Au Pair Chatter

Below are the directions from Family Fun, for this fun and easy project.

Garland of Gratitude

Simple enough for kids to create on their own, these beautiful, textured leaves make a wonderful holiday tradition. Invite each guest to write something he or she is grateful for on a leaf, and watch the garland grow each year.

Materials

• Colored construction paper
• Pencil
• Spray bottle (filled with water)
• Scissors
• Colored pencils
• Twine or natural-colored string
• Double-sided tape

Instructions

1. Draw leaf shapes on colored construction paper, or download leaf templates and then trace on to colored construction paper.Make at least 1 leaf per guest plus others for decoration.
2. Lay the paper on a covered work surface, then spray water over both sides so the whole surface is damp. Crumple the paper into a loose ball, flatten it out, and let it dry completely (which takes a few hours).
3. Next, cut out the leaves and hand them to your guests to write on.
4. Finally, make a garland by folding the stems over a length of string and taping them in place. Drape them from a sideboard, along a mantel, or from the top of a doorway.

Grandparents Day is celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day. This year that will be September 11.  This is not a widely celebrated holiday, but most grandparents would still appreciate being remembered and would particularly enjoy a homemade gift or card.  Work with your children to create a simple but special surprise.  Use a photo of the child or the child and the grandparent to make it even more special.

Photo by ScottieT812

Here is another fun website with ideas to go along with this week’s Outer Space theme.

Get Crafty: Space Mobile

Make your own star mobile!

What you need:

• - Yellow construction paper
• - String or yarn
• - 2 plastic straws
• - Hole puncher
• - Scissors
• - Pencil
• - Eraser
• - Stapler

Steps:

1. Draw 6-8 stars on the yellow construction paper. Each one should be a different shape or size.
2. When you’re finished, ask a parent to help you cut out the shapes. Cut around the outside of the lines and then use an eraser to remove the pencil marks.
3. Parent Alert: Using the hole puncher, pierce a hole at the top of each star.
4. Cut a piece of string for each of the stars and tie it around the hole. Tip: Vary the length of the string to help your mobile come to life.
5. Parent Alert: Pick up two straws and make the shape of the letter “X” with them. Staple the straws together where the two meet.
6. Cut and tie a long piece of string to where the staple is and then tie the rest of the strings to one of the four limbs of the X.
7. Hang your mobile by the long string in the middle and in your room from the ceiling or in a favorite corner somewhere around the house. Now, you can look at the stars anytime you want!

Craft from Funschool.com

Also: Printable Space Word Jumble & Shuttle Shuffle

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Au Pair in America and the beginning of legal au pair programs in America, we will be hosting a Regional Cultural Fair. 

When: April 9th, 2011, 1:00 to 3:00 pm

Where: Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park 
               7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo, MD 

Who’s Invited: This is a free family event and open to the public.

All of the clusters in the DC/MD/VA area will be participating. We expect to have au pairs representing over 35 different countries. Anyone interested in learning about other cultures and the Au Pair in America program are invited. For more information, email me at cicaupair @ aol.com

 In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Au Pair in America and the beginning of legal au pair programs in America, we will be hosting a Cultural Fair on April 9th, 2011 from 1:00 to 3:00 at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. All of the clusters in the DC/MD/VA area will be participating. We expect to have au pairs representing over 25 different countries. 

This is a family event and open to the public. Anyone interested in learning about other cultures and the Au Pair in America program are invited.

This event will take place at the beautiful, historic Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park.

We Bring the World Together.

In the kids activity kits a few months ago, I included a perler bead fish craft.  I heard from some of you that the kids had a lot of fun making those.  My kids love perler beads.  There are days where they will work on bead projects for hours.

If you want to give them a try, you can find mini kits for $1 at Michaels and A.C. Moore that include everything needed to make one small project.  Perler beads are a great fine motor skills activity.  If you have kids ages 3-5 who have trouble with the tiny beads, they now have a larger size available that will be easier for them.

From this:

To this:  (Here is a gallery of my kid’s perler creations from the past 6 months.)

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.

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.

I friend shared this recipe with me and I thought it would be a lot of fun on a cold snow day like this.  It is gingerbread because of the color and smell, but it is not to be eaten.  Since the ingredients are all food, it is safe if the kids sample it.  I can guarantee it will not taste as good as it smells though.

Gingerbread Playdough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and knead* until smooth.

*knead – to massage, shape and press with your hands as you do with dough or clay.

Tips

• If you are working with older kids, you can have them help make it.
• If you are working with younger kids (6 and under), I recommend you make the playdough ahead of time and just bring it out for them to play with.
• Lay wax paper on the table to protect the surface where they play with it.
• Bring out playdough tools and/or kid-safe kitchen tools (cookie cutters, plastic knives, etc.)

A fun holiday activity to do with kids is making gingerbread houses.  You can buy kits with prebaked gingerbread and all the supplies or you can make your own using graham crackers.  Graham crackers are sold in the cookie/cracker aisle at the store.  The advantage to assembling your own supplies is that you can mix in some healthy decorations as opposed to all candy in the kits.  You can also let kids unleash their creativity.  There is no rule about how the houses must look, so they can build whatever they like.

Graham Cracker Houses

Here are the supplies to gather to make your own mini houses:

• box of graham crackers
• store bought whipped white frosting
• wax paper or foil (to cover the surface you work on)
• plastic knife (to spread the frosting)
• decorations (candies, mini pretzels, cereal, the possibilities are endless)

Set up a work space on the table for each child with their supplies

Mini Marshmallow Igloos

Another super easy and fun option is to make an igloo.

Here are the supplies you will need:

• empty single serving small plastic cups from applesauce of fruit 
• store bought whipped white frosting
• wax paper or foil (to cover the surface you work on)
• plastic knife (to spread the frosting)
• mini marshmallows

Mini Marshmallow Igloo

Simply let the child cover the outside of the cup with white frosting and place marshmallows on the frosting.