How Many Sex Offenders Live On Your Block?

Written by Julie Joyce


For any parent, learning that a convicted sex offender lives onrepparttar same block, can be a chilling discovery. The thought of it alone, can be disturbing. Most parents can't imagine that someone, who could be so potentially dangerous, may live somewhere on their block or alongrepparttar 111427 path their child takes to school. However, it is highly likely that there are registered sex offenders in your neighborhood.

Beginning inrepparttar 111428 mid 1990's legislative actions established guidelines for tracking convicted sex offenders and making such information available as part of a community notification effort. In 1994repparttar 111429 Jacob Wetterling Act began requiring states to register individuals convicted of sex crimes against children. The "Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996" was enacted by Congress to provide forrepparttar 111430 nationwide tracking of convicted sexual predators. "Megan's Law" (1996) further served to clarifyrepparttar 111431 public nature of information and authorizedrepparttar 111432 release of relevant information that is necessary to protectrepparttar 111433 public. Together, these three key pieces of legislation have shapedrepparttar 111434 structure of sexual registries, nationwide. Today, almost every state maintains a registry of sexual offenders, and makes this information easily accessible viarepparttar 111435 internet. Some states may not allow online access. However, they will explain, online,repparttar 111436 procedure to follow to gain access to their registry.

Currently there are approximately a half of a million registered sex offenders inrepparttar 111437 United States. They live in cities and towns all acrossrepparttar 111438 country. They are in "poor" and "affluent" neighborhoods. And they could be on your block. The twice-convicted pedophile who raped and murdered Megan (Megan's Law) Kanka lived acrossrepparttar 111439 street from her home. Every parent should make it a priority to do a quick search to educate themselves about potential risk exposures thatmay be "dangerously" close. It is commonly said that, "What you don't know can hurt you." But more importantly, what you do know can save your life!

Successful Children's Birthday Party Activities

Written by Stephanie Olsen


Successful Children's Birthday Party Activities

~ lots of fun, cheap, creative and even bilingual! ~

by Stephanie Olsen

Having now somewhat recovered from Emily's seventh birthday party, I thought I'd share a couple ofrepparttar more popular games and activities, used by a group of children betweenrepparttar 111426 ages of 4 and 10.

Bilingual Vocabulary Picture Bingo

As a unilingual home schooling American in Europe, I've got a fairly singular set of conditions to work under when creating activities. This bingo game was a hit with lots of repeat requests.

Materials needed:

  • one square piece of construction or other sturdy paper and one Magic Marker for each child

  • 9 bingo chips such as buttons or M&Ms or bubble gum per child

  • prepared list(s) of 18 objects to be called, plus a copy of each list cut up per word into 18 small cards

  • a large bowl/hat to pullrepparttar 111427 words from when calling

  • one translator for any other linguistically-challenged expatriates

    Method:

    Hand outrepparttar 111428 papers, markers and bingo chips. I hadrepparttar 111429 kids spread out all overrepparttar 111430 floor.

    Instructrepparttar 111431 children to make a 9 square grid; two horizontal lines and two bisecting vertical lines (you can show your sample bingo card or demonstrate on a child's blackboard).

    I actually usedrepparttar 111432 phrases "nine square grid", "horizontal lines" and "bisecting vertical": it exposesrepparttar 111433 children to mathematical terms in a friendly environment and, because sounds very impressive, there's a true sense of accomplishment whenrepparttar 111434 kids completerepparttar 111435 task.

    Using your list of (let's say) animals, tellrepparttar 111436 children to draw - in any square they wish -repparttar 111437 picture of EITHER an elephant OR a lion. Stress thatrepparttar 111438 card they are creating should be unique to makerepparttar 111439 game more fun.

    If you are working on a second language, or just happen to be living in a foreign non-English-speaking country, repeatrepparttar 111440 animal name inrepparttar 111441 applicable language.

    Oncerepparttar 111442 first box is completed and usingrepparttar 111443 second pair of objects on your list, tellrepparttar 111444 kids to draw - in any square - a picture of EITHER a snake or a monkey.

    This particular party having a jungle theme, it helpedrepparttar 111445 younger children for me to point out relevant wall decorations (very simple animal cut-outs I had maderepparttar 111446 night before).

    When all cards are completed, explain thatrepparttar 111447 aim ofrepparttar 111448 game is to shout BINGO! whenever a child gets three markers in a row - in any direction. Hererepparttar 111449 terms horizontal, vertical and diagonal can be used and understood without explanation as you draw lines onrepparttar 111450 board.

    NOTE: when you startrepparttar 111451 game, remember to call outrepparttar 111452 words in both languages. After a couple of rounds, you can make it more interesting by calling them out inrepparttar 111453 target language only -repparttar 111454 kids will automatically translate out loud thereby helping ones not sure ofrepparttar 111455 translation.

    We played untilrepparttar 111456 cards were full, so that everyone got to shout BINGO! several times - there were no prizes given out, just lots of "wow!"s and "again?!s" and "that's incredible!"s from an appreciative bingo caller.

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