Teaching Kids The Basics Of Hockey – Even If You’re Not An Expert Yourself.

It’s winter, and for a lot of people, that means one thing: Hockey!

Here in Canada, a lot of kids wind up playing hockey in some form, and why not, kids love playing hockey. They do, however, have to start somewhere. As a wise person once said: The journey of a thousand goals starts with a single puck. (It was me, I said that.)

Whether your kid just plans to play at the local rink with friends, or they want to get into the league system eventually, they need to know the basics. They can take lessons, of course, but even if they do, a little bit of instruction beforehand goes a long way.

Or maybe you want to really get into it, and give them extensive coaching yourself – and why not, it certainly worked for Walter Gretzky. The good news is that you don’t need to be a hockey expert to get your kid started. The amount of videos out there (and other resources) is astounding, and you can get up to speed in no time.

So lace up those teaching skates and keep reading, while we guide you on your journey from the backyard rink to the big leagues.

hockey kids

Basic Hockey Skills Parents Can Teach Their Kids

Skating including stopping, turning and skating backward

Obviously, the first skill that your child will need is the ability to skate. The main idea is that they’ll want to (eventually) be able to skate forwards and backward. They’ll also need to learn to stop and turn.

Basic Skating: The first place we’re going to recommend for tips is, of course, our own post on How To Teach Kids Ice Skating. We’ve got some good pointers in there, as well as equipment tips.

Stopping: A great way for kids to stop while skating is the snowplow maneuver. You basically just get them to turn their skates towards each other at the toe and push their heels out. Check out this Youtube video for a good demonstration.

Turning: When learning to skate, kids will instinctively learn to turn by using a two-foot glide and leaning into the direction they want to go. This video gives you some simple instructions on turning, for beginners.

Once they’ve mastered turning, kids should move on to crossover turns. These are more advanced turns where the legs – you guessed it – cross over. When your kid is ready to learn these, check this video out.

Skating Backwards: This is one of the hardest skills to learn for smaller kids, especially when holding a hockey stick. A good video on this would be How to Skate Backwards in Hockey.

Holding the Stick: To avoid bad habits, it’s important that kids hold the stick properly, right from the start. Again we head to Youtube, where former NHL-er Steve Coates demonstrates the correct way method.

Make Sure the Stick is the Correct Height: Hold the stick vertically, with the tip of the blade touching the floor. You want the top of the stick to be at eye level with your child. (That’s if they’re in socks – if they’re in skates, the top of the stick should be where their chin is.)

Puck Control and Stick Handling: Being able to control the puck (also known as Stick Handling) is key to being a decent hockey player. A simple way to work on this is by practicing with a tennis ball. By having a way to do it away from the ice, your kid can get in a lot of quality hours on the road, driveway, or even in the basement. For pointers, we found this training video that has some great stick handling tips.

Passing the Puck: Passing is, of course, an extremely important skill. The best way to learn to pass is visually, and the best video we could find on the subject was this demonstration by Pennsylvania hockey instructor Al MacCormack.

Shooting: There are a few different types of shots in hockey. The best thing for a beginner to learn is the Wrist Shot. We found this very detailed video that should get your kid on the right track.

outdoor hockey kids

Hockey Books for Kids

If you are looking for more info about hockey for kids, check out these books:

  • Kids’ Book Of Hockey: Skills, Strategies, Equipment, and the Rules of the Game by John Sias goes over all the rules of hockey, and everything that your kids need to know if they want to learn how to play. It also has facts, details, and good simple explanations for kids who are learning the game.
  • Hockey 123 by Christopher Jordan is a great book for preschool kids, to help introduce them to the main concepts behind hockey. If you like this one, there are a number of books in the series, including Hockey ABC and Hockey Shapes. Kids can count players, sticks, and Stanley cups; explore the colors of the rainbow through team logos and sweaters; look for familiar shapes amongst pucks, scoreboards, and nets, and work their way through an alphabet from Arena to Zamboni.
  • Hockey Canada’s Learn All About Hockey: Color and Activity is a hockey workbook where kids can color, follow mazes, do word searches, and more. All details of the game, from the dimensions of the ice surface to the rules, are included. There are images of referee hand signals for penalties, offsides, goals, and more. Players are also introduced to each piece of equipment and taught how it’s used. The book follows two teams as they compete in a hockey game.
  • Z is for Zamboni: A Hockey Alphabet by Matt Napier, and Melanie Rose is an alphabet book for very young kids that is all about hockey. It has entries on the rules, players, coaches, teams, and the history of the game. This book would make a great gift.

