Kids VT, March 2016
Adventures of a Lifetime: Vermont Families Share the ABCs of Living Abroad, Summer Camp Guide, Roll-your-own Sushi, Boutique Bowling, Backyard Greenhouse
Burlington Tech Company Launches Book Printing Service
Burlington-based tech company Notabli allows parents to post photos, notes, quotes and audio recordings of their children on a scrollable timeline they can share with family and friends. Think of it as a virtual scrapbook. Now, Notabli users can also create real books chronicling their kids’ lives. In January, the company introduced Notabli books, a…
Parent University Offers Tech Training
Even parents need a little extra tutoring sometimes — especially when it comes to technology. When participants in Burlington’s Parent University received 23 donated iPads from the city’s school district, PU manager Ali Dieng sought tech support from Williston-based nonprofit Technology for Tomorrow. Dieng’s “students” at PU are mainly New American parents from countries including…
Vermont PBS Kids Holds Writing Contest
In an age of omnipresent technology, the idea of writing and illustrating a story using pen and paper is a novel one. But kids in kindergarten through third grade are tasked with doing just that in the PBS Kids Writers contest. Designed to promote children’s reading skills through hands-on, active learning, the contest encourages kids…
Highgate Public Library Hosts Prom-Dress Drive
Formal wear and libraries don’t typically go together. But this month, sparkly gowns — along with high heels, purses and jewelry — are streaming into Highgate Public Library. For the fifth year, the library will host Cailey’s Closet, an event where Vermont teens can try on and go home with dresses to wear to the…
Roll With It: Vegetarian Sushi
Recently my 12-year-old son, Eli, picked up a lovely graphic memoir I’d been reading called Relish: My Life in the Kitchen. In it, author Lucy Knisley chronicles her childhood traveling the world with her chef mom and each chapter ends with an illustrated recipe. Eli flipped to a two-page spread with instructions for making huevos…
The Art of… Pop-Up Play
Shivering outside the Maple Street Recreation Center on a chilly Saturday morning, my 5-year-old son, Emmett, gazed up at me, his eyes full of doubt. He’d never experienced Pop-Up Adventure Play, so he had no idea what we were waiting for. Frankly, neither did I. But I’d seen photos of the first of three art…
A Westford Girl Braves the Cold to Raise Money for Homeless Teens
NAME: Celia Andrews TOWN: Westford AGE: 12 Celia Andrews admits that she doesn’t like being the center of attention. But the sporty, low-key seventh grader has been getting a lot of it since she came up with the idea to start a kids’ fundraiser as a complement to Spectrum Youth & Family Services’ annual Sleep…
How a Bhutanese Couple Juggles Work, School and Family
Bhutan has an ancient, indigenous Buddhist culture and prides itself on striking a balance between the spiritual and the material. In the early 1990s, the country became a place of instability and danger due to ethnic conflict. In 1992, Hemant Tamang-Ghising was one of more than 100,000 refugees who fled Bhutan. He and his parents…
Candidate Debate: An Attempt at Nonpartisan Parenting
Growing up in suburban Detroit in the 1980s and ’90s, it seemed to me that everyone was a Republican — my Catholic family, my friends, Alex P. Keaton. I figured I was conservative, too. I wasn’t even sure what the other options were. A desire to protect the environment and fight for women’s rights eventually…
Fierce Females
March is Women’s History Month. We asked Jane Knight, children’s book buyer at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, to recommend educational, entertaining reads that feature strong and influential women. Rad American Women A-Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries Who Shaped Our History … And Our Future By Kate Schatz, Grades 5 & up This hardcover anthology…
Is my Child Experiencing Precocious Puberty?
It’s often said that kids grow up fast these days. Turns out, it’s true. Researchers have found that over the last century, the average age of puberty for boys and girls — once in the late teens — has decreased significantly. And with this new normal, some children go through puberty at an even younger…
Boutique Bowling
Bowling isn’t particularly romantic, but it’s what my family chose to do for Valentine’s Day this year. On that subzero Sunday morning in February, my husband, Jeff, our two kids and I cruised down I-89 to check out the just-opened Stowe Bowl, a swanky eight-lane alley that’s part of the expanded Sun & Ski Inn…
Thinking Globally
Two weeks after I graduated from college, I hopped a plane to Thailand to take a job as a kindergarten English teacher at a bilingual school in a small city called Khon Kaen. I didn’t speak Thai or know a single person in the Southeast Asian country. But I was eager to do something adventurous…
Feeding Body & Mind
Visit Camels Hump Middle School in Richmond over the summer, and you’ll see kids painting murals, tending vegetables in a raised bed, memorizing camp songs and learning to play instruments. They’ll be riding school buses, too — to the local pool. Sounds like a traditional day camp, but this one-month program is far from typical.…
Adventures of a Lifetime
I spent my infancy and toddlerhood near Clark Air Base in the Philippines while my surgeon father tended to wounded Vietnam War soldiers. When I returned to the United States at age 2, I was too young to experience culture shock. My mother recalls a single side effect of our trans-Pacific crossing: For a week…
Safety First
Parents naturally have to trust that their kids are being well supervised and cared for by their teachers and daycare providers. So what happened to 3-year-old Parker Berry shocked and saddened moms and dads across the state. On Thursday, February 11, according to the state police report, the Hyde Park child apparently wandered off from…
Mother-Daughter Nia
We lived in Brooklyn when my oldest daughter, Dahlia, was born. She was about 8 weeks old when I brought her to our first mother-baby Pilates class. I desperately wanted to get some exercise but was terrified that she’d wake up and scream. She did, but I continued to go, because the mental benefits of…
Backyard Greenhouse
While most Vermonters spend their winters dreaming of tender, leafy veggies, the Zeilenga family eats greens they’ve grown in their backyard greenhouse. In the spring of 2015, dad Jack Zeilenga purchased the greenhouse online from Massachusetts-based Hoop House Greenhouse Kits. For about $600, the family bought a 10-by-20-foot model called the Serious Gardener, designed to…
