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By Greg Seaman

Teach Your Children!

Fun and easy activities to do with your kids

How does time spent with your children help the environment?

A typical child growing up in North America today spends an average of three hours per day watching TV. In many cases, this is more time than spent with his or her parents. TV presents our children with a constant barrage of commercials and consumer values. Children today are obsessed with the things money can buy, but do they understand the cost to the environment of needless consumerism?

Above all else, children crave time spent with their parents. Seize this opportunity to teach them your values and indulge them with your undivided attention.

Here are some sites that offer activities, ideas and inspiration for parents and children to explore and enjoy together:

Build-It-Yourself toy laboratory (www.build-it-yourself.com)

There is a great deal of talk today about the need to expose children to more science and math, develop a recycling mentality, promote family time together, and merge the virtual world with the real world. Build-It-Yourself addresses all of these important issues in a playful way. Build-It-Yourself has won the support of kids, parents, teachers, community businesses and the media.

Apogee model rocketry (www.apogeerockets.com)

Do you build or want to design your own model rockets? Do you need some help getting started? Even if you do design your own models, would you like to make them even better and more unique? This website offers basic information on model rockets, construction plans, parts, flying tips and technical information.

Curious George (www.pbskids.org)

This site offers some simple ideas for hands-on engineering, math and science activities that you and your child can try at home. Use them to encourage your child's natural curiosity and to have fun making discoveries together.

Build a child's wheelbarrow (www.eartheasy.com)

The scale of this project is just right for a parent and child activity, and is a great way to teach your child basic woodworking skills. A child who has helped build his or her own wheelbarrow will use it in the garden or yard with pride.

Hunkins’ experiments (www.hunkinsexperiments.com)

Hunkins' experiments were designed by a cartoonist for inquiring minds. It uses cartoon-like examples within topics including food, clothes, light and sound to create simple but engaging experiments. For example, families can make an edible candle, learn to use a watch as a compass, draw water from a desert, or make a rubberband.

Seadercraft sail boats (www.seadercraft.com)

This site offers inexpensive wooden model sailboat kits that offer realistic sailing action. The sailing models are controlled by line from shore. It enables children of any age to learn about sailing and sailboat design; a unique hobby and craft that may spark their interest into their adult life.

Flying pig (www.flying-pig.com)

This website provides a unique range of animated models for the parent and child to cut out, paste and assemble. These paper craft kits may be especially appealing for father-son activities, since they offer a good way to learn the principles of levers, cams, ratchets, linkages, gears and more. The creator of these kits is a British school teacher who uses the models in classrooms to teach kids about mechanics. The kits are suitable for children aged 12 and up to do on their own. Younger children can use them with adult help.

Whitewings airplanes (www.whitewings.com)

This site offers what may be the best in paper gliders. Choose from a large selection of models from simple to complex. Build your glider from a kit using paper, balsa, glue and a rubber band for propulsion. A great parent-child

activity and a good format for learning construction, principles of flight and aerodynamics. This hobby is inexpensive and rewarding, and these little paper gliders are fun to fly!

Advocates for children (www.advocatesforchildren.net)

This site offers a long list of activities for you and your family to try. It includes animal crafts, crafts requiring adult help, crafts by age group, family-centred crafts and holiday crafts.

Canada's creative kids (www.creativekids.ca)

This is Canada's site for creative kids' fun. It’s a good resource for parents and educators looking for new ways of teaching and entertaining children through the use of stories, brain-teasers, jokes, games and many other activities which keep children occupied and thinking. It is a site designed for kids, but with parents in mind.

Family fun (www.family.go.com/entertainment)

This is a large website with many items of interest in the area of “family living.” Activities here are for parents with children of all ages and include craft ideas, holiday activity ideas and birthday party ideas, as well as after-school and weekend projects.

Craft kits for kids (www.familyfun.co)

This is another craft site that provides kits with all of the supplies you need (minus the few basics you can find around the house like water and scissors) to complete each craft. Its goal is to provide you with everything you need, so you aren't running to the store for that one supply you don't happen to have on hand.

Gamequarium (www.gamequarium.com)

This is a portal to over 2,000 free online learning games and activities for kids in preschool to grade 6. Readquarium, which is a section of Gamequarium, will help your child learn to read.

Creative kids at home (www.creativekidsathome.com)

Each month this website posts new ideas for children’s craft activities and science projects that kids and adults can do together. These free crafts and activities are much more fun (for one or more kids) if the adults plan to be involved, too. The crafts supplies needed are items commonly found in most households.