Learning to Read Means Learning English is Dumb

Posted on November 29, 2011 by TheDaddy

As your youngster learns how to talk, you’ll notice that there are several little things about English that don’t really make sense. The irregular verbs come to mind. Many children end up saying "go-ed" instead of went and my own frequently says will’nt in place of won’t. But, nothing prepares you for just how stupid the English language is until your child starts reading and writing.

We all know about silent letters, in particular the silent K at the front of some words, but it goes way beyond that. Some silent letters have purposes after all; for example, the silent E at the end of many words makes the preceding vowel take the long sound, which makes perfect sense. However, English is filled with nonsensical letters, words and sounds.

For starters, what exactly, is the purpose of the letter C?

The sounds it makes are already covered by other letters, namely S and K.

Cake is two K sounds. Why is one of them a C and the other a K?

Why does G need to make a j sound if there is already a letter J?

Garage has the letter G make both the g-uh sound and the j-uh sound in the SAME WORD!

Face and case make exactly the same sound except for one of them has a C for that S sound in the middle and the other has a C. How does that make any sense whatsoever? And, just for fun, that K sound in case is brought to you by a C instead of a K.

Fruit and Food have very similar "oo" sounds, and yet one is UI and one is OO. That wouldn’t be so bad except that OO sometimes makes the "oo" sound like in You (which uses OU instead of anything that makes sense. Oh, and by the way, OU usually makes an "ow" sound instead, so why in the world does it take the "oo" sound here?) Of course, OO also takes the "uyh" sound like in book and hook.

Of course, your child will eventually learn all of the inane exceptions, double sounds, nonsense lettering and more that compose the English language. However, in the meantime, good parenting requires you to remind your child that this is NOT a lack of understanding on their part, nor are they not trying hard enough. These quirks can sap the confidence of young readers, especially if they start to feel like they are doing well and the run into a pile of these bizarre spellings in a row.

Remind your child that the words they are reading don’t follow any patterns. Be sure to use their language. Tell them, "Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense, but that word is actually TOWN even though it is just the word OWN with a T on the front."

By reminding your young reader that what they are tripping up on is a glitch or quirk in the language and not something that they should be able to figure out, you save their confidence and continue to encourage their reading development. Above all, never correct harshly, especially when the error is in the language, not your child’s understanding of the sounds of letters and letter combinations.

Finally, remember that you’ll go through this again soon when your child graduates from reading letters and sounding out words and moves on to putting words together into sentences. There are dozens of grammar rules that make just as little sense as the letter C does.

Dumb English Words and Sounds

Here are just some of the idiotic words and sounds that make learning reading and sounding out words difficult for beginning readers.

  • there, their, they’re and your, you’re
  • town, gown, frown, down, towel BUT round, ground, loud (all "ow" sound)
  • ow = "ow" BUT own = "oh-n" BUT town = "t-ow-n" (ow or oh, not both)
  • book, look, hook BUT food, school, tool

There are tons more. As I remember them, or my poor kiddo runs across more, I’ll try and update this list.

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Denver Zoo Lights 2011

Posted on November 27, 2011 by TheDaddy

Every year, the Denver Zoo put up tons of Christmas lights and stays open late for visitors who follow lit paths through the zoo looking at the array of lights. This zoo event is called Zoo Lights. The 2011 Denver Zoo Lights event runs from December 9th through January 1st, 2012. Denver Zoo Lights 2011 hours are 5:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. Regular winter zoo hours are in effect for the days before the lights which are from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. However, the admissions gate closes at 4:00 p.m. so you have to already be in the zoo by 4:00.

For Denver Zoo members, there is a special Zoo Lights preview weekend November 25 – 27 with hours from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The member’s preview weekend includes a Santa Claus in attendance each night, fire dancers and ice carving.

Denver Zoo Christmas Lights 2011

Denver Zoo LightsThe 2011 Denver Zoo Lights offering includes over 150 animal lighting displays. Many of these animal lights are “animated.” The animation is created by having a full lighting display of the animals in several positions, but only illuminating one part of the display at a time. The effect is seeing an empty spider web, then an insect approaching, getting caught in the web and finally, the spider moving toward it’s prey.

Other animated lighting displays include a fish shooting water at a dragon fly, a wolf chasing a deer, prancing gazelles, elephants spraying water, and a fox playing with his mother by running through a log.

The zoo puts up some special concession treats during Zoo Lights as well. There is hot cocoa, hot apple cider, caramel apples and kettle corn. Standard zoo treats like cotton candy and sodas are also on sale. This year, if you buy a 2011 Denver Zoo Lights souvenir hot chocolate cup or hot cider cut, you get unlimited refills during the entire run of zoo lights.

