Learning to drive is a rite of passage for 16-year-olds in America; once teenagers receive the keys to a car - and their independence - they may never come back.
However, they must first prepare for the extremely long and tedious process of acquiring a driver license. As a recently licensed teen driver, here are my tips and tricks to surviving the journey.
Clad in red suede slippers with pink silk tassels, a tiger blazer and carrying a hedgehog purse, prolific author/illustrator Jan Brett looked the part when she came to town with a message of creativity to share this winter.
Los Altos-based Linden Tree Books hosted Brett earlier this winter in a talk geared particularly to children. Known for her detailed illustrations in books such as "The Mitten" and "The Hat," Brett shared pointers on how a drawing comes together with the audience. Using Prismacolor markers, she drew a tiger from start to finish as she spoke, describing both technical tricks and overarching insights into how to foster and feed the creative process.
Warriors picked up speed beneath the oak trees, coming in a rush of broadswords, maces and pikes, shields worked in arcane heraldry. The melee broke into individual combat as helmeted warriors clashed, foam blade to foam blade.
They were charging across a hill in Palo Alto’s Mitchell Park as part of the FanWar live-action role-playing game, or LARP. These games take the myth-making of table-top fantasy games and bring them to life, with players physically portraying the characters they create, often with self-made costumes and props.
During the limbo of school’s-out summer, students must balance playtime with pressure to achieve, and working parents calculate time, expense and transportation. Multiple local programs address the summer achievement gap that occurs when some families have access to camp resources that others do not. A program at Foothill College uses the summer to target a more sweeping achievement gap with its "summer preschool intensive."
Stretch to Kindergarten (STK) completed a 10th year of serving low-income children and families last summer. The program is a cornerstone of Foothill College’s Family Engagement Institute (FEI). The institute focuses on aspects of college-readiness that start at birth, and considers entire families in its approach by partnering "with school districts and community-based organizations to make sure there’s access and pathways to college," according to Betsy Nikolchev, FEI executive director.
Milking cows, feeding sheep and sleeping under the stars sound like activities of a 19th-century agrarian paradise, worlds away from the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley. But that’s everyday reality for the campers of Deer Hollow Farm’s Wilderness Camp, where youth ages 6-14 can spend a week of their summer immersed in nature.
The 10-acre Deer Hollow Farm is nestled approximately a mile into Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, a public recreation area bordered by Los Altos and Cupertino. It’s a native habitat for deer, bobcats, mountain lions and other animals.
Huddled in the sub-level conference room of a research lab building, a young cadre of summer campers bent over maps, paperwork and dice last summer - old-school three-ring binders were even in evidence - the youngest experimenters in the building, but also the most old-fashioned.
The cooperative players of Gaming Together use tabletop games, medieval-tinged fantasies that owe so much to J.R.R. Tolkien and his literary descendants. Collaborative game universes like Dungeons & Dragons add peer interaction to the world of imagination. Anna Doherty, who founded Gaming Together as an after-school program and expanded it into a series of camps during school holidays, said math and social and leadership skills spring naturally from playing extended campaigns in a small group.
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