Friday, August 28, 2015

Fun, Educational Items From Smithsonian Are Great For Kids


I recently received some excellent educational items from Smithsonian.  One was Young Explorers 50 States Fact Book & Floor Puzzle – a fun way to learn geography and appreciate historical tidbits about each state.  For instance,, on The Empire State, my home of New York, you learn the state’s flower is the rose and the state bird is the Eastern Bluebird. I guess naming a Pidgeon as your state bird wouldn’t look good.  Some famous New York-born greats include Norman Rockwell, FDR, and Jonas Salk.

Smithsonian Sticker Creations:Dinosaurs was fun for my seven-year-old daughter.  She created her own framed play scene with the use of five deluxe 3-D stickers.  175 reusable stickers is just what she needed.  A similar package, Under The Sea, also gave her hours of enjoyment.

There was some amazing photography, coupled with interesting facts, contained in a binder book, Smithsonian Discover: Earth, which filled my 10-year-old son’s brain with information on disasters, including wildfires, landslides, hurricanes, lightning strikes, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.

But my favorite thing was a nicely packaged box set of oversized, fact-filled cards called Smithsonian Everything You Need To Know.  It was for 2nd and 3rd-graders.  The 275 cards covered history, animals, outer space, dinosaurs, geography, human body, and US presidents.  The facts about presidents was very interesting.

I didn’t know that James Madison, the smallest American president, was all of 100 pounds and stood just five-foot-four.  But the weirdest factoid was that three of the first five US presidents died on the Fourth of July, and two – Jefferson and John Adams – died exactly on the same day – on our nation’s 50th birthday, July 4, 1826.  That would make a good book.  Was foul play involved – maybe suicide or murder?

Did you know it wasn’t until our eighth president, Martin Van Buren, that we had the first American-born citizen to be president?

Did you realize one president – William Harrison – only served 32 days – and was the first president to die in office?

Here’s something not spoken of often: Andrew Jackson was born into poverty and couldn’t read or write until his wife taught him how. This was another interestig fact contained in this package.

For summer fun – and a way to make learning outside the classroom appealing – these materials from Smithsonian are worth obtaining.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015



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