2011 Denver Zoo Lights Tickets

Tickets for Zoo Lights are $9 for adults (age 12 to 64), $5 for children (age 3 to 11) and $7 for seniors (65+). Zoo members, however, get a two dollar zoo lights discount on their purchases, making tickets $7, $3 and $5 respectively.

Denver Zoo Lights coupons are not available, however, there are a couple of ways to get discounted Zoo Lights tickets. First, bring a canned food donation and get $1 off of admission. Also, you can get a discount on admission for groups of 10 or larger. However, you need to purchase your tickets in advance to get the group tickets rate.

If you are hoping for a Denver Zoo free day during zoo lights, sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. All the 2011 Denver Zoo free days have passed for this year.

The lines for buying zoo lights tickets can get long, especially if you go close to Christmas or on certain weekend nights. The special smart parenting tip is to skip those long lines by buying your tickets in advance, which you can do on the Denver Zoo website. Print out your tickets and bring them to the zoo, then skip the line near the front where people are buying tickets and head straight to the gates. A ticket taker will scan your printed barcode.

You do not have to exchange your online ticket print outs for admission tickets at the ticket sales booths.

Looking for other fun things to do with kids in Denver?

Zoo Lights Tips

  1. Buy your tickets online. Skipping the buying lines means less waiting and more seeing.
  2. It gets cold after the sun goes down. Come prepared for a chilly night and possible winds, even if the daytime was sunny and warm. Gloves are a must and hats will be appreciated on many nights.
  3. There are bathrooms by the entrance, but also in the Giraffe House. Don’t count on using the bathrooms back by the monkeys, the trail usually ends before you get there.
  4. In years past, the Zoo has had the train and carrousel rides open during zoo lights. The train ride is not long, so don’t wait in a huge line. The carrousel holds more people than it looks like, so the line moves quickly.

Come dressed warmly and with some snacks and hot drinks and you’ll have a great time at zoo lights with the whole family.

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BPA Dangers for Pregnant Women

Posted on October 24, 2011 by TheDaddy

Yet another study suggests that BPA is dangerous for kids and pregnant mothers.

The plastics industry is quick to roll out the same arguments that the tabacco industry used for years. This study doesn’t count for some reason. The results are inconclusive. Blah, blah, blah.

What they are desperately hoping to distract everyone from is that this is NOT the first study to suggest health problems arising from using BPA in food and drink containers. In fact, this is yet another study in a long line of studies that have shown a potential link to health issues, including cancer, from using BPA in plastics. These studies have led most other first world countries to ban the use of BPA in food and drink containers.

Parents should avoid using baby bottles, sippy cups and dishes that have BPA. Since the government won’t require manufacturers to disclose when BPA is used in manufacturing plastics, customers have no choice but to refuse to purchase any plastics not clearly marked BPA Free.

 

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Baby Intercom Good Idea?

Posted on September 10, 2011 by TheDaddy

So, a new dad to be is chatting with some guys who are already dads, some newer dads and some older dads when he brings up the idea of a baby monitor with built-in intercom instead of a high-quality video baby monitor. As he sees it, he can talk to the baby and provide some reassurance from another part of the house, thus making the baby feel better, and maybe even fall back asleep.

The conversation goes from the older dads saying that they never had anything like that when their kids were infants, to newer dads saying debating whether or not they could or would use such a thing.

Finally, I brought up a point that I think was getting overlooked.

“Do you think that your child is more or less likely to get escalated and insist on seeing you and being held when he hears your voice but can’t find you?”

The conversation turned around quickly with all the dads concluding that a baby that hears your voice will insist on seeing you and the intercom thing might actually scare an infant who doesn’t understand how Mom or Dad can be there, without being there.

The dad to be wasn’t so sure. In his mind a soothing, albeit electronic sounding, lullaby from afar might be just the thing to soothe an infant back to sleep or relaxation.

As any dad will tell you, the key to keeping a baby by themselves, whether in a crib or just playing in a room is to keep them from seeing you, because as soon as they notice you, they will notice you leaving or notice that you are not holding them or otherwise being with them. This goes true for hearing you as well.

Before you buy an intercom baby monitor, test out the concept. Say a few words to your baby from outside the room and see if your toddler calms down or insists on an appearance. Then, save yourself the money and by a one-way baby monitor with a video screen instead.

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Is Once Upon a Child Worth It?

Posted on August 25, 2011 by TheDaddy

Like most parents, we have tons of used baby clothing and used toddler clothes that are in excellent condition. Since babies and toddlers grow so fast, unless the clothing gets stained, it almost always ends up in good condition since they outgrow them before they can wear them out.

