We had a wonderful Valentine’s Cluster meeting on Sunday to celebrate this special day within our cluster.

Many aupairs contributed with sweets and other home made food to our international buffet.

At this meeting we were also talking about taxes, the aupairs have to file.

It was really great to see so many of our growing cluster at this meeting. We also discussed some questions about education and driving as an aupair.

Katrine from Denmark who brought her home made yummi cookies

Candice from South Africa and Susanna from Costa Rica

Laura and Leonie from Germany

From left to right: Jessica from South Africa, Julia from Germany, Fernanda and Rafael from Brazil, Anita and Linda from Germany

Camille, Charlene and Jennifer from France and Christina from Germany

For more pictures please go to Valentine’s Day 2012.

Maria and Vanessa from Germany and Anna from France

Multiple clusters went yesterday to experience  snow tubing in Nashoba Valley together.  This was a fun event especially since some aupairs have never done anything like it before.

Laura and Ashleigh from the UK and Katrine from Denmark

The slopes were pretty icy and therefore it was a fast trip down the hill.  Everybody had a great time.

Jaqueline, Gabriela and Camilla from Brazil

Jaqueline just arrived a few days ago from Brazil and made already some friends during this cluster event.

This was one of our regional events which we offer to our aupairs in the greater Boston area next to our cluster events.

To see all pix please go to Nashoba Valley snow tubing 2012

Below is a link to a blog from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal online. The blogger/reporter, John J. Edwards III has written about he and his wife’s switch from a babysitter….to Au Pair in America!

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2012/02/02/switching-to-an-au-pair/?mod=WSJBlog

American Football Simplified

A football field is 100 yards long. The line dividing the field in the center is the 50 Yard Line. There are other lines marking the field off into 5 yard sections. There is a Goal Post at each end of the field, in the End Zone, one for each team.

Each team has an Offense and a Defense. When the Offense of one team is on the field, the Defense of the other team is on the field. The Offense has the ball and tries to score by getting it across the Goal Line – the line where the playing field and the End Zone meet. The Defense tries to stop them.

The Offense gets four tries to move the ball 10 yards toward their own goal post. These are called Downs. If they make the 10 yards or more, they get another four tries to move the ball another 10 yards. If they don’t move the ball 10 yards in four tries, the ball goes to the other team, or the team “loses the ball.”

When a team loses the ball, their Offense leaves the field and is replaced by their Defense. The other team’s Defense leaves the field and is replaced by their Offense.

Play is started by the Offense and Defense lining up facing each other. The Offense faces the direction of their Goal Post. The Quarterback passes (throws) the ball to one of his team mates. If he catches it, he runs toward the End Zone. If he makes it across the Goal Line, his team scores a Touchdown and gets six points. The team then gets a chance to earn an extra point by kicking the ball through the Goal Posts or two points by passing or running the ball into the End Zone.

If the team mate catches the ball, the Defense runs after him and tries to tackle him (grabbing him and causing him to fall to the ground). If he is tackled, play starts again at that point where the ball is. If the team mate doesn’t catch the pass, the ball is dead and goes back to the previous starting place.

Sometimes a player of the Defense catches the pass. That’s called an Interception. He then runs toward his team’s goal and may score a Touchdown for his team. If he intercepts the ball, the other team’s players will try to tackle him. Even if he is tackled, his team now has possession of the ball. His team’s Defense leaves the field, replaced by their Offense. The other teams Offense leaves the field, replaced by their Defense.

A Football Game is made up of 60 minutes of play time. The 60 minutes is divided into four Quarters of 15 minutes each. At the end of two Quarters, there is a break called Half Time. On the Scoreboard you can see the minutes and seconds running out. The team with the most points at the end of four Quarters wins.

The Super Bowl is the final game of the Football season when two teams play each other for the championship. The game takes place in late January or early February. For some people the TV commercials are the best part of the Super Bowl.

This month we held our monthly cluster meeting at my house after we needed to cancel out snow tubing event in Nashoba Valley due to rain. We will have the snow tubing at another time.

Mikaela from Sweden, Christina from Germany, Alexandra from Germany, Anna from Brazil and Jennifer from France

We used the meeting to talk about driving with kids in the car, driving in winter conditions, car seats for kids.

It is a government requirement to have one meeting about Child Development/Safety Meeting every three month.

Julia from Germany and Anna from Brazil

We also welcomed 5  new aupairs in our cluster who just arrived last weekend in our Boston area at their hostfamilies:

Laura form the UK

Jessica from South Africa

Leonie from Germany

Laura from Germany

Janet from Switzerland

For all pictures of the meeting please go to January 2012 clustermeeting.

