Juggling: It’s Not Just About Multi-Tasking

Category : Backyard, Elementary, Family Room, Featured, Games, Outdoor Activities, Teens, Tweens

Tags: brain development, exercise, growth mindset, juggling, learning from mistakes

There are at least 8 reasons you should start throwing things.

1. Juggling boosts brain development. Research indicates that learning to juggle accelerates the growth of  neural connections related to memory, focus, movement, and vision. The beneficial changes persist even after weeks without practice.

2. Juggling is egalitarian. It doesn’t discriminate by age, size, gender, or athletic ability. A ten-year-old is as likely to be a fantastic juggler as anyone else, something not true of marathon running, boxing, or drag racing.

3. Juggling builds hand-eye coordination in ways that improve reaction time, reflexes, spatial awareness, strategic thinking, and concentration. This helps improve confidence as well as athletic ability. It may, if juggling enthusiasts are to be believed, even promote reading skills.

4. Juggling gets you moving enough to increase your oxygen intake, not so much that you sweat profusely.

5. Juggling can be stimulating as well as calming.  While learning more complicated juggling skills you rely on left-brain processes, carefully focusing and analyzing the steps. When practicing skills you’ve already mastered you rely on right-brained processes, relaxing into a more fluid, intuitive motion. To get the most out of juggling, make time for both.

6.  Juggling puts you in charge, since you can make it as easy or difficult as you choose. Start with three balls and master toss juggling. To amp up the challenge  increase the speed, add more balls, change patterns, or incorporate a bit of bounce juggling. You can also change props, learn trick juggling, try multi-person juggling, add comedic patter, heck, even hold a flaming torch in your mouth if you’re well insured.

7. Juggling teaches a growth mindset. You learn from mistakes, noticing how effort and increasing experience bring you ever greater mastery. As Dr. Dweck explains in the ground-breaking book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success , this approach is a vital formula for success in school, sports, business, and personal relationships. Might as well learn it while dropping the ball.

8. Juggling is ridiculously fun.

For more information, check out:

How to Juggle

Wildcat Jugglers

Internet Juggling Database

Juggling for the Complete Klutz

HOW TO JUGGLE & Other Cheap Tricks

Juggling Basics

Laura Grace Weldon is the author of Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything .  She lives on a small farm with her family and blogs optimistically.

Fitbit Ultra Is the Baby Bear’s Porridge: Just Right

Category : Household Gadgets and Reviews, Outdoor Activities, Technology

Tags: BodyMedia, diets, exercise, Fitbit, gadgets, health, mom gadgets, pedometer, Striiv

Image courtesy Fitbit

I didn’t break into the bears’ house, but I tried three different fitness monitoring devices this year and found the one that was just right.

I didn’t care for the BodyMedia, because it was uncomfortable to wear and offered no immediate visual feedback on your progress. I also found issue with the fact that they charged a subscription fee in order to use the deviec at all.  I did like that it monitored sleep and offered a way to log your calorie intake.

I liked the Striiv, because it was simple, fun, and motivating. I also liked that it didn’t require syncing, and it wasn’t uncomfortable to wear. Just put it in your pocket or purse, and you were good to go. However, it didn’t allow you to log calories or track weight loss, and there are no app tie-ins.

The Fitbit , priced at $99, offers a best of both worlds compromise. It’s pretty tiny and very comfortable to wear. You can clip it to your pocket or belt, or they suggest some women just wear it on their bra. It doesn’t specifically measure sweat or heart rate like the BodyMedia does, but it can tell the difference between regular foot steps and stairs, you can use it to track sleep, and it has a visual display for feedback when you need it. It also offers a lot of options for manually tracking weight, calories, and other health markers. They use a freemium model, where basic website services are free and advanced options are offered to paid subscribers.

Immediate Feedback

The Fitbit is simple. There’s only one button, and pushing it lights up the display and switches between modes. You can see your steps, your stairs, you calories, and a flower you can “grow” by increasing your activity during the day.  It’s not as fun as the Striiv’s many forms of motivation, but it’s enough to keep you motivated to move. You can combine it with apps for Android or iPhone to add badges and other motivators.

Syncing

The Fitbit charges through a USB base station, but a recharge lasts for several days. Once you install the desktop software (available for both Macs and Windows), you shouldn’t normally have to think about syncing. The Fitbit device automatically attempts to wirelessly sync every 15 minutes, and it will also sync when you recharge.

I had my Fitbit stop syncing once while testing it, and following the support instructions on the website, I uninstalled the desktop software and reset the device. It worked fine and didn’t lose any data.

Beyond Steps – Monitoring Sleep and More

In order to track your sleep, the Fitbit ships with a wrist band. You put the Fitbit in the wrist band, and then press down on the device’s button until the stopwatch appears (this stopwatch can be used to measure aerobic activity, too). Use the button to switch it out of sleep mode. What it measures is how quickly you settle to sleep and how much you stir in the night.  If you forget to put it into sleep mode or turn it off, you can manually enter your sleep stop and start times on the Fitbit website.

Screen Capture

The Fitbit website offers a lot of value even to the free user. It tracks weight and allows historical entries. I hate apps that insist you only started dieting the moment you started using their program. You can also manually track BMI, body measurements, glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate. If you want to track something not listed – cups of coffee, push-ups, or swear words for example, you can make a custom tracker to log the data.

