You may know of some of the Greek gods like Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. You might know that Athens was named after Athena, that the Olympics were in celebration of Zeus, and that Apollo drew the sun across the sky. These are some of the twelve famous gods and goddesses of ancient Greece known as the Olympians, but what you might not know is that the Ancient Greeks worshiped WAY MORE THAN TWELVE GODS.
On top of the twelve Olympians, in Ancient Greece there were many minor gods that the citizens of Greece prayed to and sacrificed to. One of these minor gods was called Asclepius. Asclepius was the god of medicine.
Asclepius had a staff with a snake wrapped around it. He was thought to take on the form of a snake, and so the snake represented him. The staff with the snake is still used as a medical symbol today!
Asclepius was the son of the sun god Apollo and a princess named Koronis. Instead of being raised by his parents, Asclepius’s caregiver was a centaur. The centaur taught him how to practice medicine and Asclepius got so good that he could bring people back from the dead! If Zeus hadn’t intervened and stopped Asclepius from bringing back the dead we might all be immortals today!
Liked learning about Asclepius for kids?
Explore Epidaurus, an ancient healing sanctuary in Greece, dedicated to Asclepios, the god of medicine. Discover its serene landscapes, therapeutic practices, and majestic amphitheater, blending myth, medicine, and history.
Epidaurus was an ancient healing place. It was a beautiful place in nature that let people who had been injured in war or had gotten sick to escape from the city and heal.
Myth and Medicine: Unraveling the Secrets of Epidaurus
Epidaurus was dedicated to Asclepios. Asclepios was the god of healing and medicine. He was not as famous as Zeus or Athena, but he was still very important. The patients believed that Asclepios would visit them at night while they were sleeping in the form of a snake! If Asclepios visited them they would wake up healed!
Epidaurus was not just a place of worship. Scientific medicine was practiced there as well, and all sorts of medical instruments were found when archeologists explored the ruins.
The Majestic Amphitheater of Epidaurus: Witnessing Healing and Performances
Despite being ill, there were some fun things to do at Epidaurus. The healing place is also the site of a huge amphitheater, which was used as an outdoor stage to put on plays and other performances! This amphitheater was huge, but was so well built that if an actor whispered in the center of the stage, the audience could hear it even if they were all the way up at the top seats.
Exploring Epidaurus: A Journey into Ancient Healing
I was fortunate to visit Epidavros with my son and husband. My son was 18 months old and he was delighted by the pathways in between the ruins, he loved to run down them! He also liked to collect the small pebbles on the ground and we joked that he was trying to reconstruct the ruins by putting them into piles. The whole area felt like it renewed our spirits and energy, really connecting us to that healing place.
Complete a fun craft to go along with this reading (only $1 for downloadable instructions)
Healing Staff Activity
Did you know where the symbol on first aid kits and ambulances came from?
This activity helps your learner’s fine motor skills as they make a pencil healing staff, while also learning a little about ancient Greece.
I love sharing a rose and thorn with my kids at dinner time. I find they share so much more than if I just ask “How was your day?” Since we started sharing a rose and thorn it has become one of my favorite mindfulness techniques for kids.
What is a rose, thorn, and bud
The rose and thorn are mindfulness tools to help you and your kids reflect on their day or week.
A rose is something good that has happened.
A thorn is something bad, or challenging that has happened.
A bud is something that you are looking forward to.
It is really important to have frequent open conversations with your kids, but it’s often hard to get kids to talk. By sharing a rose/ thorn/ or bud daily you offer an easy way to start that daily conversation.
How/ when to talk about this to your kids
Dinner is my favorite time to chat with my kids about their rose and thorn, but families that eat on the go or in front of the TV might want to choose: the drive home from school, during a daily walk, or during a break from homework. There’s no wrong time to share a rose and thorn so do what works best for your family! It will be worth it to work this mindfulness techniques for kids into your day!
Why this mindfulness techniques for kidsgets them talking
Asking kids to share a rose, thorn, or bud makes the conversation really simple for them. They have something specific to share, and that specific tidbit of information often opens up to more of a discussion and more sharing opportunities.
Have you ever noticed this:
What did you do today? I don’t know.
What did you learn today? I don’t know.
For kids a question like “how was your day” is often too open-ended and they have a hard time coming up with an answer (which is why they always tell you “I don’t know.” It’s not really that they don’t know, it’s that their brain is having trouble organizing and finding the information to share). This can be even more challenging for neugodivergent kids!
Can’t have a rose garden without thorns
I love that the rose and thorn technique encourages kids to talk about the good, bad, and the ugly. It’s so important for kids to experience their whole rainbow of emotions, and to learn that “thorns” are a normal part of any rose garden.
