My name is Christine Connally and I have been an Au Pair in America Community Counselor in Maryland, since 2003. My service area includes: Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Prince George's County and Southern Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
Au Pair in America is the nation's first legal au pair program. Since 1986, we have provided the best child care opportunities to host families across the US and au pairs from around the world.
Posted by Christine Connally on Mar 13, 2010No Comments
The next APIA Advantage UCLA Extension Class is set to start on March 29. Time is running out to register.There are still spaces available, but you need to act quickly to register.
American Studies Online is a 19-week media-rich, mostly self-paced online course of study. Designed specifically in cooperation with the American Institute For Foreign Study’s “Au Pair in America” program, UCLA Extension’s course offers successful participants 6 quarter units (4 semester units) and a certificate of completion from UCLA Extension. This class satisfies the whole education requirement for au pairs and half of the requirement for Educare companions. View the brochure here.
Participants will read lessons, engage in activities, write, share resources, network with one another, and even collaborate on special projects – all designed to further their understanding of US culture.
The Community Involvement segment of the program takes the au pairs into face-to-face contact with the community. Au pairs will relate these experiences to their academic coursework in American Studies Online.
The interdisciplinary course of study will include:
• US History
• Arts in the US
• US literature
• Career counseling
• English language study (optional)
• TOEFL preparation (optional)
Each group is assigned a “Course Manager” who acts as an “online concierge” to provide high levels of service to ensure a rewarding and trouble-free educational experience.
For course descriptions and current schedule, visit http://www.uclaextension.edu/aupairs For further information call (310) 206-6671 or email online@uclaextension.edu
I periodically review links and information on my blog for accuracy and make updates as needed. If you ever find a broken link or information that needs to be updated, please let me know. Thanks.
Posted by Christine Connally on Mar 2, 2010No Comments
On this day in 1904 Dr. Seuss was born. Today is a great day to share a favorite Dr. Seuss book with a child or let them share their favorite Dr. Seuss book with you.
Celebrate his birthday with reading and fun activities.
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 24, 2010No Comments
Olympic Update
from Vancouver!
“we bring the world together”
Greetings!
Au Pair in America brings the world together, so we thought it would be fun to bring the world to you with updates on the Olympic Games in Vancouver. Enjoy!
Inspiring Performances in Ladies Figure Skating
Joannie Rochette of Canada skated an inspiring and emotional short program last night, not 48 hours after her mother passing away suddenly of a heart attack. Her score of 71.36, a personal best for the short program, put her in third place going into the ladies long program on Thursday.
In first place, South Korean Kim Yu-Na, a heavy favorite for gold and a marketing icon in her home country, set a new scoring record for short program, with a 78.50. Mao Asada of Japan is in second, with a score of 73.78, a personal best for her as well.
Thursday’s long program is definitely a must see!
Nordic Combined Relay
In very snowy conditions, Austria won the gold medal in the Nordic combined relay yesterday with a winning time of 49 minutes 31.6 seconds, beating out the US team by 5.2 seconds. Germany took home bronze, 19.5 seconds behind Austria.
Olympic Giant Slalom
World Champion Carlo Janka of Switzerland took the gold medal in the men’s giant slalom Tuesday, with a combined two-leg time of 2 minutes 37.83 seconds. Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal, both of Norway, won silver and bronze.
Women’s Ski Cross Makes it’s Debut
Ashleigh Mclvor of Canada made the hosting country proud by taking home gold in the Olympic debut of women’s skicross on Tuesday. Hedda Bernsten of Norway won silver, while Marion Josserand of France won bronze.
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 22, 2010No Comments
IHOP (International House of Pancakes) is giving away free short stacks of pancakes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010. The pancake giveaway is part of their efforts to promote National Pancake Day. Details can be found here.
IHOP asks you to consider donating a few dollars to the Children’s Miracle Network to support sick kids. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 22, 2010No Comments
As promised at last night’s meeting, I am posting some photos and links that will assist you in doing a few of the projects I have given you.
Newspaper Seedling Cups
Click on the photo below to go to a web page with step by step photos and directions for the seedling cup I showed you at the meeting. If you have older kids and are looking for something more to do with them, there are lots of videos on YouTube of how to make these using all kinds of different techniques including some origami folds.
Newspaper Seedling Pot
Butterfly Craft
Click on the photo below to go to a web page with complete project instructions.
Butterfly Craft Project
Shamrock Decoration
Below is a picture of what the completed shamrock project might look like. They can be decorated using paint, markers, crayons, glitter glue and stickers.
Shamrock Decorations
I hope you will use these ideas as a starting point to come up with lots of other fun projects and activities to do with the kids.
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 21, 2010No Comments
Sandra from Spain sent me this great picture and I just had to share it.
Sandra enjoying American life with her host family
“My family and me took this picture during the first snow storm, and we thought you would like it, we laughed a lot preparing it!! Au pairs life is not that easy….lol”-Sandra
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 14, 2010No Comments
February 14, 2010 marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. Also known as the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival is the most important traditional Chinese holiday. 2010 is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac.
Here are some links to learn more and find some related activities for kids:
Posted by Christine Connally on Feb 10, 2010No Comments
It’s difficult when the weather is too snowy, wet or cold for kids to play outside and get all of that great kid energy out.
Here are some indoor physical activity ideas:
Create an indoor obstacle course in the largest, kid safe room in the house (playroom, basement, family room, etc.) Use large cushions and toys to create places for kids to climb over and under.
Turn on some music (kid music or other music that is appropriate) and dance.
Play freeze dance. Tell the kids to dance when you turn the music on and to stop dancing when the music stops. Let the kids take turns being the leader, controlling the music.
Do the limbo dance. Play music and challenge the kids to go under the limbo pole as it gets lower and lower.
Make paper airplanes and see how far they can fly. Remind the kids not to throw them at other other people.
Mark small squares on the floor and challenge the kids to see who can stay on their spot the longest. Make it tougher for older kids by having them stand on one foot.
Play ball toss games with soft items like rolled up socks. The younger the children the larger the container they are tossing into should be. For very young kids, use a laundry basket. For older kids, use something smaller like a box, basket or large plastic mixing bowl.
Build a fort using blanket and furniture like chairs and tables. Or if the kids have a small play tent put that up.
Play sports charades. Charades is a game where you act out something while people try to guess. You can do this with sports actions, using no equipment, just making the actions. For example – hitting a golf ball, pitching a baseball, serving a tennis ball, bowling, etc.)
Jump rope.
Play with a hula hoop.
Try juggling, top spinning, or yo-yo contests.
Play hide and go seek.
Play “keep the balloon up”. Use one balloon per child or one balloon per small group. The group may add additional balloons as they gain control and awareness. *
* Safety Note – Balloons are a choking hazard, supervise children when playing with balloons and make sure to find and throw away any pieces of popped balloons.
There are a variety of colleges located in and around our cluster area. Scroll your mouse across the names of the colleges listed below, to find which ones to consider for where you live.
As in - Lots of au pairs and kids are probably suffering from cabin fever with all this snow. Check out my blog later for ideas to cure it.
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What is an Au Pair?
“Au pair” means “on par” or equal. Au pairs and 18-26 year olds from over 60 different countries who travel to the United States on a J-1 Visa to acquire a better understanding and appreciation of American life while living with an American family and caring for their young children.
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