 

photo credit: roland via photopin cc

photo credit: JeremyOK via photopin cc

Fun Ways to Teach Kids Programming

Teaching children how to program (or code if you insist) has become a big deal lately. Everyone is jumping on this bandwagon, so we though we better hop on as well. Because of all the attention that this topic gets, there is lots of great material that kids can use to learn to code that is pretty fun and also educational at the same time. We have found some of the best websites, books and apps to help kids (ages 10+) to become the most awesome programmers in the history of the world.

computerdog1

*If  you are looking to teach younger kids how to program check out our post on how to teach kids ages 5-9 to code.

The Best Websites for Kids to Learn Programming

  • Alice (ages 10+) is a 3D programming environment that makes it easy for kids to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a little trickier than Kodu or Scratch so might want to check out this Alice tutorial  if your kids aren’t familiar with this type of platform.
  • The Khan Academy Computer Science Platform for kids (ages 11+) Are computer science tutorials from the wonderful Khan Academy that show students how to explore, create  and share their own computer programs.
  • Code Academy is a series of courses to help you master a topic or language related to programming. It’s a pretty clever site and is lots of fun to use. It is super simple to us and users can earn badges for completed lessons . Oh and it is free.
  • Another option to check out is Tynker. Designed for kids in 4th to 8th grades, Tynker is an easy-to-learn, user friendly visual programming language. This introductory course covers basic programming concepts including creating scenes, playing sounds, moving characters, conditionals and repetition, animation, handling keyboard and mouse events, pen drawing, collision detection, keeping score and more.

Popular Programming Languages Made Easy for Kids


If you are looking for a specific language to teach your kids there are a few sites that cater to this. Here are a few that we found.

  • Pygame is a set of Python modules designed for writing games. Pygame allows you to create games and multimedia programs in the python language. Be sure to check out Pygame’s extensive list of tutorial resources. According to the Pygame site Pygame is” highly portable and runs on nearly every platform and operating system. Pygame itself has been downloaded millions of times, and has had millions of visits to its website.”
  • SmallBasic (ages 10-16) from Microsoft is a friendly development environment that is based on .NET and can be applied to other .NET programming languages like Visual Basic.
  • Kids Ruby is a fun and easy way to learn Ruby for kids. This software has very kids friendly graphics and is very easy to follow. You can download this software for Windows or Mac OS or they also have a complete KidsRuby OS based on Ubuntu that you can download.
  • Hackety Hack teaches the basics of the Ruby programming language from the ground up. No previous programming experience is needed.  Ruby is used for all kinds of programs, including desktop applications and websites. Hackety Hack uses the Shoes toolkit to make it really easy and fun to build graphical interfaces. Several lessons and example programs are provided, showing you how to make all kinds of fun things.
  • PHP For Kids has tutorials that will teach you kids  PHP, HTML, CSS  and MYSQL, that are all helpful for making websites. PHP is a free programming language that can add dynamic content to a webpage. PHP is a simple language that can be learned quickly, and can prepare you for other programming languages as well as provide you with useful problem-solving skills.
  • Java For Kids is a course for kids and beginner programmers using the very easy-to-use JUDO windows program instead of the dos command line interface. This course takes a hands-on approach using lots of exercises and a minimum of theory.

Books to help Kids Learn to Program


There are a decent amount of books available to learn to code that are specially aimed at kids. Some of the titles to look out for are Scratch 2.0 Programming for Teens by Jr. Jerry Lee Ford, Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius by Ian Cinnamon, Learn to Program by Chris Pine, and Super Scratch Programming Adventure! by The LEAD Project.

One book that is highly recommended is Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners by Warren Sande and Carter Sande, this is a fantastic book to introduce kids to programming concepts. We mentioned this book in our post about teaching kids ages 5-9 to code but it is worth mentioning again because it really is a great introduction to programming (using python) for kids.