(if you want to learn more about helping kids cope with emotions check out https://travelingchalkboard.com/coping-with-emotions/ )
I have noticed that my daughter, who has always been sensitive about getting in trouble or being told no, has started talking about her challenges more instead of just sulking/ hiding when she’s upset. My son has also opened up about sharing challenges at school and we’ve actually figured out the causes to some behavioral issues his teachers have noticed because he shared feelings/ struggles with us that we never would have known about otherwise. When I was a kid I was bullied and I didn’t know how to talk about the challenges I was having at school, so I didn’t talk about them. My parents had no idea what was going on until one of my friends came forward and told them. I’m hoping that by sharing a thorn my kids will know that it is safe to come to me with any challenges they face and that they will have a way of bringing up the topic.
Fun Additions
Once you have gotten into a routine of sharing roses and thorns with your kids, make some adjustments to personalize it for your family! My son came up with the idea of sharing what he calls a “water and sunshine.” He wanted to share times when he had used his mindfulness techniques to prevent a thorn from happening. He named it water and sunshine, because he recognized that his mindfulness tools could help create a new rose!
Some other ideas to add (don’t forget to get creative when naming them)
Worries
Memories
Plans/ ideas
Good deeds
Proud moments
Want your kids to develop a growth mindset? Check out my Brain Power classes on Outschool!
To write a book the first thing you should do is read a lot! Go to your library and browse through all sorts of different books. Make sure you read some books that are from a different genre than you want to write as well. You might get some interesting and different ideas from something outside your genre.
If you want to write a children’s book than pay close attention to the way the pictures and story work together. Note what you like about each book and what you don’t like.
Start writing
The next step to writing a book is to start writing! I recommend writing before you worry too much about what the book will be about. Writing every day will improve your ability to write and will also get the ideas flowing. You can use writing prompts like this (add a link) to get you started. Write for 5-15 minutes for each writing prompt. Writing prompts are a great warm up as well, once you start writing your story.
Pick a story idea
You can dig through your writing prompts for inspiration, base the story on things that have happened in your own life, get inspiration from a dream, or use an idea that you have already been thinking about for a long time. Write down notes on what will happen in the story, and what characters will be included.
Develop the plot.
Decide what is going to happen in your book. Even if one of your writing prompts led to a completed story this is still an important step! Think about the plot and make sure you include an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Introduction: Introduce your characters in a fun way.
Rising action: Think about challenges that your character has to face, and slowly make them larger and larger challenges as the story progresses.
Climax: This is where you want to include the most exciting part of the book and the most challenging thing for your character to overcome.
Falling action: Think of a good way to lower the tension and ease the reader towards the ending.
Resolution: Wrap your story up by showing your reader what happens to your characters after the story ends
Make changes
A lot of people think that the work is all done once they have written their book, but actually there is a lot more to writing than that! After you write your book, read it. I recommend reading it out loud to a friend or family member. That way you can make sure everything makes sense. If anything in your story is confusing, change it so that it makes more sense!
You might also notice that there are some parts of your book that seem a little bit boring, and you might want to add something interesting to spice it up! Or there might be part of your story that is too action packed and hard to follow, and you might want to add some more description and explanation.
Edit
When you’re happy with your story you can read it again and fix any mistakes you’ve made. Have a friend or family member read it too and ask them to circle spelling and grammar mistakes so that you can find them!
Decide if you want to publish
Did you know that you could be an author? All of the tools you need are online! You can publish your book, order printed copies, and sell your book online, and there’s no age limit! (The youngest author I know is only 5). You can decide if you want to publish your story, or if you just want to keep it for yourself, but either way printed copies for friends and family make a great gift! (and if you don’t want to publish you can print them right at home on your own printer and staple them together with a nice cover!)
If you think writing your own book sounds like a ton of fun check out my online classes!
In this class I will teach students how to plan, write, edit, and publish their own story. Each learner will be working at their own pace. Each week will include assigned writing time, and a recorded lesson on a different topic, which may be modified to reflect the learners’ progress. Learners will be expected to post their work in the classroom or by direct message to the teacher. They will peer review each others’ writing and will leave comments, suggestions, and edits for each other. Students are encouraged to join the class no matter what stage of the writing process they are in.
In this class we learn strategies to finish writing a story, how to edit your book, and how to publish your story. This class is perfect for students who already have part, most, or all of a book written, but are not sure what to do next. In the first five weeks we will learn writing exercises and strategies to help you finish your first draft of your story, modified content will be posted for students who already have a completed first draft. The next 6 weeks will cover how to edit your story. The last 5 weeks of the course will be all about getting your book ready for publication.
