According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 10 people drown every day in the US. The majority of the victims are children, and even more are minorities. It’s hard to believe that with so many educational advances, we are still behind in teaching all of our kids to swim.

Learning to swim isn’t a luxury. It is a life-saving skill. Studies show that if a parent doesn’t swim, then their children are very unlikely to learn as well. Yet, basic swim lessons reduce the risk of drowning by a whopping 88 percent.  We’re not talking about expensive, time-consuming lessons for Olympic-like racing times.  Just learning to float properly can save a life. Dog-paddling may get you out of a pool quickly, but it will also quickly exhaust a swimmer and isn’t an effective way to stay above water.

How many people in your family know how to swim? How does swimming as a skill rank in your family? Do you have a fear of water that you may have inadvertently passed onto your kids? Do you have access to adequate aquatic facilities? Check out USA Swimming’s guidelines for learning to swim as well as tips on drowning prevention.

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Artist JR’s work in Times Square

French street artist JR (that’s all he goes by), 30, believes he owns the biggest art gallery in the world – that’s because he believes the world is his gallery.

Calling himself a “photograffeur,” JR likes to flypost (place posters of images) on streets and buildings. Sounds like graffiti, doesn’t it? In fact, JR started out creating graffiti as a teen on rooftops and subway trains in Paris. Then he found a camera and began to take photos and pasting the photos up around the city.

His artwork evolved into billboard-sized photo portraits of everyday people, and it focuses on pieces with a message. In 2008, he initiated a project called Women Are Heroes, highlighting women who are often targets during war.

Now HBO has filmed a documentary of his Inside Out Project and its call to action: “Tell me what you stand for, and together we’ll turn the world inside out.”

The documentary, Inside Out: The People’s Art Project, airing Monday, May 20 at 9 p.m. on HBO, takes a look at how JR’s project is empowering people in perilous and politically unstable environments to create photographic messages. No logos or hate messages are allowed. People send their photos to JR and he prints giant versions of the shots for free and sends them back.

“It’s up to them to paste it up in a place with meaning,” he says, hoping they’ll be motivated to use the photos to define their most important causes. So far more than 130,000 people have sent photos to Inside Out, resulting in photos going out to more than 100 countries. Locations in the documentary include Haiti, Tunisia, North Dakota and the West Bank.

His recent Times Square Project has put dozens of face into a space that is bombarded with advertising. His faces are the only thing not trying to sell a product, he says on his Facebook page.

In 2011, JR won a TED prize of $100,000, given annually to someone with a creative and bold vision, to help advance his work. Although he spoke at the annual TED conference, we may never know who JR is exactly. He likes to stay anonymous, never using his full name and always wearing a fedora and sunglasses in public.

JR isn’t conventional. He has likely broken a few rules in his day. He’s creative and bold. And he believes that art can bring about change.

These ideas – art, change and big-thinking – are worth exploring and might also be worth discussing at your next dinner table conversation.

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The key is to start early and get them physically writing. Avoid repetitive assignments and focus on fun word association or even mad-lib games.  Apps such as WritePad and ABC PocketPhonics (a Parents’ Choice Award winner) combine technology and writing, allowing kids to write their letters with fingers or a pencil-like stylus. You don’t have to settle for dull ink anymore either, as pens and markers come in a rainbow of colors—some even scented. Harry Potter made quills cool again, and for those so inclined, you can try real ink and parchment paper or a calligraphy set if they want to get really stylish.  Just remember, no social application will ever render a heart-felt, hand-written thank-you note out of style. Would you be upset if your school stopped teaching writing to kids?

See also: Teaching the Old-Fashioned Way: Word Roots, Handwriting, and Math Drills

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We are excited to announce our Spring 2013 Parents’ Choice Toy Award winners!

Find games, puzzles, and toys that have all been carefully reviewed by our parent and expert testers. Not sure where to start? Sort our winners by age, product name, and price.