Apps to Help Teach Kids to Program


Hakitzu teaches kids “the JavaScript language through controlling mighty battle robots in a dangerous sport of the future. Use your new found coding ability to plan your moves, code your robot warriors and execute your path to victory. Learn to code or prepare to be hacked!”

 

Read More: How to Teach Kids to Make Apps (Sort of)

 

photo credit: wrumsby via photopin cc

 

Teach Your Kids to Ice Skate

If you are looking for a fun, budget-friendly winter sport to do with your children, why not try ice skating?

If you know how to skate yourself then there is no reason that you can’t teach your kids the basic moves such as stopping, starting, falling down, getting up, and gliding that will get them skating on their own in no time.

It might be a little daunting to teach a child yourself, but once they get the hang of it, they will love it, so it is definitely worth a little bit of effort.

ice skating child
 

Before beginning, you will need to have some equipment. Obviously, you will need skates, and it’s also a good idea to get a helmet. If you would like some extra protection for your children, some people recommend getting knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards, although they are not necessary. Kids should also always wear gloves or mittens when skating.

Best Skates for Children

There are lots of options for beginners in terms of types of skates that parents can choose. There are double-bladed, toddler, adjustable, figure, and hockey skates. All the different types have positives and negatives, depending on what type of activity you are planning to do.

If you are a little wary of buying a pair of skates for a rapidly growing toddler, you can try Double Runner Skates. Double runners are basically 2 blades that you strap onto your child’s boots. They are relatively inexpensive and can help toddlers get used to the idea of gliding on the ice. There is some debate as to whether double blades are a good idea or not. People argue that using a double runner doesn’t help beginners learn and you would be better just putting the money towards a pair of regular skates, but they are an option to keep in mind if you don’t want to spend a lot of money and just want to get your toddler out on the ice.

If you would like to go right to regular blades, Bauer Lil Angel or the Bauer Lil Champ are popular choices for children under 5. They are reasonably priced and have enough support for a small child. You can find these products almost anywhere; they are sort of the standard for very young children.

Another good option is boots that are adjustable. They cost a little bit more, but you should be able to get 2-3 years out of them because you can usually adjust the boot part to three different sizes. Lake Placid has some great adjustable models for boys and girls.  Although the Lake Placid girls model has a toe pick, which is something that you generally want to avoid when selecting a skate for a beginner. You should avoid picks because they tend to trip up beginners. If you do end up with a pair with a toe pick and your child is having trouble with it, you can have it removed from the same place that you get your skates sharpened.

If your little one is thinking about getting into hockey and you would like to start them off with hockey equipment, you can try the Bauer Vapor X30 Youth Hockey. There are lots of options for beginner hockey skates, but the Bauer model is a good choice for a reasonable price.  For older children who just need a pair of decent recreational blades, then have a look at the American Athletic Shoe Girl’s Tricot Lined Ice Skate. This American Athletic model is another great beginner option for the price.

Most of the products we listed fit small, so you may want to consider buying one size up if you end up ordering them online. Before you hit the ice, make sure that the blades have been sharpened, and it is also a good idea to have your kids put on their skates and walk around off ice (if you are at home use an old piece of carpet or large rubber mat) for a while to help them get used to the feel of the boot, you will probably need to hold their hands to keep them stable.

Helmets

Helmets are highly recommended for anyone who is learning.  Most recreational rinks (in Canada) will not allow children under 12 to skate without a helmet. Safety experts recommend that they wear a bicycle, skateboard, hockey, or snow sports (ski) helmet. Although there is growing concern from some groups that bike helmets don’t offer enough protection to the back of the head when you fall backward and smack your heads on the ice. A lot of helmets are in the $50 price range, but some rinks offer free helmets to borrow or for a small rental fee.  Since sizing for helmets can vary quite a bit, try helmets on before you buy one.

