A customer of the Toronto Public Library thinks the Dr. Seuss book Hop on Pop should be removed from the library’s collection because it encourages children to use violence against their fathers.
Tag: kids
Daycare For Cellphones?
Students in New York City are not allowed to take cellphones to school.
But students in one neighbourhood have come up with a solution that keeps their phones nearby and also benefits local businesses.
Toy Weapons For Girls: Too Violent, Or Too Pretty?
Some toy companies have recently introduced new lines of toy weapons designed especially for girls.
While the toys are a hit with girls, some adults object to them. Some people say the toys encourage violence and aggression among girls. Others say they are too feminine, and promote old-fashioned stereotypes.
Last fall, Nerf introduced its Rebelle line, which includes bows and guns that shoot foam darts or spray water. The weapons have names like the Heartbreaker Bow Blaster and the Pink Crush Blaster gun. They are brightly coloured in mostly pinks and purples.
Fewer Young American Children Are Obese: Study
Obesity rates in young children in the U.S. have dropped by 43 per cent.
In this case, obesity means “very overweight,” which is not good for a person’s health.
Over the last 10 years, the number of young children in the U.S. who are obese has gone down by a lot.
In 2004, nearly 14 per cent of American children aged two to five were obese. In 2012 the number went down to 8.4 per cent.
Boy Invents Cheaper Braille Printer Using Lego
A 12-year-old boy has invented a Braille printer that costs about $1,650 less than the ones that are available today.
Shubham Banerjee is in grade seven in Santa Clara, California.
He used a Lego Mindstorms kit and added five dollars’ worth of parts he bought at a hardware store to create what he calls a Braigo.
His Braigo costs about $349 to make.
Adorable Batkid Cleans Up Gotham City (San Francisco)
The good people of San Francisco, California can sleep a little more soundly.
Last Friday, their city was been made safer by a very special superhero.
Batman and a special Batkid spent the day patrolling the streets and battling crime.
Batkid’s real identity (ssssh, don’t tell anyone!) is five-year-old Miles.
Miles has been winning his own battle, ever since he was just one year old—against a disease called leukemia, which is a form of cancer.
Miles’s leukemia is in “remission,” which means that he is doing very well now. In fact, he started kindergarten this year.
Family In Guelph Living Like It’s 1986
A family in Guelph, Ontario is spending a year living in 1986.
They’re doing it so their kids can see what life was like before complicated technology like iPads, sophisticated computers, tablets and even complicated coffee machines were part of everyday life.
They have banned all technology from their home and are relying on the things people would have used back in the 80s.
There is a box at the front door where people can temporarily deposit their mobile devices, like cell phones, while they’re visiting the family.
Blair McMillan and his girlfriend, Morgan want their kids—Trey, 5, and Denton, 2—to have a year free of technology.
New J.K. Rowling Movie Will Be Set In The Wizarding World
J. K. Rowling is writing a new movie set in the wizarding world.
It won’t feature the character Harry Potter, but it is inspired by one of the boy wizard’s textbooks: Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, “written” by fictional author Newton Scamander.
Warner Brothers film studios told Rowling they wanted to make a movie based on the fictional textbook, used by Potter and his friend, Ron Weasley.
The new movie will feature the adventures of a 21-year-old Newton Scamander.
Scamander is an expert in Magizoology, the study of magical creatures.
Lego Minifigures Grumpier Since 1980: Study
Has Lego gotten grumpier?
A new study says that the faces on Lego minifigures have become less happy and more often mad or sad.
The study was designed to find out if the Lego characters have become grumpier over the years.
Christoph Bartneck works at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He loves Lego and even worked for the company in the 1990s. He worked with another researcher on the project.
They looked at all of the 6,000 figures made between 1975 and 2010.
They made a note of each figure’s facial expression: happy, angry, afraid, disgusted, surprised or sad.
They discovered that while in 1980, all of the figures were described as “smiley,” by 1990, only about 80 per cent of them were “smiley.”
Different Toys For Girls And Boys?
Four-year-old Gavin Pope of Garfield, New Jersey, loves to cook.
But when his family decided to buy him an Easy-Bake Oven, they found that the colour and packaging made it look like a “girls only” toy.
The Easy-Bake Oven and its box are purple.
The packaging and advertising show only girls baking with it.
So McKenna Pope, Gavin’s 13-year-old sister, started an Internet campaign for a gender-neutral oven.
More than 54,000 people signed the petition.
Hasbro executives met with McKenna and told her they planned to introduce a black, silver and blue oven next fall.