Linda from Germany, Hannah from South Africa, Vanessa and Anita from Germany

Boston area community counselors

On Sunday, we celebrated the holidays with other Boston area au pair clusters at the Scout House in Concord.  Over 150 au pairs participated in the au pair holiday gala.

Counselors supplied holiday music, decorations, main dishes like ham, turkey, lasagna, as well as a holiday punch.  Each au pair was asked to bring food to share from her country.

Au pairs also participated in a gift swap game during which they were asked questions like “Who has visited the Grand Canyon,” or “Who has an American boyfriend?” As you can imagine, there was a lot of laughter involved.

Gift Exchange Game

As a conclusion to a fun evening, au pairs also split up into country groups to sing traditional holiday songs from their country.

To see some more pictures please go to Holiday party 2011 , cluster group picture and Tina’s pix.

School breaks during holidays; ask your host family how your schedule will change during the break to make sure you and they are ready. Talk to your host family about how they celebrate the holidays. Share some holiday traditions from your country with your host family. Ask your host family which activities they really want you to join in; dinner with relatives, holiday gatherings, baking, decorating, and religious services. Discuss your plans for the holidays; parties or events you wish time off for well in advance, so your host family can plan. Be careful, accidents happen when children are very excited.  Know when to calm them down, so you can avoid accidents before they happen. Try to keep the kids on as much of a regular schedule as possible.  Kids will get over tired and cranky if there are too many activities in one day or several days in a row.  Try to help limit the activities to a few a day or week. Give kids downtime with quiet activities, like reading a holiday story or watching a holiday DVD. Make sure you and the kids get plenty of sleep. Remember to prepare some gifts for your host family, especially for the kids.  I recommend books, crafts, or games.  You can read the books, do the crafts, play the games with them. Take some time for yourself; to shop, to spend with friends, to call home.  Remember it is a stressful time, even if it is fun and exciting.  You are far from home and you may feel a bit homesick.  Don’t make promises to the kids that you can’t keep.  Don’t promise to go to an event and then cancel because you would rather be out with your friends. Go to your host children’s school holiday activities, the class party, the winter concert, etc. Offer to talk to their class about how you celebrate holidays in your country.  Do a craft with the class.  Earn a Global Awareness letter or certificate.  Ask me for help. Participate in family holiday traditions whenever possible.  Be available to help the parents watch the kids while they decorate the house, prepare holiday foods, or attend holiday parties. Come to our  International Holiday Party!! See you on Dec 4

30 aupairs, who participated in our cluster meeting

We went to the laser quest for our November cluster meeting and had a lot of fun there. To see more pictures go to  Laser tag Nov 2011

Goblins and Ghosts stay safe!

1. Make sure to inspect the children’s Trick Or Treat candy to make sure everything is in a sealed wrapper and appears safe.
2. Small children should not eat hard candy because of chocking.
3. Children should be supervised when they go Trick-or-Treating.  Many parents will come home early from work on the day to go with their children.  Check with Host Parents about this.

Halloween Safety Tips for Drivers

Halloween is a wonderful holiday, but because of increased foot traffic and that Trick-or-Treaters are out at night, the potential for automobile related accidents with young pedestrians increases four times on this night according to a CDC (Center for Disease Control) study.

Streets are literally crawling with all sorts of witches, ghosts, goblins, vampires and all other sorts of costumed people. This makes for added responsibility for drivers to make sure that they drive safer than normal.

In many areas, people drive their kids into subdivisions and let them out to walk from house to house. Usually the parent follows behind in the car. This can cause traffic jams in small areas and much confusion as kids dart between cars on the streets going from house to house. A driver is already distracted because they are trying to keep an eye on their own kids and usually aren’t paying attention to much else.

Children and adults tend to be preoccupied and may not pay as much attention to safety as they should. They may not see your vehicle or just assume that you see them automatically. Stay on the defensive and you shouldn’t have a problem while driving on Halloween night

* Don’t use a cell phone or other electronic device while driving on Halloween night. You shouldn’t be doing this anyway, the rate of cell phone related auto accidents has jumped dramatically since the use of cell phones and texting has risen so high. Some states have already made laws concerning this and others are working on it.

Make sure your child carries a flashlight, glow stick or has reflective tape on their costume to make them more visible to cars. Left them know if they carry a flash light to never shine itin the eyes of a driver. This can cause blindness on the drivers part temporarily and they may not see your child.

HAVE SOME FUN THIS MONTH

The month of October brings exciting activities to the city of Salem, Massachusetts. There are many activities relating to the city’s history and penchant for things macabre, including walking tours, haunted houses, trolley rides, spooky performances, exhibits, harbor cruiss and more. Visit their website for all the details: http://www.hauntedhappenings.org/