Diane Albanese’s Musings

Summer is the perfect time for families to pull out a good book and read together. Be sure to pack a big bag of books from the library to take wherever you go. It has been discovered that reading to young children is one of the most important things that can be done to stimulate their growth in school. When they hear language they expand their vocabulary and understanding of semantics and structure. Besides, everyone loves to hear a good tale.

What to read? Librarians know best so here are their recommendations for the hottest books of the summer according to the American Library Association.

The Caldecott Medal originated to honor the nineteenth century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. Each year the ALA gives these awards to the artist of the most distinguished picture book for children.

The 2009 Medal Winner is The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes, written by Susan Marie Swanson (Houghton Mifflin Company).

The ALA describes this book: richly detailed black-and-white scratchboard illustrations expand this timeless bedtime verse, offering reassurance to young children that there is always light in the darkness. Krommes’ elegant line, illuminated with touches of golden watercolor, evoke the warmth and comfort of home and family, as well as the joys of exploring the wider world.

The 2009 Caldecott Honor Books are listed here with annotations from the ALA.

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, written and illustrated by Marla Frazee (Harcourt, Inc.)

In lively, detailed, subtly retro cartoons, Frazee gently pokes fun at adult expectations and captures the unbounded joy of two friends experiencing a parent-free summer adventure.

How I Learned Geography, written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz (Farrar Straus Giroux)

Recounting memories of his family’s flight from the Warsaw Blitz and his years as a refugee during World War II, Shulevitz employs watercolor and ink to depict a boy liberated from his dreary existence through flights of fancy inspired by the map his father buys in the village market.

A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, written by Jen Bryant (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)

Sweet’s mixed-media collage and primitive watercolors flow seamlessly with Bryant’s prose to reveal the important bits and pieces of Williams’ ordinary, yet extraordinary, life as a doctor and poet.

Another award that will make you want to run to your library or local bookstore is the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award that is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.   The winner(s), recognized for their literary and artistic achievements that demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading, receives a bronze medal.  Ted Geisel is also known as Dr. Seuss.

The 2008 Medal winner is There Is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems (Hyperion)

Honor books include

First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)
Hello, Bumblebee Bat, written by Darrin Lunde, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne (Charlesbridge)
Jazz Baby, written by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Harcourt)
Vulture View, written by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins (Holt).

Enjoy summer reading and know that you are helping your child develop healthy habits for years to come.

Maybe July 4^th is unlike any other holiday. It’s as if the calendar pauses in the middle of the year and we are in summer and we are at the beach and we can all stop and play.

Families are together again. July 4^th is the time for picnics and barbeques, family reunions and vacations together. Just a big pause from the hectic, ridiculous pace of life and a time to stop work for at least a weekend. A time to rest, relax, refresh with the kids, aunt and uncles and grandparents. Time to play.

This is the time of year that badminton and croquet sets emerge from dusty garage shelves. Lawns are dotted with colorful mallets that are meant to hit wooden balls through strategically placed hoops.

Croquet is played competitively and in the official game one side takes the black and blue balls and the other takes the yellow and red. In the United States there are specific rules for the game of croquet including variations that include mondo croquet, extreme croquet and bicycle croquet. This game is widely believed to be viciously competitive according to a Wikipedia article but when playing with children hopefully everyone will behave!

Badminton is a court game that lacks the rigor or dignity of tennis. It is played competitively but most people are recreational players either on turf or at the beach. This simple game allows totally unskilled people to hit a birdie, also known as a shuttlecock from side to side over a net. This can be played as singles or doubles with the object being never to let the shuttlecock hit the ground.

Another recently popular sport is beach tennis. This game takes the fast pace of tennis and combines it with the sun, sea and sand of the beach. It is played competitively also but most of the time non-athletes of all ages can be seen using tennis racquets to volley a slightly depressurized tennis ball back and forth over a net without letting it bounce on the sand. Points are scored when your opponent hits the ball outside the lines or you fail to lob it back.

Beach volleyball has enjoyed a significant rise in popularity and can be seen being played up and down the Rehoboth coastline. At the highest level, beach volleyball is an art form. Who can forget the Olympic teams that competed last summer in Bejing? Such agility, grace and teamwork! But beach volleyball can also be a fabulous multigenerational game that includes children, teens and adults. The Rehoboth Recreation department has nets set up for everyone to enjoy.

