Thursday, May 22, 2008

Nasa kids on Kidsfreesouls

Here's the Nasa Kids providing a wealth of resources that are safe, fun, and educational for students. The Play and Learn for Grade 4 is a fun explore if you like to color and have fun. Grade 5-8 is all more of Information on What is Nasa, What is Antartica, Space Shuttle, What is Mars adn lot more. Grades 8-12 and Higher Education has various features, competitions, videos and learning of the wonderful world and how Nasa helps humanity, improving life for 50 years with Nasa Timeline and 50 years of Nasa History and more.

What draws my attention is 'Send your name to the Moon' and I remember, I printed my Certificate of sending my name to the moon some years ago (probably 5-7 years ago!) on the web. If you wish to send your name to the moon, here is the deadline June 27, 2008 for submissions. You can fill up the form here. Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission. Here's my Certificate of Participation. You too, follow me (At Twitter too)

Btw, Kids can enjoy Summer fun at Fairyland and also get to Color pages at Nasa - Kids can enjoy without Mess at Space Place coloring Book or just go simply - the print way and color to have real fun. Color the Earth too. Enjoy!

- ilaxi patel
Editor, www.kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for Kids with resources for Parents and Teachers

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Limericks


Edward Lear, an English writer and artist, became famous for his humorous poems for children. Born in London on May 12 1812, Lear's first book of poems, "A Book of Nonsense" (1846) ranks as a masterpiece of children's literature. His best known "The owl and the Pussy-cat" became a classic too.

That old man of Melrose
Who walked on tip of his toes
But they said it ain't pleasant
To see u at present
You stupid old man of Melrose

Well, Limericks is a form of humorous verse. It takes it's name from the city of Limerick, Ireland. No one knows how or where the form originated. It became known after Edward Lear made the form popular with his first "A Book of Nonsense (1846). The Limerick is a poem of five lines, with strong beat and rough anapaestic rhythm (i.e. de-de-DUMM). It is written in Poulter's measure, a Folk Metre that consists of 13 beats. The first two lines rhyme with the fifth, the third line rhymes with the fourth.

Now, many parents want their children to be poets and write Limericks too. I suggest, first to build a vocabulary, second is to collect all rhyme words, third is, stir the Poetry soup, adding all the ingredients. Even knowing tongue twisters is fun. Find here Poetry soup, Poetry Learning and Limericks by Edward Lear.

Btw, do find more poems by Josie Whitehead and even Artie Knapp on kidsfreesouls pages. Enjoy!

- ilaxi patel
Editor, kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for kids with resources for parents and teachers

Game sites & You can Do It Cartoons

Children at many clubs are hooked to club computers and quite exquisitely, I glanced at what they were playing. Their choices differed but most of them were playing games at Agames and games.co.uk, girlsgogames.in and game.co.in - The major sites out of the 30 online Game Portals worldwide by Spill Group, the world's leading Game destination. They have over 60 million visitors to their portals. They have over 3500 free games for all genres: casual, skills and download games.

Spill Group's two portals are great choice of club goer kids and they spend hours playing at the club. Computer games are in with more sports' games like Table Tennis, Badminton, skating are the other choices apart from swimming. Reading is almost on the back seat! Here's an article on Games. You can find For Kids section here with more Games for kids websites.

Btw, The National Cartoonist Society in US has fixed a day 'Cartooning Day' on 5th May for all those who love to draw and use their artistic skills. This is the world's most largest and prestigious organization of the professional cartoonists. The site is informative and teaches on how to be a Cartoonist with tips of advice. You can also visit the Cartoon Factory and enter into the You can do it page and draw cartoons using numbers, letters and common every day shapes. This is much fun and I've tried a hand on this.

Making a Cartoon requires a person to be creative - a bit humorous, alert and a keen observer. Necessarily, a Cartoonist need not be an Artist but the feeling comes from within, just an idea and an imagination and one can do the tricks. So, What's a caricature? Well, here's kidsfreesouls Cartoon fun page and Cartoon Kids with info on Cartoons & Caricature.

Kids Free Souls, get those pencils and use your whacky brains, stuff the funniest ideas and swing ahead to give the strokes of sheer joy to draw. Enjoy!

ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for kids with resources for parents and teachers

Karim Rashid's 'Design Your Self'

I was just reading a book few days ago as I was in no mood to log on to the world wide web. An amazing read : Karim Rashid's book 'Design Your Self.' The very caption is interesting with the sub caption saying, 'Rethinking the way you live, love, work and play.'

All I can say is 'Grab a copy of the Book' - a very nice book indeed; dedicated to Humanity. An Imprint of Harper collins by Regan Books, the Book is a class to pick with its colorful pages, neat, engrossing fonts and latest art and tech mix presentation. An Industrialist Designer, Karim's client ranges from Prada, Umbra, Nambe and many. He has more than 2000 designs with many award winning.

Karim Rashid has cool tips to design personal self in this book. Powerful yet practical advice to celebrate Individuality. He says, Express Yourself - "the world is changing exponentially. Youth culture is informed by technology and in turn, young people are interested in participating globally. Their cross cultural positioning and vies extend to an open mindedness to change that is extremely encouraging. Our ultimate goal should be to become unbiased and completely free to express ourselves." Rest of, you got to read - the Book is simply 'Superb' and a must on the book shelf. Karim also has a charted out a Calendar - Yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and also Life Cycle instructions are excellent. If I ever get to work on this, do find these Life cycle tips rolling on Kidsfreesouls someday. Till then, enjoy the book and reviews at Amazon here. You are sure to thank me for this recommendation.

- ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for kids with resources for parents and teachers

Grand Theft Auto IV

The latest entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, recently released and the three 10 storey high murals promoting the debut of the computer game GTA Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar games) were seen on the Figueroa Hotel in downtown of Los Angeles on its world release is become a style promotion. It isn't just a fun piece of entertainment but is a step forward for the industry - doing almost as much for storytelling in video games as Grand Theft Auto III did to spark an era of free-roaming, nonlinear gameplay. It is expected to race into record books as the fastest selling video game ever despite being tailed by critics, condemning its violent themes. Though the plot seems more humour, the gangs of New york with flashy technology within the game adds to the depth of the story. The fighting, shooting, driving is more complicated yet one of the best interesting crime dramas for play.

I wouldn't recommend for young children and nevertheless, it's long way to go for play for this pick except for those using XBox 360 and Playstation 3 with over 59$ rated 'Mature'. You can read more on this review in detail here.

Btw, if you are interested in games, check this games section here on Kidsfreesouls. Also find an interesting Level Ups Top 5 Gaming Tidbits by N'gai Croal on Newsweek. You can track the game to watch the Trailor video of Grand Theft Auto IV (CAUTION: You need to be mature and not a child!) here.

- ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for Kids with Resources for Parents and Teachers

Friday, May 02, 2008

Time Management on web

I saw a tweet - World Comments Day two days ago. So, go ahead and make it World Comments Week. Post at least 3 comments and leave your footsteps. Well, you can find my multiple posts on Ed Blog and elsewhere on all my blogs. Leave your comments in case you wish to and missed earlier. Btw, I wonder who set the World Comments Day and do we find the links in Google Search here?

Well, often we lack the time to read being on the virtual world. Time management is often a problem as we excuse ourselves saying, 'We don't have the time - for this, for that, for what not'. We apt to procrastinate a lot and it so happens as we explore the Twitter or Facebook or Orkut or My Space and MyBlogLog, Digg, Newsgator - whoosh, so many places to stroll around!
Anyways, like I said on Diana Huff's Marcom writer's Blog, we need to have a beat but more, a passion to write. Sometimes, we do have the beat and the passion but lack the time or rathar I can put this way, we explore while the mind is working two ways - getting informed and getting beat to write! Well, Management - yes, that's very important and here's Finding time to Read - 8 Tips for Time deprived Professionals' - Sure, too helpful to me and I hope you too, will find these tips too useful and practical. It also reminds me and floods back my memories to yester days when I use to read - in bedroom, while at dining table, in car, sitting on a swing in porch - just read, anywhere. With Virtual World, it's more exploring and writing those 24x7 (for me it's something like 3x7).

- ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com
Newspaper for kids with resources for parents and teachers

Virtual Assistant & Blogging to exhaustion

Here is interesting to read more on 'VA' on Problogger but more interesting is Internet Business Blogger's Post which says:

Shut down Twitter
Shut down Outlook
Shut down messenger
Shut down Adsense Notifier
Stop refreshing CNN, Google Analytics, Digg, Reddit
And start typing more than reading.......

Well, I guess the real tip on the iceberg. In a web world of 24x7 Stress, writers blog till they drop! Bloggers work to exhaustion. Many are paid by blog pieces and as New York Times article says, Bloggers blog on digital sweet-shop or you call this 'home' or any place where you blog.

- ilaxi patel
Newspaper for kids with resources for parents and teachers

Arbor Day - Plant Trees, it's never late

Last Friday in was Arbor Day in US States which celebrate tree loving holiday. Btw, Did you know that April 11,1872 was the day when the State of Nebraska observed the first Arbor Day? Nebraska was once a treeless land in the heart of what was called 'the Great American Desert' and by 1992, almost one million trees were planted! The mission was accomplished with the devotion of Mr.& Mrs. J.Sterling Morton who spent their lives to filling the barren prairie with trees. Later on,the idea became popular and today, many nations around the world celebrate their own Arbor Day. In my country, trees are almost planted during the World Environment Day due to the monsoon season. But, interesting is a fact that trees have very significant meanings in India. Many trees are believed to be Sacred trees and as this month, according to Gujarati calendar is chaitra, (Chaitra month in April and also day of Gudi Padvo-Maharashtrian New year and cheti chand of sindhi community-Just gone a few days earlier) it is considered essential to worship Neem tree and eat its bitter leaves, mixed with pepper and sugar, as a safeguard from fever. It is believed that if we eat Neem leaves juice for seven to fifteen days, we will be free from any fever for the whole year!

Here is Activities, History and Tree Crafts for Children to celebrate Arbor Day in case you missed. You can find Sacred Trees info on Kidsfreesouls. Btw, someone did ask me on Tulsi tree - why the plant emit oxygen at night. There has been a lot of myth prevailing, however, as per Devi Bhagwad Purana, Vishnu had three wives: Saraswati, Laxmi and Ganga. Once Laxmi and Saraswati had a fight and Saraswati cursed Laxmi which turned her into a Tulsi plant. Later, her body was transformed into a river Gandki. Laxmi is said to have remained on earth and worshipped thereafter as her image. Tulsi plant has thus the pores that emit oxygen at night. If you know of any other reason, please email here.

- ilaxi patel
Editor, Kidsfreesouls.com

Newspaper for Kids with resources for parents and teachers