Outside and Online
Family Centered Innovative Education
June 2021
Outside and Online is SMART Family Literacy's parent newsletter.
SMART Family Literacy engages children, their parents and teachers, with innovative outdoor, indoor and online educational activities.
SMART = Science, Math, Art, Reading, and Technology
For more information, email SMARTFamilyLiteracy@gmail.com or text (409) 771-4155.
Science Spot!
Kids learn new vocabulary and gain understanding from hands-on activities. Summer science is especially fun outside, where it's easy to make a mess and easy to clean up. Pictured here are friends at the Spot Restaurant outside on the patio during a recent SMART Party. Kid-friendly food chemistry is available at your fingertips. Mixing baking soda and vinegar creates carbon dioxide bubbles and water in an acid-base chemical reaction. SMART will return to the Spot in September for another fun and free family night. Events will be posted at our Facebook page.
Emergency Backpack?
Prepare an emergency backpack for every family member (including the dog) with favorite snacks, hygiene supplies, non-perishable food, and a headlamp to keep your hands free during a power failure. How can you find out more? Join us online for "Quick Tips for Parents," June 1st from 7:30 to 8:00 pm. Register in advance https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtcOyuqTstGt1kmy0HpKpz8kTowU4wJGKz
Herbs and Harry
Go outside with SMART and take a June sensory tour of the herb and butterfly garden at 6901 Avenue P, Galveston. Lavender, rosemary, thyme, and cilantro are ready for kids to touch, smell, and nibble. Harry Potter, the dog, will give a dog-training demo and will eagerly fetch the ball for all. Free children's books for summer reading, free items for emergency backpacks, and free harvest of produce, as available for families with young children. RSVP for June 8th (morning 9 to 11 am) or June 15th (evening 6:30 to 7:30 pm) at SMARTFamilyLiteracy@gmail.com.
Online Summer FAMILY ART PARTY
It's about to be HOT! While you're chillin' in the AC, russle up some snacks, kick off your flip flops, pick up your drawing tools and gather the family for this online drawing class with Catherine Stroud, Artist-in-Residence at SMART Family Literacy. Online family art is FREE. Registration is required.
For Tuesdays at 11:00 AM (June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29), register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckce2trDMjE9XX52lusn0gGxEXQVoANUA6 For Thursdays at 5:30 pm (June 3, 10, 17, 24), register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtc-GtqTIoEtTYOpVw4u2VmfhaeftJx0c0
Grateful for Volunteers
SMART is thankful for volunteers who plant, paint, build, serve, and listen. Listening is an important communication skill. It's one of the best ways to say, "I love you" to a child. To develop advanced language skills and to build brain architecture, children need to be in conversations with both serve and return, talking and listening, like a ping pong match. Visit https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/serve-and-return/ for more information about brain architecture.
QR Codes
During the pandemic, the technology divide has widened. SMART utilizes any and all methods to communicate with famillies, including paper flyers with QR codes like the one pictured here. How does this work? Aim your smartphone camera at the QR code. It will cue you to go to the flowcode website link associated with this code. In this case, like magic, you should end up at www.SMARTFamilyLiteracy.org.
Caterpillar and Cilantro
The Texas freeze made life tough for many, including monarch butterflies. This caterpillar is appreciating the nearby butterfly garden with native swamp milkweed, lavender, and cilantro, seen flowering here. Other pollinators, including bees, are struggling and can use the favor of some extra zinnias wherever you can spare a bit of soil. Please teach children to be kind to small creatures. Here is a video to help. https://www.smartfamilyliteracy.org/bee-sing-video