Many stores along the boardwalk sell paddles for paddle ball. The tiny black rubber ball is tossed back and forth by hitting it with a paddle. This game is especially good for families because it requires little skill and keeps active children engaged in for hours.

Cape Henlopen is lacrosse country. Just consider the Cape Henlopen women’s team and their shiny new State Championship trophy! In order for my list of games to be complete, I must mention that I have observed many girls and boys with lacrosse sticks in their hands at the beach tossing around a lacrosse ball. Maybe they will invent beach lacrosse? Maybe that is why Cape lacrosse players are so fierce!

Getting a tan, playing some games, having some fun together: that’s what a holiday is all about.

We are beach people. Those teachers who are lucky enough to live in or near a resort coastal town probably got there because of the beach. We have off in the summers (if you don’t count the summer jobs, summer coursework and summer tutoring) and we like the beach. Well, scratch that. We love the beach. Truth be told, I love the beach. Me. I admit it! It is a serious and sustained love affair that has been going on for decades. I am smitten.

Like most people I meet who visit here, I have fond memories of being a child at the beach. My father, mother, grandfather and grandmother would pack a picnic lunch of salami sandwiches on white bread, chips and fruit. We had a small cooler with fruit punch drinks which we drank out of Tupperware plastic cups. My Papa would carry a large heavy beach umbrella in green with an orange strip made with a wooden pole. We had beach blankets, old bedspreads, that were kept just for the sand and after we spread them out we would anchor them with our flip flops.

Flip flops probably cost about 29 cents and they all looked alike except for the colors and sizes: mine were yellow and rubbery. The center strap took some getting used to between my toes but it meant that summer was here and that was such a good thing. The other piece of necessary apparel was a pair of white sunglasses which my sister Denise loved to wear. I have a picture of her with her nose scrunched up and her sunglasses on. We didn’t know anything much about UV rays or the harmful effects of the sun. We just knew that we looked good in sunglasses in the summer, so we wore them with panache.

There were beach rules. One rule was never to get sand on the blanket and when we did get sand on it we had to go shake it out far away from the other beach people so as not to disturb them. We learned sand etiquette early and to this day I smile watching others instruct their children about how to conduct themselves at the beach.

The other important rule was never to throw sand. It is unthinkable that in a fit of sisterly mischief, I would pick up a handful of sand and sling it at her. Absolutely forbidden! Believe me when I tell you that my parents did not have to remind us often because we would not be allowed to come back to the beach if we didn’t learn the simple rules. So we were fast learners.

I can remember holding my father’s hand and sticking my toes in the ocean as waves crashed just beyond us: such powerful waves and such breathtaking refreshment. Holding onto dad’s hand and learning to understand the forces of nature. With each wave that I jumped, I became more confident of my ability to swim and enjoy the salt water, learning that the world can be a big, scary as the ocean but that ocean can also be a wonderful place to float and relax. Just depends upon skill and perspective.

JK Rowling was asked to speak at a Harvard graduation 2008. She went to great lengths to describe two conditions that she believes to be essential for the survival of the human spirit. The first was failure or more succinctly, how to deal with failure. That topic was explored here two weeks ago. The other topic is the importance of imagination. In this essay, Rowling stresses that imagination is the basis of our interconnectedness. The following is an excerpt from her speech.

“Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.”

And One More Thing Before You Go

I cannot fathom the end of the school year. My lesson plans are never enough to give my students what I think that they need. Not for one day but for life.

At the end of a school year I create in my lessons a combination of remembrance, facts, advice, and warnings. I give my students projects that reveal my need to have them see the good in the world, to be self-reflective, to work hard, to believe in themselves, to know they can do it, to seek good information, to read and write poetry often. I attempt to give them what I cannot bear to think they are without: a mind that seeks knowledge and recognizes beauty.

Truth is that I hate to see them go. My lesson plans are full of yearning for just one more lesson, one more truth revealed, one more tool they can use along the way. It’s like I’m standing at the doorway calling out to them, “And one more thing before you go!” Even though they are tapping their toes and rolling their eyes in polite impatience. I am asking for the impossible, “Please stay one minute longer so that I can behold your beautiful faces and freeze this moment in time for my memory. You are so lovely at 13. Never change.”