Pointers and Tips to Get Started

Once you are all set up with your equipment, you just need to focus on a few things in the beginning:

medium_5249428723

  1. Start with teaching your child how to fall down and get back up.  If your kids are going to skate, they will fall down, so to help get over the fear of falling, have them fall down and get up over and over until they get the hang of it. Try to get your child to fall onto their side, and then they can roll into a crawl position. Then have them kneel on both knees and, while keeping their back straight, bring one skate up onto the ice and push down on that knee. This will help your kids pull themselves up and bring the other skate onto the ice. There is a very good explanation of how to get up here.
  2. Consider using a teaching aid for the first few attempts at skating. You can use a chair, a 5-gallon paint bucket, pylon, Child Skate Trainer, or milk crate and just have your child push it around the ice. If you are going to a rink, you should check with the rink before bringing any of these aids.  They may not allow aids or might have a particular aid that they will rent or let you borrow for a session. If you can find a rink that isn’t crowded, like an outdoor, backyard rink or pond (only if it is safe), it will be much nicer and less stressful for your children to learn.
  3. To get your kids moving on the ice, have them pick their feet up and down and march to move forward. You are basically just having them sort of walk on the ice as though they are marching. Make sure they keep their knees bent.  If you want to go a bit further, check out this video to see a few more things that you can teach to a beginner.
  4. If your child is feeling a bit unstable, they can bend their knees and put their hand on their knees- this will help stop them from falling. Try to get your kids not to look at their feet, but to look forward in the direction they want to go. They can also hold out their arms in a hug position to themselves balanced. Reminding them to keep their knees bent will help a lot with keeping them upright and stable.
  5. Keep your skating session short.  Your kid’s feet might hurt a bit, and you will want to keep it fun and help encourage them to love skating. If they seem to be losing interest or are getting frustrated, then let them stop and try it again another day.

 

photo credit: photo credit: JeremyOK via photopin cc

Teach Your Child Brazilian Portuguese – The Parents Guide

Brazilian Portuguese is a great language for kids to learn. Since Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy and it is the 5th largest country in the world by both land area and population, knowing Portuguese could potentially be a really good job skill for your kids in the future. Or if you or your kids love to travel, the climate in most of Brazil is tropical and the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics are being held in Brazil, so learning a bit of Portuguese could be a wonderful excuse for an upcoming trip.

With this in mind, we have gathered up the best language systems, free online games, apps, and books that can help parents teach their kids some Brazilian Portuguese.

Brazilian Portuguese Kids
 

For resources to help kids learn European Portuguese have a look at our European Portuguese post.

DVD and Online Video

  • Super Baby Music is a good choice if you are looking for a Baby Einstein type video, but in Portuguese, then this is a good one to try. It is a DVD that is in Spanish and Portuguese. There are other titles in this series including Super Baby Music, Super Baby Animals, Super Baby Colors, and Super Baby Shapes.
  • Little Pim Portuguese is a great option if you are looking for a video for kids ages 0-5. These videos each start with a short animated cartoon featuring a panda followed by live-action footage of children doing everyday activities. The videos are themed on “eating and drinking, “wake up smiling” and “playtime”. You can see a preview for it here or use their digital downloads.
  • Bilingual Baby is another DVD that is made for babies to help expose them to a second language. It has over 60 words, phrases, sentences, and manners. The child only hears the Portuguese language, but there is small on-screen text in English to help parents.

The Best Portuguese Language Learning Programs and Websites for Kids

brazilianportuguese
Duolingo.com is the best website to help kids learn a different language. The site is often used in schools for French and Spanish but they have lessons for pretty much any language that you can think of.

Some good websites that can help kids learn Portuguese are:

Free Online Games to Help Teach Portuguese

An easy way to expose children to a new language in a fun way is through online games. There isn’t a huge selection of Portuguese games for kids, but here is a couple that we like:

  • Digital Dialects has lots of simple games that will help kids learn Portuguese basics.
  • Tudo Bem Portuguese has free online language learning games like Whack- a-Word, Hangman, Wordsearch, and Memory

Apps

  • Learn Portuguese has 9 games designed to teach Portuguese vocabulary and conversation skills. You can download the first lesson for free and if you like it you can upgrade to access all 50 lessons and 40+ hours of content.
  • Gus on the Go: Portuguese for Kids helps kids learn basic vocabulary concepts with interactive visual and auditory lessons on numbers, colors, shapes, and more. Each lesson review unlocks a vocabulary game that reinforces what your child has learned.
  • Portuguese for Children contains over 400 commonly used Portuguese words including colors, numbers, food drink and animals, all illustrated and professionally recorded by a native Brazilian (Portuguese) speaker.

