Play Hard, Eat Healthy, Sleep Well:3 Ways to Help Your Children in School & Life

If you really want to help your kids excel in school, it's relatively easy: Run with them, feed them well and pack them off to bed.

That's according to a couple studies reported in Reader's Digest that are gaining renewed attention in scientific communities. Exercise, good nutrition and proper sleep may be more important that homework, flash cards and praise for trying hard.

Play More Often

The simple truth is that healthy bodies lead to healthy brains, and healthy brains are better prepared to learn. Rather than adding to your stress and theirs about getting top grades or completing homework assignments, encourage your children to go outside and play. Sign the kids up for a sports team, implement a family run before dinner or go bicycling with them twice a week.

The authors of "The Winner's Brain," neuroscientist Mark Fenske and Harvard Medical School cognitive-behavioral psychologist Jeff Brown, contend that exercise stimulates blood flow to the brain and releases a brain protein which leads to growth of new brain cells. Brain scans show that the areas of the brain which deal with cognitive control and relational memory are larger in children with higher fitness levels.

Require after-school active playtime rather than after-school homework. As little as 90 minutes a week of exercise can lead to an improvement in math, reading and spelling, the American College of Sports Medicine found.

Eat Real Food

Take the children grocery shopping with you, and instead of reading labels, make a game of picking fresh vegetables. Plant a backyard garden, and let the kids pull weeds, water and pick the harvest. Insist that even young children help prepare dinner. When your older children opt for fresh fish and healthy snacks, you’ll deserve the high grades for teaching them well and keeping them fit.

Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, whole grains, nuts, beneficial fats and lower levels of sugar fuel the body and the brain. "Eating properly can also boost your child’s ability to resist distraction, avoid emotional outbursts and otherwise regulate behavior," Fenske wrote in The Globe and Mail. You will also teach them respect for the producers of food, decrease your family’s reliance on processed foods and empty calories and increase family interaction.

Sleep Well, Relax

Insist on an "early to bed, early to rise" routine that will have them up and ready to go to school each morning. Kids may rebel at first, but enforcing strict bedtimes during the school week goes a long way toward improving grades. "Morning people” also consistently score higher on motivation scales.

Continue to encourage empathy, good citizenship and school spirit. We all want our children to be honest, respectful and aware of the feelings of others, and one good way to foster this is to encourage your children’s concern for teachers and classmates. Send get-well flowers or a homemade card if a teacher is out because of illness, and encourage them to stick up for the underdog at school.

Then, try to relax regarding their progress and their grades. Let them experience the joy of being children more than the stress of being students.

      

What do you think of when you hear the word "Beauty"?

Welcome to my special October content series: 31 Days of Beauty, Inside & Out!!  I am jumping into this post series somewhat last minute and throwing caution to the wind to participate with Nesting Place for the 31 Days Challenge.

Beauty is a word that has a lot of different meanings and interpretations.  We hear and see this word often, daily even, in catchy phrases, in subtle messages and deep in our expectations of ourselves.  

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "Beauty is only skin deep", "Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes" - these are some of the many common phrases that come to mind when I think about beauty.

Over the next 31 days I invite you to come with me on a journey to define beauty for yourself - that is what I am committing to.  A new sense of what beauty means to me.  I'll be sharing some of my struggles with beauty, playing with makeup looks and even attempting to share my sense of style as I am still defining what that is.  

      

Preserve Children's Artwork with Keepy

Thank you to Keepy for partnering with me on this post.  I wasn't paid to write this post, but I did score some extra keepies!

There is something quite magical that happens when my daughter expresses her creativity through art.  At almost three and a half, she has made countless drawings, craft projects and doodles - some of which have fun stories attached to them, others which are just a part of her expressing herself through some form of art.  Knowing that this trend is only going to continue both delights me and burdens me.  

Why the burden?  Well, it comes to the question of what to do with all of these creations!  Sure, I know how to display them for us to enjoy - in fact, you should check out some of the ideas I've pinned on Pinterest for displaying kids artwork.  But what about saving your kids artwork?  I mean most of us don't want to keep boxes and boxes of these items sitting around.  I believe I have finally found the solution!

Before I begin telling you about this really cool solution - go and grab your iPhone or iPad (don't worry Android users - your fix is coming very very soon) because I know you are going to want to download and install the keepy app when you learn what it is all about!  Ready?  Okay!

I was introduced to keepy at the Fashion Forward conference in New York City a few weeks ago.  I've been using it tons ever since!  So, what is keepy!?  Keepy is an app that lets you save and share your kids' creations, accomplishments and moments in a private and interactive timeline!  

