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Many children love Halloween. We assume it's because Halloween means candy but many children love more than just the abundance of candy at Halloween time. They really get into the spooky side of the holiday and enjoy the displays of goopy brains and squishy body parts.
For that reason. Halloween games can be really fun. The goopier you make it the more the kids will get into it.
Let’s start with a feely game. This fun game can be found on store shelves but you can easily create it yourself. Make some jello and fill it with a variety of items, like gummy worms, small candy and other items. You can even color the jello to make it too dark to see what's inside. Tell the children to root around in the bowl of jello (the ‘brain’) to figure out what's in it. It's messy but kids love it.
Kids also love the spaghetti game. This game is messy too so be sure they are wearing play clothes or at least a smock. Make a big bowl of spaghetti and fill it with all kinds of items, like plastic bugs, gummy worms and other things that feel a bit strange. Make the children feel around in the bowl of spaghetti and identify the items they feel. Once they are done and cleaned up, have them list as many items as they can remember. Whoever gets the most correct items listed gets a prize.
Another popular game is again an item identifying game. Take a cardboard box painted black both inside and outside, carve a hole in the top just large enough for the children to get their hands in, and fill the box with a variety of items. The things you put in can be related to Halloween or not. You can even include some items that might feel like body parts or brain matter to make this goopy and silly. Have the children guess what's inside the box and award the box itself with all the things in it to the child who guesses the most number of items correctly.
Most kids love making up stories and Halloween is a great time to let their imaginations run wild. Have them spend a bit of time writing out the scariest story they can think of. Some children might need some help not to get carried away making it ridiculously grotesque. Once the stories are written each child will read the story with as much dramatization as they can muster. For variety mix the stories up so no one reads their own then once the story is read, everyone has to guess who wrote the story. The writer should play along so no one knows it was their story. The winner is the child who wrote a story so intriguing and unusual that nobody knew it was his or hers.
Kids love the word find games when you give them a word or words relating to a holiday. Give them Halloween-related words and ask them to find as many scary words as they can. For example, you might give them the word "Halloween" and see how many scary words they can make from the letters. Or you could give them a series of words and let them rearrange the letters in all of the words to create scary words, or even create a story from the scary words. Put a time limit on this game and award a prize for the child who creates the most words in the least amount of time.
These are just a few ideas for Halloween games. Your possibilities are almost endless if you let your imagination go. And remember adults like to play too.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Memory Basics
Human memory is a very complex thing. It is unlike data in a computer. It can sometime let you down especially at what seems like the worst times. I think most people have experienced frustration when they can’t recall someone’s name or a place that they visited. Memory can also cause some confusion, especially when two people experience the same event from different view points. Before we can improve anything first we need to know basically how it works.
Everything you do during the day, even activities that are common or incidental like listening to music or watching television is processed for storage. This processing is known as encoding into memory. Some information gets into memory practically effortlessly, while other things require time. What and how long tends to vary from individual to individual. When we start encoding we use one of two types of attention. We use either selective attention where we focus on a specific situation while ignoring everything else or divided attention, trying to gather everything. Although our brain is more powerful than a super computer it does have its limits. It can not pay attention to too many different things at once. A person that focuses their attention on one single thing does better than someone trying to remember many things simultaneously.
Simply paying attention to something does not guarantee success with remembering it so encoding is further divided into three different levels.
Shallow level (gather): The first level includes the make up of sensory or physical stimuli we collect. For example, we might remember some shapes of printed characters from the newspaper, or the pitch of a particular sound in music.
Intermediate level (gather &name): The object we remember is recognized and is given a name. For example, we will identify an object that drives on the road as a car.
Deepest Level (gather, name, &associate): Includes information that is processed with not only name but also meaning. At the deepest level we make associations that are more likely to be remembered in the future.
It has been shown repeatedly that people’s memories improve when they make some type associations. For example, you could associate someone’s face with a famous person or the reverse, associate a famous individual with a friend of yours.