Books

Songs

  • Brazilian Lullaby has traditional songs, well-known Brazilian instrumental music, and original compositions that makes a nice mix of lullabies and songs for kids.
  • Brazilian Playground is part of the very popular Playground series of CDs. This one has a great mix of Brazilian music for kids.

photo credit: andreasnilsson1976 via photopin cc

Tips on How to Teach Kids European Portuguese

If you are a parent who is looking for resources to help teach your kids Portuguese you may have run into the problem of  only being able to find materials for Brazilian rather than European Portuguese (as spoken in Portugal).

This can be a frustrating experience, especially if you buy a book or a video only to find out that it isn’t what you wanted. So in our quest to try to find the best teaching tools for kids, we have come up with what we hope is a definitive list of  DVDs, books, apps and websites that you can use to help your kids learn (European) Portuguese.

portuguese for kids
*For materials for learning the Brazilian language go to our post on Resources to Teach Kids Brazilian Portuguese.

Language Learning Programs and Websites for Kids

europeanportuguese

You can’t go wrong with Duolingo.com. The site is often used in schools for French and Spanish but they have lessons for pretty much any language that you can think of.

There aren’t a lot of choices as far as language systems to teach kids European Portuguese. The only kid’s system that we are going to recommend is Dino Lingo’s European Portuguese for Kids. The Dino Lingo system is generally very well-reviewed and a good choice to help kids learn a second language. This kit has language learning DVDs, CDs, books, posters, and flashcards. You can watch a preview of the DVDs here.

If you aren’t interested in the Dino Lingo system, you can try the Muzzy language learning system, but the Muzzy system has very mixed reviews, so you should probably read some of the reviews and watch the previews of it if you are thinking of purchasing it.

If you are looking for a fun website for kids, try Disney’s Portugal Site it has games and clips of shows and movies with favorite Disney characters.

Free Online Games

Kids Portuguese books

An easy way to expose children to a new language in a fun way is through online games. There isn’t a huge selection of European Portuguese games for kids, but a good site for games is Digital Dialects. It has lots of simple games that will help kids learn the basics. Another great site to check out is Jogos Didaticos. It also has some fun and easy games for kids.

Apps

Another great way to help children reinforce second language skills is by making it fun with an app. Here are a couple of language apps that are great for kids.

  • Kids learn languages by Mondly lets kids learn the most common words and phrases in Portuguese, it enriches children’s vocabulary and makes language learning a fun and interactive experience.
  • Learn Portuguese for Kids teaches children from 0-5 how to correctly pronounce the most important words in using images, colors, animals, music, and voices. It has more than 40 minutes of video with topics including family, fruits/vegetables, animals, colors, food, nature, face/body, baby items, and transportation.

Books

  • First Thousand Words in Portuguese by Heather Amery and Mairi MacKinnon is a picture dictionary that has 1,000 everyday words combined with pictures. It also gives a link that contains an online pronunciation guide through the Usborne Quicklinks website.
  • Salpicos is basically a student textbook that teachers can use to teach Portuguese to kids. If you get the student’s book (rather than the teacher book) it has a CD that contains children’s songs. The level one student book is aimed at 4 to 5-year-olds and focuses on listening to stories, singing songs, looking at images, etc. “Salpicos” 2 and 3 are for children who have started reading and writing (6 to 10-year-olds).
  • Falas Português? is another textbook for teachers who are teaching kids, but it can also be used by parents as well. It has 10 units that include exercises and activities (stickers, grammar notes, pages on culture and traditions, etc…). The student book also contains an audio CD.

There are lots of books that you can use to that are available with translations, although you will need to confirm that it is European Portuguese rather than Brazilian. Language Lizard has bilingual books that are all European Portuguese.

Workbooks and Flashcards

If you are looking for flashcards that are a good way to re-enforce a new language, you can try Usborne’s Everyday Words Flashcards.

usbourneportugescards
 This is a pack of illustrated cards with fifty simple words. Each card shows an everyday object with accompanying word on one side and just the word on its own on the other to aid revision. The cards can be used to play games, for self-testing, or simply propped up around the house or classroom as useful reminders.

photo credit: Filipe Dâmaso Saraiva via photopin cc
photo credit: stttijn via photopin cc