Training a goldfish is simple! You only need a few tools to get you started.
A feeding stick: this lets you deliver food anywhere in your goldfish’s tank.
Fish food: use this as a reward but be careful not to give too much!
It is really important to remember not to overfeed your goldfish so make sure that you work training into your feeding routine and only give your fish the amount of food recommended to keep them healthy.
Follow the Leader
A great first trick to teach your fish is to teach your fish to follow your training stick.
First put a small piece of food on your training stick and let your fish eat it.
Offer your fish food on your training stick again but this time move it very slowly away from your fish.
Practice each day moving the training stick more and more before your fish gets the food. Soon your fish will follow the training stick anywhere!
Obstacle course
A great trick to teach your fish once he/ she has clued into what the training stick means is to swim through an obstacle course.
You can use any fish safe objects that are clean and soap free, or simply move your fish tank plants around, to create obstacles for your fish to swim over or between.
Simply lead your fish through the obstacle course to complete the challenge.
Experiments by moving or adding obstacles.
Swim through a hoop
Teaching your fish to swim through a hoop is easier than it sounds! All you need is your trusty training stick, some food, and a hoop. You can buy kits to train this trick and more!
Place the hoop in your fish’s tank.
Watch your fish as he/ she checks out the hoop.
Wait until your fish swims through the hoop (if your fish isn’t interested in the hoop at all you can try and coax him/ her through with some food)
When your fish swims through the hoop give him/ her a treat.
Repeat each day!
Play with a ball
You can either purchase a kit to do this trick or use another lightweight ball, just make sure it is a safe material for your fish tank and it is clean without and soap on it.
Place the ball in your fish tank.
Give your fish a treat for touching the ball.
Next wait until your fish pushes the ball a little bit before giving a treat.
Each day wait until the fish pushes the ball farther before giving a treat.
Why do we expect our kids to be able to effectively operate the most complex piece of equipment identified on earth, the human brain, without at least knowing what parts do what? We spend a lot of time telling kids what to learn, and for some reason forget to teach them how they can learn.
Imagine a 16 year old getting into a car for the first time without knowing which pedal controlled the gas, and which controlled the brakes? That’s essentially what we’re doing to our kids by telling them to learn without telling them which parts of their brain do what.
Last February I was invited to speak about growth mindset at the Canadian Homeschool Conference. I chose to focus my talk on the importance of learning how to learn. Families choose homeschooling for several different reasons. One common reason is that their child learns differently.
The recording from the homeschool conference has now been released, and I have decided to share it for free on Youtube! Watch it below!
There have been several different learning schools that have revolutionized the way kids learn, such as Montessori, Reggio Emilia and the forest schools. The schools were built for kids who learn differently, and are meant to harness the brain’s natural way of learning. The challenge with these schools is that they require smaller class sizes which means that they are expensive. Because of this the government is likely not going to start running them as public education anytime soon. But there is another type of educational idea that has come out of those who learn differently. It’s called unschooling.
Unschooling recognizes that children are their own agents who are not only capable of learning but are also motivated to learn. Children don’t need a teacher, because life and play will teach them all of the lessons they need!
Taking the philosophy of unschooling into account, if we teach children how to work the mechanics of the organ between their ears we can give children their own agency! And maybe they will be able to come up with a better solution to learning than any of us adults have been able to figure out.
Today I’m writing about a modern day hero from the GTA.
When I was given an assignment in high school I worked on it until it’s due date, handed it in, patted myself on the back for my hard work and moved on. I never considered starting a homework assignment and continuing it past its due date… for eight years into the future!
Aiza’s Teddy Bear Foundation started as a grade 10 Civics assignment in 2013. She had been assigned a project in which she had to take action in her community. She saw this as an opportunity to start a charity.
Aiza has been motivated to make a difference ever since she was a child. She remembers witnessing a bunch of kids about her age lining up for scraps of stale bread and wondering why there were kids who didn’t have good food to eat. That was when she was only seven years old. When Aiza gave out her first Teddy Bear it was to a boy who was around 7 years old himself. His smile was so big! The boy had been fighting cancer for most of his life, and his mom pulled Aiza aside to thank her and let her know that he was the happiest she had seen him in a long time.
When I talked to Aiza about her charity and how it had started, she answered as if starting a charity was just an obvious and natural thing to do for a high school student. This incredible woman is a true local hero who is actively making the world a better place with her school supplies and teddy bear cuddles.
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