Psychologists studying the thinking process realize that there is more to memory than just deep processing. They have found the more elaborate the processing, the better you will remember something. The primary reason that elaboration is so successful is because it helps makes something distinct in your mind. Also used to make memories more lasting is the use of mental imagery. Some psychologists believe that mental imagery is so powerful, because people tend to remember images better than words. It has been proven that images can help individuals remember many things like learning a foreign language. An everyday use of mental imagery is remembering where you placed your remote control once you finished watching television last night.
We remember some information for years, and some we forget within a minute or even less. Besides two types of memory there are also three characteristics. Sensory memory is a type of memory that holds information extremely high in detail but is quickly lost. Some examples of sensory memory are the sights you see everyday when you’re looking out a window or the sound of a bird singing. Another type of memory is short term memory. It is information that is usually retained in storage slightly longer than sensory but still short only about 30 seconds or less. Some ways that you can improve short term memory is with rehearsal, which is the repetition of something and chunking which is grouping. If we have to remember a telephone number typically we keep repeating the number. But rather than saying it again & again in a big blob like 7835677876, you can chunk it into 783-567-7876. These techniques can be use to make information more lasting, moving it into the last type, the more stable and permanent long term memory. This is also the type we first think of when we think memory.
Memory is a subject that can fill volumes but an overview is needed to even start looking for tricks to improve it. Now that you know a little of how memory works you can better make it work for you.
Everything you do during the day, even activities that are common or incidental like listening to music or watching television is processed for storage. This processing is known as encoding into memory. Some information gets into memory practically effortlessly, while other things require time. What and how long tends to vary from individual to individual. When we start encoding we use one of two types of attention. We use either selective attention where we focus on a specific situation while ignoring everything else or divided attention, trying to gather everything. Although our brain is more powerful than a super computer it does have its limits. It can not pay attention to too many different things at once. A person that focuses their attention on one single thing does better than someone trying to remember many things simultaneously.
Simply paying attention to something does not guarantee success with remembering it so encoding is further divided into three different levels.
Shallow level (gather): The first level includes the make up of sensory or physical stimuli we collect. For example, we might remember some shapes of printed characters from the newspaper, or the pitch of a particular sound in music.
Intermediate level (gather &name): The object we remember is recognized and is given a name. For example, we will identify an object that drives on the road as a car.
Deepest Level (gather, name, &associate): Includes information that is processed with not only name but also meaning. At the deepest level we make associations that are more likely to be remembered in the future.
It has been shown repeatedly that people’s memories improve when they make some type associations. For example, you could associate someone’s face with a famous person or the reverse, associate a famous individual with a friend of yours.
Psychologists studying the thinking process realize that there is more to memory than just deep processing. They have found the more elaborate the processing, the better you will remember something. The primary reason that elaboration is so successful is because it helps makes something distinct in your mind. Also used to make memories more lasting is the use of mental imagery. Some psychologists believe that mental imagery is so powerful, because people tend to remember images better than words. It has been proven that images can help individuals remember many things like learning a foreign language. An everyday use of mental imagery is remembering where you placed your remote control once you finished watching television last night.
We remember some information for years, and some we forget within a minute or even less. Besides two types of memory there are also three characteristics. Sensory memory is a type of memory that holds information extremely high in detail but is quickly lost. Some examples of sensory memory are the sights you see everyday when you’re looking out a window or the sound of a bird singing. Another type of memory is short term memory. It is information that is usually retained in storage slightly longer than sensory but still short only about 30 seconds or less. Some ways that you can improve short term memory is with rehearsal, which is the repetition of something and chunking which is grouping. If we have to remember a telephone number typically we keep repeating the number. But rather than saying it again & again in a big blob like 7835677876, you can chunk it into 783-567-7876. These techniques can be use to make information more lasting, moving it into the last type, the more stable and permanent long term memory. This is also the type we first think of when we think memory.
Memory is a subject that can fill volumes but an overview is needed to even start looking for tricks to improve it. Now that you know a little of how memory works you can better make it work for you.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Some Forgotten Uses of Common Products
Aside from making a volcano in the younger grades of school vinegar and baking soda have other uses. They have been used for years together and separately as a cleaners and deodorizers. Pay attention and you will see that advertising today is trying to bring back some of the everyday uses. New products with colorful packages are nothing more than these old basics.