Tax Deduction for Donating Baby Clothes

There are a lot of ways to get some money for used children’s clothing. The simplest is to donate clothing to a charitable organization. Any IRS 503(c)(b) non-profit organization will do. Unless you have your deduction limited for some reason, you can deduct the "value" of donated clothing from your income taxes.

used-baby-clothesIf you are in the 30 percent tax bracket, for example, your taxes are basically reduced by $3 for every $10 of clothing you donate. (This is overly simplified, but it works to give an approximate idea.) When it comes to valuing the clothes for a tax deduction, there are a lot of rules, but the one most people use is to deduct the "thrift-shop value" of the clothing, which is essentially what you would pay to buy the same item from a thrift shop. Some charitable organizations like Goodwill and Salvation Army have approximate values for common items posted on their websites. TurboTax also includes an estimated value if you do your income taxes with TurboTax.

It might not sound like much, but figure if you count every shirt you donate at just $2, and you donate 50 shirts, that works out to $100 and a savings of $30 on your taxes. Not bad for putting everything in a box and hauling it down to the donation center.

Selling Baby and Toddler Clothes as Garage Sale

Another way to get money for your used kids’ clothing is to hold a garage sale. In this case, if you sold 50 shirts for $1 each, you would get $50. If you could get $2 a piece, you would get $100.

The catch is that there are a lot of people selling a lot of children’s clothing at a lot of garage sales. In other words, how much baby clothing you can sell depends on how many buyers show up willing and able to buy. Generally to attract much traffic to a garage sale, you need more than just a pile of baby clothes, so unless you have other stuff to round out your garage sale, this might not be the way to go.

Children’s Clothing Consignment Shops and Once Upon a Child

Generally, a consignment shop takes your stuff and tries to sell it. They keep a percentage, often half, and you get the rest. Since a consignment shop doesn’t want merchandise piling up, and only makes a profit when items sell within a reasonable time, many of them mark items down as time goes by. Your percentage remains the same, but the selling value drops.

This model does not necessarily lend itself to clothing since the items aren’t sold for a high enough dollar amount to warrant all of the tracking necessary. Thus, used clothing consignment stores will often just buy the clothes directly from you.

Once Upon a Child is one such children’s second hand store. You take in your children’s clothing, and other items, and they make you an offer. Is Once Upon a Child worth it?

Here is the deal. Used clothing is one thing. Quality used clothing is another. While it is obvious that clothes such be in good condition and without stains or tears, they also need to be brand name. Clothing from Carter’s and Jumping Beans, for example, may draw an offer. Anything from a department store or off-brand catalog or whatever, will not.

I took several boxes of neatly folded clothing, totaling well over 100 pieces, and my Once Upon a Child store offered to buy only 22 of them for a grand total of just over $27.

If you are going to sell your clothes to Once Upon a Child or other child second-hand clothing store, here are some tips.

  1. Take Small Amounts – Don’t take a huge lot all at once. This isn’t a good way to clean out your basement, it is a good way to clean out your drawers.  It takes a while to go through and you lose count of what you are selling and at what price. In my example above, I got just over $1 for each piece. Is that a good deal? Considering I already tried a garage sale and plan to donate the rest, it’s better than nothing, but with such a huge load, I lost control over saying yes or no to specific pieces.
  2. Separate Your Brand Names - The Once Upon a Child website list their "preferred" brand names. Start by taking in just the clothing you have that matches that list. This maximizes the chances of you getting an offer on most of it. If you want to throw in a few extra pieces just to see what happens, go ahead.
  3. Don’t Expect Much – A dollar for a piece of baby clothes or for toddler clothes isn’t a lot. Of course, you won’t get much more donating or selling on your own, either. The good news is you can always say no.
  4. Check What Is For Sale First – You get a 20 percent bonus on the amount offered if you take store credit instead of a check. That is only a good deal if you already want to buy. Forcing yourself to buy things just to take advantage of store credit doesn’t make sense when you can get cash. Only take the store credit if you know there are things to buy.
  5. Don’t Bother Without Brand Names - The way the OUC business works is that they buy brand name clothing that they can resell for used, but brand name prices. I saw long sleeve Jumping Beans shirts on sale for $7.50. That comes out to just under half the typical online retail price of $16 and even less than what you would pay at full-price in a store. That math doesn’t work for baby clothes that you bought for $3.50 on sale at Target.

Is It Worth Selling Kid’s Clothes to Once Upon a Child?

I don’t mean to single out Once Upon a Child here. It just happens to be the place I went. I assume that most other kid’s consignment shops work similarly. However, I think the key is to determine whether you would get more value out of the tax deduction than out of the second hand sale.

For example, if you are in the 30 percent tax bracket, and a nice sweater provides a $5.00 deduction, then you are netting $1.50 off your income taxes. If OUC or whoever is only offering a dollar, then you are losing money.

On the other hand, they cut you a check immediately, whereas you’ll have to wait until you file your taxes to reap the benefit of the donation.

If you want cash now, Once Upon a Child is a decent alternative.

If you can never rack up enough tax deductions, consider donating the clothing and taking the tax deduction instead.

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