Are Your Preschoolers Ready For Kindergarten? Don't Wait Til They Get There To Find Out!

Wow! Kindergarten sure isn't the same thing as it was when I was a kid!  The half day sessions that oriented children to going to school filled with snack time, nap time and play time mixed in with some time spent on learning letters and numbers are a thing of the past.  My 6 year old twins are in Kindergarten this year at a local public elementary school which is now a full day filled with learning about reading, doing math, and completing science projects combined with art, music, gym and Spanish classes.  If your child doesn't know their ABCs and 123s they are starting out behind the curve.  It is a good thing the day care and preschool programs our kids were enrolled in alerted us about how Kindergarten has changed and assisted our children in becoming prepared or we probably would have been caught off guard; but fortunately when the time came our family was all set to go.  Are your preschoolers ready for Kindergarten? Don't wait til they get there to find out!

Nickelodeon has an online quiz you can take to see where your child ranks in being ready for Kindergarten and provides a customized learning plan, educational games, interactive video and printable activities to help get preschoolers ready for school.  The learning plan provided to parents will help ensure their preschoolers have the appropriate development skills necessary to be successful in school and its interactive and skill building activities will help kids meet necessary milestones.

CLICK HERE to TAKE THE QUIZ

The preparedness quiz is part of the 2015 Nick Jr. Beyond the Backpack campaign which is geared to help parents and caregivers prepare preschoolers for academic success.  The campaign's spokesperson is Tia Mowry-Hardrict, from the television show Instant Mom, who alongside popular Nickelodeon characters Dora, Wally and Blaze will be appearing in a PSA series airing across Nickelodeon's TV and digital platforms.  Beyond the preparedness quiz and PSAs, Beyond the Backpack features an advisory committee comprised of leaders in children's education who are lending their expertise to the program, a dedicated website, bilingual (English/Spanish) educational materials, and a parent-targeted mobile program providing weekly tips and information.  Nick Jr's Beyond the Backpack focuses on five key areas deemed critical to educational achievement: family engagement, health and wellness, early literacy, social and emotional development and fundamental STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills.  If you would like to opt-in to receive a weekly text message with tips to make learning more fun for your preschooler, text BACKPACK to 91757.

Originally founded in 2010 as part of the 10th anniversary of the curriculum-driven Dora the Explorer, the 2015 Beyond the Backpack campaign has expanded to include a broad range of educational and socio-emotional topics using a variety of the Nickelodeon's programs and characters, including Wallykazam! (literacy), Team Umizommi (math), Bubble Guppies (socio-emotional development), Peter Rabbit (problem-solving), PAW Patrol (social skills), and Blaze and the Monster Machines (STEM).

Are your preschoolers ready for Kindergarten?!  That time in life arrives much sooner than many of us parents realize it so don't get caught unprepared.  For more information, visit www.beyondthebackpack.com

Comic Book Aims to Help People Prepare for Emergencies

One of the challenges of preparing a community to be ready if an emergency strikes is educating them in advance with safety tips.  Unfortunately that is often easier said than done as the format many educational tips are provided in often doesn't connect with its audience.  Understanding that posters, film shorts, and pamphlets weren't getting the job done in educating kids about how to handle themselves if confronted with an earthquake or tsunami the Oregon Office of Emergency Management partnered with Dark Horse Comics to create Without Warning a 12 page comic book that tells the story of a high school student caught in an earthquake and illustrates how she gets back home safely by following her family's prearranged safety plan.

Without Warning written by Jeremy Barlow and Althea Rizzo with artwork by David Hahn incorporates safety tips into their story so readers are learning through their inclusion within the story rather than just having information thrown at them to be memorized.  It is hoped that by presenting realistic situations to readers they will have a greater comprehension of why these tips are important to follow in an emergency and will be more likely to retain that knowledge for future use if they encounter dangerous situations themselves.  Rizzo, who is the Geologic Hazards Coordinator for the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, hopes this comic book will help with educating kids.  "Most public education programs are not interesting to kids," she said in an interview with the online publication Comics Alliance. "This comic book allows us to reach a new audience not often targeted in existing preparedness materials."

Oregon residents can pickup FREE print copies of Without Warning through the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.  People can also download a digital version of the comic book from Dark Horse Comic's web site by CLICKING HERE.

 

There is some nice artwork in this comic book that shows Hahn devoted a great deal of time and effort into trying to make this project stand out.  The story also provides some decent tips with realistic scenarios.  The only negative about the publication is that it portrays the high school student Angie as an overachiever ready to go when an earthquake and tsunami strike her coastal town.  A high school student having a backpack with her filled with emergency supplies, including a rope used to lasso someone from a car trapped in a flooded road,  takes away from the realistic tone the authors are trying to set and seems awkward against the the comic's title Without Warning.  The comic book probably would be more influential if it portrayed a normal student who wasn't prepared in advance but used her family's emergency plan and remembered safety tips to get through the situation.  Despite that criticism it is applaudable to see some out-of-the-box thinking to help people get ready for dangerous situations.  We recently had flash floods in our community during the evening commute home that left Metro Detroit highways looking more like rivers for a few days putting thousands of people in peril in the blink of an eye.  Hurricanes in the South, Blizzards and Tornadoes in the Midwest.  Earthquakes and Tsunamis on the West Coast.  You never know what twist weather may throw your way so it is so important for people to be prepared.  So kudos to the Dark Horse Comics and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management for being creative in trying to help people understand the importance of being prepared through providing this #FREE comic book.  No matter where you live, I'd suggest you take a look at Without Warning because it is a nice teaching aid for an important topic.

#comicbooks #earthquake #safety