If you buy a premium account, it’s $49 per year and offers you enhanced reports and comparisons with your peers. It also offers a virtual trainer and the ability to export your data in spreadsheet formats.

Syncing – Other Apps and Devices

The Fitbit allows you to sync with the Withings WiFi Body Scale , which means you could weigh yourself in the morning and save the step of needing to write it down. Fitbit has an import wizard that will pull in historical data on this as well.  Fitbit is also coming out with their own WiFi scale called the Aria, which will track BMI as well as weight.

You can also sync your Fitbit account with a wide variety of free and premium mobile apps and websites, including Microsoft Health Vault, My Fitness Pal, Lose It!, Endomondo, and more. That means you can still use many of your favorite apps to log your calorie intake while using Fitbit to track your activity levels. You can also unlock new and interesting ways to get motivated by combining apps that aren’t traditionally considered diet or exercise apps. You can even link it to your Foursquare account!

This year has definitely seen a coming of age for health apps and gadgets. Engineers have also started to find a sense of fun. I can’t wait to see what other devices are around the corner.  Full disclosure: Fitbit provided me with a sample device for the purposes of this review.

Review: The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli

Category : Books, Books for Mom, Education, Health and Beauty, Kitchen, Library, Outdoor Activities, The Web, Uncategorized

Tags: carnivore, deer, environmental, hunting, sustainable, vegan, vegetarian

The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli

I am a deer hunter. Before you dismiss me as a redneck country bumpkin however, let me say that I was born and raised in the city and have two college degrees under my belt. I am more than a little scared of cows (they are just so big!) and I hate being in the woods by myself after dark.  I was not raised a hunter and I even surprised myself when I took it up. After all, I was the kid that would catch roly poly’s and put them out of harm’s way. But what appealed to me about hunting was that I would know where our meat was coming from. With all the news stories about contaminated food, I was ready to move away from grocery store meat and move towards “buying” local or rather harvesting local.

I have found a kindred spirit with Tovar Cerulli and his new book, The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance . Tovar takes us on his own journey from vegetarian to hunter. Along the way he discovers things about himself and how he views his place in the world. Tovar starts his journey as your typical child, fishing with his family and not giving much thought to where his food comes from. As a young adult, he turns to vegetarianism and eventually veganism as a matter of principal. As he begins to have health problems, however, he delves further into his personal choices and their consequences. He begins to realize that being a vegetarian has it’s own kind of  physical and environmental impact. He also begins to realize how far removed we are as a culture from nature and true farming and hunting.

Tovar’s is a journey I myself have been on to an extent. I have never been a vegetarian but once my kids were born I began to seriously question where our food was coming from and by what methods. At that point, I decided I would rather hunt for our meat than buy it at the store. I know the deer I hunt have lived a a life free of fences and overcrowding. I know in general what they eat.  I do not enjoy killing animals. Yes, I am taking an animals life and I am hyper aware of this. It affects me every time and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t take a shot unless I know it will be a good one. Like Tovar, I have a deep respect for that animal that has given it’s life to feed my family.

This book explores in depth the issues surrounding our perceptions of how we feed ourselves, how we view nature, and where hunting fits in. Regardless if you are an omnivore, carnivore, herbivore, or some variation of the three, this book will make you think about your choices and your impacts on the planet. And maybe, just maybe, it will change the way you see food.

A copy of this book was provided for review.

Jennifer D. is a married mother of two, one still in diapers.  She is a Speech Language Pathologist who is taking time off to raise her kiddos.  She became a geek that fateful day in the 70's when she first saw Star Wars and loves all things sci fi.

A Sampling of Toy Fair 2012

Category : Backyard, Family Room, Toys, Travel

I just got back from my first trip to Toy Fair in New York, which must be the most fun trade show ever. I’ll be processing the overload of info I gathered in just one day for some time to come, but here’s a peek at some of the items that caught my eye.

1. Shirtless Kirk cologne for men

Who wouldn’t want their man to smell like a Star Fleet officer? This line of Star Trek  fragrances from Jads International also comes in “Sulu” for those of the Takei persuasion.

2. Crystal Animator

Last year GeekMom raved about the cool “moving picture toys” from Eye Think. This year they had something new — but for me, it was a little bit of nostalgia. When I was little, we had a vinyl record that came with a mirrored insert which fit over the spindle. On the label were printed images, and when the disk began to turn, you could see the figure in the image jump up and down. The Crystal Animator looks very much like my old record player toy, but to turn it you spin the stick it’s mounted on with your hands. The build-it-yourself toy comes with 18 different animated strips. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can even make your own!

3. SketRobo

This little guy from TOSY Robotics bears a strong resemblance to the automaton from the recent movie Hugo. He’s programmed to draw several different images, using any type of pen. But a representative from the company told me when he hits the market in 2013, he will also be able to draw images he “sees” using a built-in camera. Too cool!

4. Nanodots

Magnetic building toys are highly addictive. Although billed for 14 and up, these Nanodots are easy to use (as long as you trust your child not to swallow them or pinch their fingers — I did notice that everyone in the booth had bruised fingertips). This space shuttle, like the other impressive sculptures on display, was built by the staff the day before.

5. Pirate chatting up an American Girl

I have no idea what these two had in common to talk about, but I couldn’t resist getting a shot. Just one of the unusual sights at Toy Fair this year!