To them I would say, I remember the day that you wrote an essay and revealed a truth that you thought no one should see. But you shared it and you discovered that in writing it out, the words are a release. You are set free. You live to write another day.

I remember the day that you were listening to music as you wrote on your computer wearing you ear buds and you knew that your friend did not have them so you one of yours. Two students: one ear bud each. Two peas in a pod, sharing music and writing essays together.

I remember the day that you discovered Edgar Allan Poe and why Baltimore chose the Ravens as a name for their football team. That look on your face when you discovered that crazy writer have existed throughout time, knowledge really is power and that writing is necessary and valuable.

The one true thing: words really do have power. Regimes have tumbled and mountains moved all because of the power of the pen. There is nothing as powerful as a passion that is coupled with ambition and heart. What we say, what we write, what we read, what we think, make up who we are in a very profound way. What will you choose to write, read, say and think? How will those words impact your life in the future of change someone else’s life.

When you wrote a poem for your mom, it brought tears, when you wrote a letter of gratitude, it brought appreciation. What will you choose to write, read, say and think in your future? How will your words impact your life in the future of change someone else’s life?

Write from the heart. Make it a routine. And remember to email me to keep in touch. All right! Class dismissed!

Failure as a Lesson

6-5-09

June means commencement, the ending of an event, a program, and formal studies. From elementary to graduate level college degrees, students are moving on, graduating and facing life.

Commencement is finality and it means that one chapter of life is closing. It is a pause that allows us to reflect and to consider what is important.

Commencement speeches are philosophical and thoughtful. JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was asked to deliver the commencement address at Harvard last year. Her speech centered on two elements that define a person: failure and imagination. This week we will take a look at excerpts from her speech about failure and next week we will focus on imagination.

Rowling draws from her own experience to write the following:

“Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”

“Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.”

“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

“Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”

‘The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

“So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”

Thinkfinity

As summer time draws near and schools begin to close their classroom doors for the last time, it falls on parents to keep the education wheel turning. There is no limit to the resources on the Internet but often finding the right website can be daunting. Enter Thinkfinity.

Thinkfinity is a user friendly education site that is the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education and technology initiatives. Their goal in developing this site was to improve student achievement in traditional classroom settings and beyond by providing high-quality content and extensive professional development training. They also allow parents to share the wealth.

Thinkfinity, formerly MarcoPolo, is a free website.

This site was designed in collaboration with associations who had already developed content for each of the subjects including

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Council for Economic Education
• International Reading Association
• National Center for Family Literacy
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Geographic Society
• ProLiteracy
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The website explains that “Thinkfinity.org makes it easy for educators to enhance their classroom instruction with lesson plans, interactive activities and other online resources. Thinkfinity.org also provides a wealth of educational and literacy resources for students, parents and after-school programs. All of Thinkfinity.org’s 55,000 standards-based K-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools and reference materials are reviewed by the nation’s leading education organizations to ensure that content is accurate, up-to-date, unbiased and appropriate for students. At Thinkfinity.org, you’ll find primary source materials, interactive student resources and grade-specific research lists to help you tailor materials to meet your needs.”

Using Thinkfinity is easy. I have had good experience with the language arts site, READ WRITE THINK but there are other sites that have excellent content that can be adapted for parents and children in the summertime.

The sites include ArtsEdge, EconEdLink, Edsitement, Illuminations, Literacy Network, Science NetLinks, Smithsonian’s History Explorer and National Geographic’s Xpeditions.

In Delaware, Thinkfinity is partnered with the Delaware Center for Educational Technology and they provide training through Denise Tuck who recently conducted a workshop at Cape along with Lori Roe.

This week on the Thinkfinity Parent page they feature a fully developed lesson that goes with the new movie, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. This is really exciting stuff that kids would love. There is quest, an interactive game that allows you to hunt for treasure using all kinds of reading and map skills. There are artifacts that inspired the movie and a backstage tour of the stars and characters explaining how they became part of the script. The actress Amy Adams discusses her role as aviatrix Amelia Earhart and director Shawn Levy talks about the ups and downs of filming inside the Smithsonian.

