Boost Your Child’s Cognitive Skills With Origami
If you’re looking for a family activity requiring minimal supplies and effort, origami should be next on your to-do list! Origami might seem too challenging or even not stimulating enough for children, but there are plenty of accessible and delightful shapes to keep your kids endlessly entertained. Plus, they won’t be able to stop themselves from filling your home with paper swans, dragons, and more!
focusing on folding a piece of paper into a unique shape requires you to be present in the moment and can be a fantastic way to introduce mindfulness to your family. Improve hand-eye coordination. Origami also helps younger children better understand spatial concepts such as measurements, shapes, and directions. Studies show that origami helps children improve their dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and spatial reasoning skills. Encourage a mathematic mindset. The shapes and measuring involved in origami are also an incredible way to implement geometric concepts, terms, and formulas. For older kids, you can make origami a geometry lesson! Use different geometric formulas and apply them to various paper shapes. This will help students better visualize and understand these mathematical concepts. Get started. There are endless resources online or at your local library to create age-appropriate origami activities. While you can purchase special origami paper, you can also use standard paper and scissors to cut sheets into the proper size. Fill your table with a rainbow assortment of colored papers and let your kids pick the origami shape of their choice. Before you know it, origami rabbits and birds will be lining your shelves!
Not only is origami a simple activity that just requires paper, but it also offers a variety of benefits to children and adults alike. Discover how origami can boost your family’s brains and the perfect way to start folding! Practice patience and mindfulness. No running, jumping, or yelling involved. Children can partake in a soothing activity requiring their undivided attention when practicing origami. Origami is even considered a form of focused attention meditation, which involves concentrating on a single object to induce a relaxing state. Calmly
The Unseen Weight of Clutter
HOW TO LIGHTEN THE LOAD ON LOVED ONES
My father-in-law, God rest his soul, was a teenager during World War II. Like many others who lived through those terrible times of scarcity, he saved every item that might someday be reusable or valuable, from string to old car parts, nuts, bolts, billing statements, trinkets, airplane propellers, and magazines. Ultimately, he found himself unable to part with anything, and the house became a museum. He died about 10 years ago. My mother-in- law spent the next several years re-living memories and, from time to time, clearing out as much as she could part with. She found solace in the freed-up space she managed to find, but her efforts weren’t enough to make much of a dent. Now, this fun-loving, vibrant 92-years-young woman
is in an assisted living apartment, free of clutter. Since moving to her apartment, my husband, their only living child, has been “blessed” with the task of clearing out the remaining stuff in the house, which is, thankfully, almost complete. But while I cannot truly relate to the mindset of people like my father-in-law, I have seen the effect “hoarding” has on families through my work as a probate administration and estate planning attorney. Sometimes, family members voice their desire to possess specific items after their parents pass, but generally, they don’t. That leaves them rummaging through closets, boxes, and basements to sort valuables from everyday stuff and reliving memories, good and bad.
In your estate planning, I encourage you to consider what effect your passing will have on your family. Consider gifting certain items during your life to those who appreciate them or put a Letter of Instruction with your will or trust that identifies personal items and who you would like to have them. Putting your wishes in writing will reduce your concerns about your belongings to which you are attached and will likely serve to alleviate ambiguity, disagreements, and stress that may arise within your family during the probate process. -Alysoun Eversole
2 www.eversolelaw.com
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