Letter from Betty for November 2014

Hello, 

The holiday season will soon be upon us! Do you have students on your gift-giving list this year? Don't miss the fresh, creative ideas in this month's feature article, "Educational Gifts for the Holidays."

New Jersey is the perfect stop-over for many varieties of our feathered friends this time of year. Test your brain about birds in this month's Puzzler, "Atlantic Flyway."

At Foundation for Learning, we are ready to assist you with caring, one-on-one, individualized tutoring. Please don't hesitate to give us a call at 973-425-1774 for a free consultation.


Best regards,

Betty

Betty Bodenweiser
Director
Foundation for Learning

Focus on one: SAT or ACT

Free diagnostic test offered at FFL

Currently many high school juniors take both the SAT and ACT to determine which test is best for them. We feel it would be beneficial for the students to focus on only one test. In order to accomplish this, we can administer a complimentary SAT/ACT diagnostic test, including the essay portion, to help students determine which test is better suited to their abilities. Testing will take place the second Saturday of each month from November-March and then periodically throughout the other months. Testing will start at 8:45 AM and end at approximately 12:45 PM. Our next testing session is December 13. Please call (973) 425-1774 or email betty@foundationforlearning.com by December 5th to secure a spot as space is limited.

Test Schedules for November

Mark your calendars! Here are the latest test dates.

Note: ISEE - Independent School Entrance Exam dates are for testing at the Morristown-Beard School, located at 70 Whippany Road, Morristown NJ, for any students entering grades 6-11 who are applying to independent schools. Learn more about ISEE at erblearn.org.
 

Educational Gifts for the Holidays

It’s time to think about holiday gift giving and putting together a shopping list with the kids in mind. Need some ideas for creative and educational gifts this year? Here are some suggestions for you as well as links to some really great online sources for easy-chair shopping.



Wild Detectives DVD Collection from National Geographic explores nature as only Nat Geo can! Answers questions like “What do lion cubs do in their den when no one is looking?” and “Why do penguins swim so deep in the ocean when their food is on the surface?”  Beautiful camera work, interesting critters, fun information!


Put together a craft box for unlimited creativity! Purchase a colorful plastic box (with closure) and then head to your favorite crafting store to stock that box full of markers, colorful ribbons and pipe cleaners, stickers, watercolor paints, glue or glue sticks, crayons, colorful papers, cute Japanese Washi tape, pompoms, glitter, beads, and anything else that strikes your artistic fancy.


Let’s get physical! Hula hoops, scooters, skates, skateboards, bikes, boogie boards for the beach, jump ropes, mini exercise trampoline, stilts, climbing rope ladder, hop balls, anything that will get the kiddos up and moving is a very good thing!



Open-ended imagination toys such as Brio trains, Playmobil sets, Lego, hand-puppets, Lincoln Logs, all these things are perfect for freestyle fun.


Qwirkle is a fun mix of Scrabble and dominoes. For 2-4 players, colorful wooden blocks get matched together based on color and design and really make the players strategize as they go. Loads of fun for all ages, so parents and older kids can play along too.


Simon is another fantastic game that is guaranteed to bring lots of laughter. Flashing lights and colors exercise and build memory skills that are critical for academic success, while at the same time increasing manual dexterity. The kids, of course, won’t know that they’re growing and learning – they’re having too much fun!

Globes, atlases, maps: Do you have a little Dora the Explorer in your family? Maybe a young Indiana Jones? Consider the gift of a globe, an atlas, or an interesting collection of maps! Kids can not only learn to identify places they are learning about, but they can do some route tracking during your family’s holiday travels. Learning to read maps is an important life skill, and it’s never to early to start!

For the budding scientist in your family, how about a microscope kit or telescope? Rock tumblers are noisy but so fun, with a “prize” at the end of each session. Robotikit also offers a series of do-it-yourself kits that allow kids super-fun while building working miniature motorcycles and more! Geosafari also offers a whole line of really interesting scopes, kits, and other “toys” for exploratory fun, both indoors and outside in nature.

Let’s not forget books! To see a list of recommended reads, take a look back at our two-part article series. Part 1: Great Children's Books for the Early Years and part 2: Great Books for Older Children.

Online, one great resource for creative games and toys for kids is Hearthsong.com. Also check out shop.nationalgeographic.com, shoppbs.org, or the fabulous Museum of Natural History store at shop.amnh.org.

Above all, when you’re thinking about gift giving for the holidays, make sure to include toys, games, and other gifts that you can share with your kids. Spending fun time with them is the best gift of all!

The Puzzler: Atlantic Flyway

We know you’ve heard about bird migration, where different species of birds migrate north during breeding season and south during colder months. But did you know that New Jersey is a part of what is known as the Atlantic Flyway? This is the route that many species take on their journey. It is defined to the west by the Appalachian Mountain Range and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean.  Did you know that New Jersey’s latitude on the globe puts the state about halfway between the equator and the Arctic? This location and many varying habitats make New Jersey a perfect stopping point for thousands of species of migrating birds who find just what they need here. 

Here are 9 birds in our area that are on the move during the month of November.



Can you match each bird in the photo to its common name? Here are your choices: 

Yellow Warbler
Dark-eyed Junco
Hooded Merganser
Bufflehead
Indigo Bunting
Gray Catbird
Common Goldeneye
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Common Yellowthroat



Answers in the next issue.



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LAST ISSUE'S PUZZLER: Leaf Pile 

Remember when you were a kid and jumped into great big leaf piles? Well, here is a big pile of 8 words to jump into: Elm, Birch, Oak, Cherry, Chestnut, Ash, Beech, Maple. Can you pick up the correct words from that pile and pair them with the 4 leaves in the photos below?


 

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