn things."
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Young harpist plucks beauty from strings
BY RACHEL GALLAGHER, Atchison Daily Globe
U.S.A., February 18, 2003- Music must be part of Erin Hansen�s life.
No matter where she goes, she has to have music playing � even when she sleeps.
Unlike many people, Erin doesn�t have to rely on the music that others produce; she can create her own.
With the help of her mother Denita Hansen, the 9-year-old began playing the piano at age 5. Mrs. Hansen, a music teacher for the past 13 years, said it was a natural step to teach Erin the piano because Erin was eager to learn music. Erin admits she would prefer playing the piano but said she is starting to take to the harp. When she received the different instrument for her birthday two years ago, she said her reaction was a bit mixed.
�Well, I can�t take it back, so I better start playing it,� Erin recalls thinking after receiving the gift.
Play it she did, and now she said she has really grown to like the instrument. However, her list of instruments she would like to play has also grown. She said she would eventually like to add the guitar, flute, violin and even French horn to her list. Whether she�s playing it or listening to it, Erin said she will always have some kind of music in her life because a life without music would �be pretty boring, actually,� she said.
She said she would even like to be a music teacher someday to bring the gift of music to others.
Still, Erin attributes her talent and love of music to someone greater.
�It wasn�t me that had the talent,� she said. �It was God that gave me the talent.� -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Young kids, ancient way
By KATIE CHALMERS, The Winnipeg Sun
Canada, Feb 23, 2003 -Kids as young as six years old are getting a jump start on coping with stress and improving their flexibility by taking yoga classes.
While other children are rushed from hockey practice to swim class to ballet and piano lessons, a handful of kids unwind at a Corydon Avenue yoga centre, stretched on the floor doing poses such as cobra, mountain, runner and plank.
Winnipeg kids also get in touch with their inner chakra during yoga class at noon hour at Grosvenor School once a week.
"You walk through the school yard and they're all hanging off the monkey bars and screaming. You go in the gym and they're all on their backs in a total relaxed state. They're zoned out doing their yoga," says Barbara Gudziunas, whose eight-year-old daughter, Emma, is a budding yogi.
A less hectic and more introspective after-school activity than team sports, yoga has improved Emma's balance and helped with her rheumatoid arthritis, her mother says.
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http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/02/19/school.gardens.ap/index.html
CNN
"Look! Snails," the third-grader says, holding two squirming shells high.
His classmates at Evergreen Elementary School squeal, then lean closer to examine them, ignoring the ladybugs, the worms and the plants they'd been pulling out of the garden plot just minutes before.
Here the little plot is more than a garden. It's also an outdoor classroom, where teacher Heather Best illustrates science, nutrition, history and math lessons.
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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/23/1045935270619.html
Von Trapps back on song
By Charles Laurence, The Age, Australia
U.S.A., February 24 2003
The von Trapps are singing again, only this time the hills alive with the sound of music are the Rockies and not the Austrian Alps.
Four yodelling great-grandchildren of Captain Georg von Trapp, whose life-story was turned into the Hollywood film The Sound of Music, have gone into the singing business.
The von Trapp children, Sofia, 13, Melanie, 11, Amanda, 10 and Justin, seven, have released their first CD, signed up with a record company and have completed their first tour.
The children were first courted by national television networks last year after appearing at a commemoration ceremony for relief workers at Ground Zero, where they sang alongside Peter, Paul and Mary.
The original von Trapp children grew up singing for their father in nursery concerts until he abandoned his family estate near Salzburg, Austria, to the Nazis in 1938. The family arrived in America as penniless refugees and, at the suggestion of the children's stepmother, the spirited former nun Maria, they took to the stage to earn a living there.
Most of the family settled in Vermont, where Johannes von Trapp, 62, the youngest son of the old Austrian naval captain and Maria, still runs a ski resort.
The children's mother, Annie, said: "Before they started, they wrote a letter to every member of the family asking for their blessing. It is important that they understand that they are connected to something very special."
Their second CD, of Christmas songs, will be released later this year.
The children do not know whether they want to become professional singers.
Only Melanie, a soprano, said that she wanted to continue her singing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/club/your_reports/newsid_2772000/2772357.stm
Learning about life in South Africa
By Faaiq and Sara, 10, Slough
BBC
UK, Feb 21 2003-Organised by Unicef, pupils from Godolphin Primary School spent a day with a group of young South Africans to learn about their culture and their country.
"We had a interesting and fun day learning about South Africa from a group of people who came from Johannesburg.
It was really interesting finding out the similarities and differences between our country and theirs. One of the most interesting things was learning about all the different animals in South Africa - lions, leopards and all sorts.
We were show some African dances and even tried some ourselves.
And our South African friends wore brightly coloured tie-dyed clothes.
Our whole class really learnt a lot about South Africa - and we had fun too!"
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