The IMAX version of the movie will be shown at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum. There are additional resources for hungry minds.

Parents who love to challenge their children will find a wealth of resources at Thinkfinity.org.

Back in Town

5-22-09

In the spring it is hard to focus! For teachers too! We are tired, the students are tired and everyone is looking forward to the beach and NO MORE SCHOOL! We are people of the tides. We listen to the waves lap the shore and think about the tides and seasons of our lives. So here comes another summer. Here are a few observations and notes from a classroom teacher who gradually morphs into a Boardwalker about this time every year.

The Boys are Back in Town – in case you had not noticed, our boys and girls who went away to college are returning. We smile, we laugh and we run for cover! Prepare for lots of laundry, larger grocery bills and the messiness that comes with young adults coming and going in our homes. So great to see them again and hear their stories! As they infuse our beach workplaces with enthusiasm and honest labor, may we all enjoy the season and each other.

The Visitors are Back in Town – not aliens from another planet unless you consider that people from Pittsburg are a lot like Martians, but real live people who fill up our motels and restaurants, and make us late as we drive down Route one. Plan extra time and patience in driving anywhere and an attitude of gratitude when it comes to welcoming newcomers who just might need a day on the beach to mellow and return to their senses. They certainly help our economy and we may be able to help them slow down a bit and breathe our salty ocean air. It has that effect.

The Trees, the Birds, the Bees – yep! They’re all back in town unfolding their tender leaves just in time for some sunshine and cool night breezes. Isn’t it amazing how fragile yet incredibly strong a tree buds, blossoms and produces leaves? There is a symphony of bird calls outside my window at five in the morning each day. The light just begins to break and the birds begin their songs of joy. The insects cannot be far behind. There will be flies, gnats and mosquitoes, all part of summer’s wide array of creatures. In my neighborhood there are also many rabbits, fox and even an occasional deer.

People Get Out – The springtime draws people outdoors. There are the gardeners, the bikers, the walkers, each with a mission and an attitude that being outside beats being inside any day.

I come from a long line of window washers. This time of year necessitates the ritual washing of the windows, a messy job that must be done before Memorial Day. If I’m lucky, I can lasso some help with this job because it’s easier to have one person on the inside and the other on the outside so that we can comment on each other’s streaks. Strange I know but I share this with you in hopes that you too may discover your inner spring bug, the thing that draws you to the outdoors. Decide what fulfills your needs and get right to it! Memorial Day is this Monday!

Nicholas’ Graduated

5-15-09

Standing in line for coffee on Sunday, the woman in front of me turned around and wished me a happy Mother’s Day. We spoke for a bit about our children and she asked me what I received as a gift. I hesitated for a moment then said that my son Nicholas had just graduated from college. In an instant she understood completely just what an accomplishment that was and truly a gift.

The day before I flew in from Louisiana. I had the graduation pictures printed and carried them with me everywhere. Pathetically I was showing friends and even total strangers the picture of my three sons together standing in front of the Superdome in New Orleans smiling and waving with Nicholas holding the all important diploma folder .

In my life I have learned that it really doesn’t matter what I accomplish at this point, there is a magnification of importance when one of my sons does something special: I am compelled to share the good news. I cannot help myself.

Guess this can be called the “crazed mother syndrome,” me sharing my news that after all of this time and so many setbacks, things really do work out. There really is a hope that difficult goals can be met, and circumstances can be overcome to reach success.

Nicholas chose to go to Loyola University in New Orleans and entered in the fall of 2005. Three days later, the President of the Loyola, Father Kevin Wildes had to evacuate the campus as Katrina reared its ugly head. Students from that school were graciously accepted at other Jesuit colleges for one semester. Nicholas attended St. Joseph’s and roomed with other Loyola freshman who remained his friends throughout his college years. Adversity does breed strength.

This class that graduated last Saturday was called the Katrina class. Remarkably, most of the class returned to Loyola and stuck around four years to graduate. The university community and the administration were grateful to them for seeing them through the most difficult years.

Fortunately the grounds and building had not been damaged in the storm. There was plenty of generosity on the part of the alumni association with chapters all over the United States that pitched in to help the school stay open as well as other groups that offered help to sustain the academics and recruitment of new students.

