things to think about and do
Celebrate the 6th annual TECO Line Streetcar Fest with 5-cent streetcar rides all day, October 11, 9am-midnight! Ride historic and open-air streetcars, streetcar car barn tours, free kids’ activities outside The Florida Aquarium, $7 Yacht Starship bay tours & Ybor City Saturday Market.
Visit TECO Line Streetcar for more information.
If you are looking for a really excellent musical experience for your child, I recommend checking out Gulf Coast Youth Choirs. GCYC offers a number of graded choirs led by professional choral directors. The founder of the organization, Dr. Lynn Gackle, has wealth of experience and is internationally-recognized as a leader in the choral world. She has assembled a staff of highly qualified professionals who carry her vision through to each choir under their direction.
Singing in a choir is like no other musical experience. It’s like a team sport with aesthetics. You are all working together towards a common goal – communicating to an audience – and the combination of musical language and the poetry of the lyrics speaks like no other. Directors set high expectations and the choristers continually excel. GCYC is a great place to be.
Our Experience – We are in our second year with GCYC, and have great hopes for it being even better than the first. I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of the organization in many areas. As a professional musician myself, I was concerned with the rigor and depth of the program and am sufficiently pleased. The literature selection, coaching, management, care of young voices, attention to detail is all there. Our child enjoys singing and is encouraged week after week to improve and get deeper into the music. Her choir performed at Disney’s Magic Music Days last Spring and they are planning another tour for Spring 2009. As a chaperone for that trip, I was impressed with not only the organization, but the quality kids in this program. They are top notch. It was an absolute pleasure to accompany them on a trip.
If you are not sure if this is something your child would be interested in, I suggest taking them to a concert this year and consider it for next year. You can get more information on their website at http://gulfcoastchoir.com/
Food allergy is one of my “interests” whether I like it or not. Now, many websites exist with information on coping with this affliction. There is no cure or treatment – only avoidance and survival. Here are a couple of links for recommended reading:
Can’t find an answer? Post your question here!
Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, just a mom.
For kids aged 5-12, Home Depot offers its own brand of Kid Workshop on the first Saturday of each month. Saturday, September 6, 2008, kids will be constructing a paper football goalpost. Building begins at 9am, and goes until noon, or until supplies run out. Get there early to secure your spot and make sure your child has plenty of time to complete their project. Each child receives a kid-sized orange apron, an achievement pin, as well as their own newly-constructed project kit.
Check out the next project here!
Get your kids involved in home improvement at Lowe’s Build and Grow program. This is a free program for kids offered at your local Lowe’s store, usually on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month. Kids learn building skills, project safety, and get a boost of self-confidence when they discover that they really can build something themselves! Check it out and post your comments and reviews here!
Sign up now for September activities!
You can add us to the no-TV crowd. We moved our remaining television to the garage where it sits unplugged. We’ve moved a computer monitor into its place that we use for iTunes through the stereo and a digital photo album. This is really cool during parties. For example, we showed pictures from all of Elizabeth’s birthday parties at her party.
We still watch a lot of movies and subscribe to Netflix. Everyone in the house has a laptop that plays DVDs, so that’s not a problem. My husband still watches a lot of TV, but it’s out of sight from the kids on his computer (he has rabbit ears on it and also many networks put their shows on their websites now.)
Overall, though, this has seriously cut down on the amount of advertising coming into the house and unwanted television. Although I miss cooking shows, Discovery Channel and some other stuff, I can pretty much still find what I actually need and want, rather than passively absorb unnecessary, unwanted information.
I don’t think the kids miss it at all, and I certainly don’t.
If you need further convincing, visit http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/. This is an excellent resource packed with intelligent discourse about television.
A side benefit to all of this is that we don’t have a cable bill. It’s quite nice.