So lets talk about how it all works, because honestly, seeing it in action is what convinced me that this is 100% an app that all parents need to download!  (And grandparents, and uncles and aunties too!)  You start by setting up profiles for each of your children to create their own timelines: (This would be a great time to download the keepy app so you can follow along below-the app's built-in-tutorial will guide you through it as well!)

After you set up a profile you can being posting on your child's timeline.  When I first downloaded the app, I had a blast emptying bins that stored months of artwork and projects we had created over the past year or so.  It is so simple, just take a picture of the artwork, crop it if you'd like, use photo enhancing features if you desire and even add your child's own narrative about the artwork.

Something magical happens when you can not only see the painting or doodle, but actually hear your child's voice describing what the creation is all about.  Not only do you capture that artwork or memento that your child loved, you get to capture a moment in time to save forever.  And if you choose to skip the audio narrative, you can instead choose to take a video clip/comment and attach it to the specific keepy.

Of course, the brilliance of the keepy app doesn't end here!  You could totally just keep your keepies to yourself, or you can invite family members to become "fans" of your child.  When a family member becomes a fan, not only can they view your child's special keepies, they can add their own video comments telling your child how beautiful their artwork is, and providing positive encouragement or telling your child how proud they are of an accomplishment you posted.  You can also share your child's keepies directly to Facebook, Twitter, Email or Text messaging.  

Now that I have keepy we only keep a few of Zion's art pieces on display, and after new ones are added, the old ones are "retired" to keepy where they can be loved and remembered well into the future.  I no longer have boxes filled with Zion's creations or the guilty feeling when tossing them into the trash, and Zion loves to be able to tell the story behind the art.  There is so much potential for what we can do with keepy going forward!  And I forgot to mention that you can (and should) link your keepy account to your Dropbox account for the added peace of mind that these timeless treasures will be safely stored indefinitely!

The keepy app is free to download, and your initial download comes with 50 free keepies.  After you use those up, you can purchase more for a nominal fee.  To put that in perspective, even after a year of save-worthy artwork creations uploaded we've only used 23 keepies.  To buy an additional 60, it will cost me less than my regular drink at Starbucks.  You can also score 5 free keepies for every friend that signs up and uploads at least one keepy! (They get 5 additional free too!)

Visit Keepy now to see a really cute video about the app and learn more!  You can also follow Keepy on social media: Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest

Are you as excited about this app as I am!?  Let me know what you would store with keepy in the comments below!

      

Hawaiian Islands Vacation / Oahu Day 3

 We woke up on our third day in Oahu ready for a day of relaxation and family fun at the beach.  We got out to the lagoon early enough to snag a good seat under a grass umbrella so we would have plenty of chance to slip into the shade.  We brought along sand toys, a kite and some fresh papaya.

 Zion had so much fun flying her first kite.  I was pleased with my decision to grab this $1 kite from the dollar spot at Target in the days leading up to our trip.  There was never a dull moment in our time at the beach, from building sand walls to snorkeling to relaxing and taking in the scenery - its incredible the amount of activities you can come up with as a family when you are on vacation.

 Before we left the beach, we rented a water hammock and floated around for a bit.  Have you ever tried one of these?  Zion was a little unsure at first, but in no time she was loving being out in the ocean with Jerry and I.  She even bravely jumped off the side in her life jacket once.

 After lunch and naps and picking up our rental car, we ventured toward the windward side of the island to Bayview Mini Putt & Zip Line.  Jerry and I had been talking about playing mini golf for months (I have never been) and I was determined to make it happen in Hawaii.  We chose Bayview because of their boast about being the only zip line in Oahu and thinking it might be fun to go ziplining for the first time as well.

Though the Zipline was short and sweet, it was great for our first time.  I definitely want to do more Ziplining!  It is a huge rush.  Zion loved seeing each of us zoom down as well.  Afterwards, Jerry taught Zion how to putt while I fumbled my way through the course.  I had no idea mini golf was so fun!  Unfortunately for me, our fun was cut short by the infestation of mosquitos at this course - in an hour I got about 15 bites and they gave me huge welts all over my legs!

We made it through about 15 holes before giving in to the mosquitos.  After that we were hungry (and I was itchy) so we asked the staff at Bayview for local food recommendations.  We ended up heading to a burger joint called Teddy's Bigger Burger - and were happy we did.  I chose the Kaneohe burger which was super tasty, along with parmesan garlic fries and an obligatory chocolate peanut butter milkshake.

More of our Hawaii Vacation:

Oahu Day 2

Oahu Day 1

A Tour of Our Ko Olina Resort

Trip Itinerary