Loyola remains a very viable learning institution and the graduation took place in the Superdome, the very same place that was a shelter for the citizens of New Orleans after the hurricane. The Superdome has been renovated and was rearranged to accommodate a dignified graduation ceremony. Floor to ceiling curtains created a half space venue with an elaborate stage backdrop that reflected the architecture of the school.

Honorary degrees were bestowed on several incredible people including Herbie Hancock who currently chairs the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz at Loyola. The popular Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, was the keynote speaker and a recipient of an honorary doctorate as well.

It was a full circle moment for the class to graduate at the Superdome in many ways. The students had overcome adversity and returned to school to finish what they had started. Loyola had utilized resources to stay open and maintain high academic standards throughout the ordeal and New Orleans has struggled but rebuild and rise from the ashes.

For the students and parents it was an extremely happy day full of pride and fulfillment and by the way, would you like to see my pictures?

Gardening for Children

Going green and being environmentally savvy is so popular today that it is only natural (forgive the pun!) that children be involved. Great learning can come from simple practices. Doing something with the hands stimulates the best learning because the mind remembers actual kinesthetic experiences best.

So with Mother’s Day and great gardening weather, it’s time to get the children involved in a garden. This can be as simple as some potted plants or as elaborate as a vegetable garden complete with winding watermelon vines and deeply planted carrots. Many children do not understand where food comes from, but a family garden in which the children have a vote in what gets planted as well as when things are harvested can be a huge step in the right direction.

My favorite type of garden was actually a gift from my son. He asked what I would like for Mother’s Day one year and I requested that he plant an herb garden. So, it became his tradition to till the soil and plant a large variety of rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme and my favorite, basil. We enjoyed the fruits of his labor all summer and well into fall. Bouquets of herbs always sat on my window sill, ready to enhance any salad or soup.

At kidsgardening.com, they suggest that gardening motivates students to explore the outdoors and to develop a connection with the natural world. Gardens are living laboratories, making them ideal, hands-on tools for teaching children to respect the environment. Gardens are small plots of land that help to engage students, fostering skills in and enthusiasm for observation, discovery, and experimentation. Where else can you roll lessons together that teach health, science and nutrition?

If an herb garden is not your cup of tea, author Charlie Nardozzi recommends the following plants to get children hooked on gardening. The following is an excerpt from his article in Kidsgardening.org.

1. Sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica)—This tropical groundcover is a kid favorite. Also known as the “tickle-me” plant, it has sensitive green, fernlike leaves and produces small “balls” of pink flowers in mid-summer. The plant’s big kid draw is its leaves: when touched gently, they automatically fold closed, then eventually reopen. Often grown as an annual, the plant thrives in full sun on dry soil and is easy to start indoors from seed.
2. Lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantine)—This perennial flower is widely adapted and hardy in USDA zones 4 to 10. It grows best in full to part sun. In early summer, the low-growing plant produces one-foot-tall spikes covered with small pink flowers. But its foliage is the main draw for kids. The leaves are covered with a soft, white hairy growth that, when stroked, feels like a lamb’s ear. Don’t be surprised if your kids pick leaves and rub it against their cheek. It’s that soft!
3. Ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa)—This easy-to-grow vegetable is in the tomato family, but has fruits that look like small Chinese lanterns. Like tomatoes, the low–growing (1- to 2-foot-tall), sprawling plants love the heat. In summer the plant produces an abundance of papery thin lanterns. Once the lanterns turn yellow, kids can pick them, tear open the covering, and discover the 1- to 2-inch-diameter edible golden fruits inside.
4. Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea)—Kids will be amazed to find this common vegetable growing in your garden. Peanuts need at least 120 days of frost-free growing and hot summer temperatures. They grow best in full sun on sandy-loam soil. The 1- to 2-foot-tall and -wide legume looks a lot like a clover plant. However, it has yellow flowers that produce pegs (stem-like growth) after the flowers pass. The pegs grow into the ground around the peanut plant and a peanut shell forms at the end of each peg.
5. Chocolate Peppermint (Mentha x piperita)—Mint plants are fun and easy to grow in the garden. They come in a range of flavors, including ginger, lemon, orange, and apple.