Baking soda &/or vinegar can be used to clean many surfaces. If it is made of glass or stainless steel it can be cleaned with either. Even stubborn stains can be tackled with these common chemicals. Jars, glasses, thermoses, coffee pots, cooking pans and baby bottles can be cleaned and deodorized with them. Appliances and counter tops can also benefit. Dishwashers, stoves and refrigerators can be cleaner and smell nicer with the help of vinegar &/or baking soda.
Stains on formica, plastic or marble can be taken care of with a paste of baking soda and it can be used to remove melted plastic bread wrapper from a toaster.
Baking soda can also be used for forgotten purposes like smothering fires without hurting the surfaces it comes in contact with (including cloth). Added to the laundry, baking soda fights grease and oil stains on clothes and smell in diapers. As a poultice it can reduce the pain of burns and the itch of bug bites. It can even be used as a toothpaste or a mouthwash.
Another often forgotten but still effective substance is vinegar. It can have many uses as a grease cutter and streak reducer. Use it to clean windows without leaving streaks or eliminate mildew, dust and odors on surfaces by wiping them with a vinegar-soaked cloth. Clean food containers with a vinegar-dampened cloth to keep them smelling fresh and clean fireplace bricks with undiluted vinegar. Adding vinegar to your catsup and other condiments can make them last longer. And even though it may seem odd, pouring boiling vinegar down drains unclogs and cleans them. A mixture of apple cider vinegar and honey has been used as a cure-all to many things including obesity, hay fever, asthma, rashes, food poisoning, heartburn, sore throat, dandruff, brittle nails and bad breath. Even the more common place uses for vinegar have been neglected. Adding a few drops of vinegar to water prevents discoloration of peeled potatoes and you get fluffier rice by adding 1 tsp. of vinegar to the cooking water.
Our grandparents may have been misguided in some of the notions about why vinegar and baking soda worked but not the knowledge that they did work. In some cases we would be doing ourselves a good turn by using some of the older chemistry today.
Baking soda &/or vinegar can be used to clean many surfaces. If it is made of glass or stainless steel it can be cleaned with either. Even stubborn stains can be tackled with these common chemicals. Jars, glasses, thermoses, coffee pots, cooking pans and baby bottles can be cleaned and deodorized with them. Appliances and counter tops can also benefit. Dishwashers, stoves and refrigerators can be cleaner and smell nicer with the help of vinegar &/or baking soda.
Stains on formica, plastic or marble can be taken care of with a paste of baking soda and it can be used to remove melted plastic bread wrapper from a toaster.
Baking soda can also be used for forgotten purposes like smothering fires without hurting the surfaces it comes in contact with (including cloth). Added to the laundry, baking soda fights grease and oil stains on clothes and smell in diapers. As a poultice it can reduce the pain of burns and the itch of bug bites. It can even be used as a toothpaste or a mouthwash.
Another often forgotten but still effective substance is vinegar. It can have many uses as a grease cutter and streak reducer. Use it to clean windows without leaving streaks or eliminate mildew, dust and odors on surfaces by wiping them with a vinegar-soaked cloth. Clean food containers with a vinegar-dampened cloth to keep them smelling fresh and clean fireplace bricks with undiluted vinegar. Adding vinegar to your catsup and other condiments can make them last longer. And even though it may seem odd, pouring boiling vinegar down drains unclogs and cleans them. A mixture of apple cider vinegar and honey has been used as a cure-all to many things including obesity, hay fever, asthma, rashes, food poisoning, heartburn, sore throat, dandruff, brittle nails and bad breath. Even the more common place uses for vinegar have been neglected. Adding a few drops of vinegar to water prevents discoloration of peeled potatoes and you get fluffier rice by adding 1 tsp. of vinegar to the cooking water.
Our grandparents may have been misguided in some of the notions about why vinegar and baking soda worked but not the knowledge that they did work. In some cases we would be doing ourselves a good turn by using some of the older chemistry today.
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