Avoid the summer slide with smart games that are fun, too. Math Room by SimplyFun is an irresistible game that is designed for players of different math abilities to enjoy together. Fans of the popular game SET will be happy to find the brand new SET Junior, which manages to be both playable by 3-year-olds and challenging for adults.

For family game night, we have many options. Seeking something silly? Try Ooga Booga, in which players try to repeat a growing chain of caveman-like sounds and actions. There’s the imaginative cooperative game What’s It? by Peaceable Kingdom, too, which will have players competing together against a character named The Doodler. If you’d prefer a strategic game that can fill an entire evening, try Garden Dice. We were pulled in by this strategic gardening game that, even with a lengthy set of rules, manages to be fun and engaging.

Beyond games, our toy discoveries include novel spins on classics like marble runs and blocks, and cutting edge technology-driven toys like the programmable robot Sphero and the concentration-powered helicopter by Puzzlebox.  As always, toys can open new interests to children. GoldieBlox and Nancy B’s Science Club will attract more girls to science and engineering problem-solving, and littleBits makes powerful electrical engineering components for boys and girls as young as eight.

To discover more of our newest award winning games, puzzles, and toys, visit the full list of winners below.

Games | Puzzles | Toys

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Another big Discovery series makes its debut this week.

North America, a seven-part program, devoted to animals, landscape and weather, premieres on Sunday, May 19, at 9 p.m.

It’s the first independently-produced natural history series for the network which has typically co-produced similar series such as Africa and Frozen Planet with the BBC and others.

Production crews spent more than three years traveling from the Canadian tundra to the tropical rainforests of Panama and Belize exploring and filming from sea-to-shining-sea. They spent 2,830 days on location on 250 separate expeditions and used ultra-high-speed cameras, special night viewing devices and even a submarine camera to capture the impressive images.

As with so many Discovery Channel series, there’s a bit of sensationalism thrown into each episode. The press materials for the show promise to reveal that “ ‘survival of the fittest’ is truly the law here amid threatening terrain and ferocious weather.”

But there’s no denying that the footage is mesmerizing. Some animal fight scenes may not be to your liking, or appropriate for young viewers.

The first episode features caribou, mountain goats and lions, and both brown and black bears. Four episodes follow, focusing on prairie dogs, sharks, desert life and more. The sixth episode is a special “Making Of” show that will give viewers an inside look at the challenges faced by the filmmakers and detailing exactly how the series came together. The final episode reveals what readers chose as the No. 1 natural North American destination.

For nature fans who like to be wowed by the beauty around us, this series will be worth checking out.

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Glass Gem Corn from Native Seeds/Search

We all crave companionship–people, pets and as it turns out, even plants. As you prepare your gardens this summer, be sure to give your plants the proper companions.

It’s been proven that when grown together, companion plants create their own perfect micro-climate providing protection from pests while aiding in growth and production. As more folks attempt backyard gardens, the first stop before the garden store might just be your child’s history book.

Agriculture is quite an important part of our history and one can trace the rise and fall of civilizations based on the success of crops. This summer, why not try the Native American approach of the “three sisters”?  Corn, climbing beans and squash were the main diet of many native tribes and were always grown together.  The idea is quite ingenious. Once corn reaches six inches, beans and squash are planted around the base. The corn provides a “pole” for the beans to climb, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil while the squash keeps the soil moist as well as weed and pest free.  If you really wanted to be historical, you would plant the corn in a heap of rotting fish or eel. However, a less stinky but still authentic alternative is to check out the nonprofit Native Seeds Search, which has a wonderful collection of heirloom varieties including the beautiful glass gem corn.

Granted, not everyone has a big enough yard or the right amount of sun for the perfect garden, but there are still options. If you don’t have good soil or only have direct sun on concrete, consider growing your plants in straw bales. Container gardening has also come a long way and there’s even come a type of corn that can grow on a bucket on your porch.  By looking at ancient gardening practices, history not only comes alive, it can also taste pretty darn good too.

