November 2nd, 2011 Cultural Exchange Posted by Melitsa in Education, Homemade, Memes, Podcast, Sites to visit, Thought of the week

Melissa over at Chasing Cheerios mentioned a Cultural Exchange  just before the Summer. It sounded a great idea.

The idea was to send a packgae out that represented your country to a group of people. Melissa coordinated the whole thing. We were in a group of 6 people. 6 packages- how difficult would that be?

Naturally life gets busy during the summer. My husband was back after a year deployment so life was hectic. The kids also spent a large portion with Grandparents. I didn’t want to send activities for them to do. Hanging out with the Grandparents was all that was required.

So September rolls around and back to school. Again super busy. The boys and I worked really  hard on finding UK things and what they wanted.

This is what we selected for our package. Each one was a little different.

• ELC money in Euros and Sterling
• Twining fruit Tea. (We’re big fruit tea drinkers but we were thinking of the kids- no caffeine!)
• Mini chocolate digestives ( I had to buy a second packet the first packets got…er..um eaten)
• Love hearts and traditional sweets
• keyring with a tourist attraction from the UK/London. Here we have the traditional phone box. Not many of these around.
• Make a flag activity
• Information pack about the K including recipes
• Drawn picture of a Beefeater costume.

Imagine that duplicated 6 times. It was an interesting time at the post office sending these off.

Next the wait…….

So far we’ve received one from Arizonia and one from Japan.

The boys are beyond excited to open them up. We unpacked them at Dinnertime.

If you get the chance to participate in an exchange….do!

There are lots of physical swaps online. I spoke about the International Postcard Swap  on the podcast recently.

Have you participated in any swaps? Share the links below

July 21st, 2011 Make your own Teacher gift Posted by Melitsa in Education, Homemade, play activities, Thought of the week

It’s that time of year again with the ( UK) Summer holidays right on our doorstep. You can tell it’s almost the end of term because the shoes just fit, there’s a hole appearing in all the school uniform trousers and you’ve just realised you’ve been washing less uniform as parts are surely at school. Left as one part of the goal post or on the bench.

Everyone’s tired.

We try and make a teacher gift each year. After being on the end of this annual ritual of gift giving, I loved the gifts that were handmade the most. I never expected gifts and although I can remember a few gifts I really don’t remember who didn’t give me gifts.

Gift giving has gotten a little out of hand. I still use the what-we-can-afford and not what-everyone-else -is-doing as the measure.

The kids felt good doing and making this particular gift. Over the past few months we’ve had all different ideas. But with time on our tail we wanted something that was practical, useful and homemade.

I’d come across these pens in the States at offices when you needed to fill things out. For us that was inevitably the doctors office where we feel we lived with three children as well as any office we went to on the military installation. Before flower pens they must have lost so many! Also I made one during a MOPS session complete with pen holder. Mine lives in the car.

Per child

• one artificial flower ( We bought ours at Habitat) There were two flowers on one stem. Habitat is going out of business so we got a mega bargain.
• Floral tape
• Scissors
• Biro

Measure the artificial flower against the pen. Cut so the flower head shows and the base is near the bottom of the pen.

Start wrapping the tape around the pen and the stem of the flower so it overlaps. The MO watched me do a few wraps and was able to complete the whole thing himself. The BG (8) completed it all.

Smooth out the tape and adjust the stem/pen alignment. You may need extra tape at the bottom especially if you cut the end of the stem. check the pen holds well and no sharp edges.

Why a pen?

Teachers use a lot of pens all the time.

They’ll find your pen among all the pens.

Optional

* Add a spray of your favourite flower scent to the flower head or a few drops of essential oil. The boys chose this option.

To complete the gift

I interviewed the MO with some simple questions. He wrote the answers. ( 3-5 words each time around) Five questions, I think in total.  I printed out the questions and we stuck his answer down and put the question on top so it was a lift the flap to see the answer. ( Should have taken a picture)

The BG wrote a letter to his teacher talking about the highlights of his year.

Both labeled them Thank You cards.

Would love to see your homemade teacher gifts

July 13th, 2011 Painting with cars Posted by Melitsa in Education, Homemade, play activities, Thought of the week

Put together two things; paint and cars!
We had some left over paint so spread it onto a tray.

Using his favourite car he started with the lines on the tray.

Once he saw the paper he was excited to try there. We used quite a few pieces of paper.

This was one of those fun things we did last Summer that I just found on the camera. We did it at Grandma and Grandpa’s house where there was carpet under the table and a long walk to the sink.

(Yes, I was very nervous!)

Roll on the unstructured activities…… no aim in mind for this activity. He set his agenda and stopped.

Despite my fear all went well.

Other posts you may enjoy about painting from the Raising Playful Tots Index

• from Picklebums
• from  Child central station
• from Nurturestore
• from Playing by the book

June 15th, 2011 Easy Father’s day craft for toddlers Posted by Melitsa in Education, Homemade, play activities

Simple Father’s day gift that your toddler can make.

Special handmade paperweight.

May 9th, 2011 Family night and dinnertime play activities- April Posted by Melitsa in download, Education, Homemade, language, Media, play activities, Podcast

What’s family dinner like in your home? Probably pretty busy. Anytime for play activities?

Family meal times can be a really chaotic time of day with the bewitching hour close by/ clubs and activities/ and the general hustle and bustle of preparing a meal with children underfoot. By the time we make it to the table we’re all a little frazzled. Once we start eating we try a conversation and get mixed results.

Dinner time is a great time to connect and feel that family bond. We’ve had a lot of success with Dinner games and now were extending the fun.

Extending the fun

During the meal we try the conversation starters to get to know our children. Then move onto family night activities.

At the end of each month I’ll be sharing a download full of activities to try over the month for dinner conversation and together family activities.

Photo credit

Download April here

Contents

Since we’re at dinner I thought I would continue the theme………………….

Appetizer: Conversation starters during dinner

4-6 questions to promote conversation with your under 5s plus space to add your own.

First course: Recommended family game or activity

Games we recommend that encourage team work, participation, conversation and appeals to various ages.

Second course: Book recommendation

These books work really well read aloud or working together as a family.

Salad course: Podcast recommendation

Podcasts for kids or parents to enjoy

Dessert: Music

Start their musical appreciation with some carefully thought out musical journeys.

Cheese course: find some excellent play activities to do for the month.

How?

Combine them in one night and have a playful family’dinnight’ or try different parts over the month.

Photo credit

Happy family ‘dinnight’!

Download April here