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“Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like,” says Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years. The lively and engaging speaker from Houston addressed a recent TED conference. Her speech, “Every kid needs a Champion,” which is posted on the

Now, you can hear her and other big thinkers, including Bill Gates, British academic advisor Sir Ken Robinson and Harlem Children’s Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada, deliver short talks on the theme of teaching, creativity and learning in TED Talks Education, premiering Tuesday on PBS (10 p.m. ET; check local listings) and available for viewing on the PBS website on Wednesday.

The one-hour special, hosted by singer John Legend, was launched in response to the high dropout rate in American schools. It’s the first original televised event from TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” TED, by the way, started in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design.

The TV show promises to inspire and enlighten as educators and students offer their ideas about learning, knowledge, what’s happening in classrooms today and connections in our world.

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Cozy Classics, a collection of board books from the Canadian based Simply Read Books, has done something similar. By offering vibrant, needle-felted character photography and scale model illustrations, Cozy Classics makes timeless works such as Moby Dick and Pride and Prejudice accessible to even the newest reader in just twelve words.  Words like “sisters,” “boat,” and “friends,” may not convey the plot of War and Peace, but it makes a wonderful introduction to some great books.  Parents fill in the blanks of the story as needed or even allow the children to offer predictions what might happen next. Having kids make plot predictions not only helps them read, but introduces patterns and sequences that create a connection to the written word.  And you can’t get any more classic than that.

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Included in the field trip are videos, teaching guides, and the chance to send emails to John Adams. Children will meet the Founders of the United States, and will have a chance to learn about the challenges they faced while working in late 1776 to craft the colonies’ next steps following widespread American rebellion against the British. In the questions and answers section, questions about American and British relations are addressed by a panel including Benjamin Franklin, British Admiral Lord Howe and Historian Bill White. There are sections, too, that probe complex issues like the difference between being a subject of the British empire versus a citizen of it.

Mixing video, text, and gameplay, Colonial Williamsburg’s field trips are a particularly effective learning tool. In the Hanging List activity, children scroll through a map of Philadelphia in search of information about Admiral Howe’s list of persons of interest. They visit taverns, private, residencies, and other locations and find videos of individuals who give them information about each person. Children save this information and use it to answer Howe’s questions about each person later.

Teachers, homeschoolers, and parents of children with a special interest in early American history will find lots to learn here. The Founders or Traitors materials will be free for an entire year beginning  today.

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Screen-Free Week

Though the goal of the week is simple, reception has been mixed. While many appreciate the idea of screen week, others find its focus on absolute avoidance of screens misguided. What do you think? Is it important to power down screen-based media for a week, or do those who do so miss the point? Here are some blog posts to get you thinking

Amy Kraft, blogger and game developer, offers her critique “Screen-Free Week, the Wrong Conversation” on Geek Mom:

“When some parents think of TVs, computers, iPads, etc. they picture mindless games that suck the attention of their child. The CCFC reinforces this brain-rotting view of screen-based media, but it’s to the detriment of children as future members of our creative, technology-based society.

Meanwhile, Simple Kids blogger Kara Floeck expects to participate in the week, and offers resources for other parents who will in her post “Screen-Free Week 2013.” She offers this perspective on the event:

I think the point of this week is about being more mindful of the screen time and making an effort to avoid the commercialism directed toward our kids through TV shows and ads.  If the take away for you is simply to be more aware of what screen time your family has, I think that is a pretty good thing.

In further search of middle ground, Amy Jussel of Shaping Youth emphasizes that we can capture the ethos of Screen-Free Week without quitting Instagram cold turkey for a week:

It’s not a simple either/or issue of polarity but one of media management and mindfulness, just like digital habits themselves. Personally, I unplug periodically, as you can see by my history of related links at the end, because I strongly feel the more digitally inclined we are, the more breaks we need to counterbalance the ‘always on’ dynamic of instant access and signal to noise mindfulness.

No matter how you feel about Screen-Free Week, conversations about the type and content of the media your family consumes should happen often. Our Media Management Tips provide a framework for those discussions. How will your family engage, if at all, in Screen-Free Week?

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