Halloween is a great time to share the United States culture with your au pair. Even preschoolers can paint a pumpkin (use washable tempera paint and clean up quickly) and older kids can carve pumpkins with guidance. Costumes provide lots of topics or conversation. And of course Trick-or-Treating is fun for everyone! Talk to your au pair about similar customs in her home country. She may have some great ideas – Mexican au pairs can share traditions around the Dia de los Muertos, for example.

Sometimes, especially with younger children, cries of boredom are really calls for companionship and attention—their friends may be away on vacation and without the structure of school they may find it difficult to keep occupied during long summer days. Prolonged intervals where the kids have nothing to do can be stressful . When bored, children often become whiny, cranky and demanding. Calendar-of-the-season-300×216

Here are a few easy tips to help au pairs and host parents combat summer boredom and help kids develop the internal resources that are important for developing creative, resource and time management skills:

Put a weekly calendar together so as not to overwhelm yourself with planning entertainment for an entire summer, just take it one week at a time—day trips, arts and craft activities, play-dates, reading time, nature hikes, picnics, bike rides, a trip to the movie theatre etc. This way kids will have something to look forward to during down time. A calendar also helps with getting kids prepared for what comes next.
Ask: “If you could do anything, what would you like to do?” Try and encourage your children to generate their own ideas for activities—they are more apt to have fun when they thought it up on their own! Reinforcing that children use their imaginations will also help them develop a sense of resourcefulness and get them in the habit of making their own choices about how they will spend their time.
Keep an “art box” handy full of supplies: scissors, fabric, felt, glue, paints and brushes, stickers, paper, markers, canvass, needle and thread, beads, yarn, picture magazines etc. Rummaging through a box of art supplies can ignite the imagination and occupy children for long periods of time. They could even begin an entrepreneurial enterprise and sell their wares at the end of the summer.
Inspire them to play with water. Water is very calming and soothing for children and they can while away many hours playing and keeping cool. Get them to wash the car, hose off the deck, or run through a sprinkler. Spend time together at the beach or pool

(Thanks to Jan Peedin, Annapolis Community Counselor, for the great posting!)

National Geographic just picked the Twin Cities as the 4th best summer vacation destination in the world! Our long, cold winters make us all want to celebrate 0ur lovely summers!

Go to:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/best-trips-summer-2011-photos/#/best-summer-trips-minneapolis-minnesota_34537_600×450.jpg to see the write-up!

If you’re a kid in the United States, Halloween is one of the best days of the year. Kids get to dress up in all kinds of fantastic costumes and go door to door, collecting bags of candy. It’s a great day to celebrate being a child. Many kids have planned what they want to be for months.

It’s important that the adults in a child’s life are aware of safety at this time. Many families put lit candles in pumpkins outside their front doors, which can quickly ignite a costume, so be aware of fire safety all the time. Also, although it’s very rare, sometimes candy can be tampered with, so adults should check all the candy before kids get to eat any. It’s also important to be aware of weather, steering kids toward costumes that would allow a sweatshirt or gloves if needed. Be sure kids are visible to drivers with glow sticks or reflective tape strips on the costumes.

Au pairs can be involved in Halloween in many different ways, from helping to make costumes to carving pumpkins into jack-o’lanterns, to handing out candy on Halloween night or going trick-or-treating with the kids. Make sure you have your camera handy!

Our June cluster meeting took place at the Walker Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis. We saw some amazing art while constantly checking the World Cup scores.

The Sculpture Garden is a great place for families to experience art in the great outdoors. Admission is free and it’s open daily.

Our May cluster meeting was at the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul, a former gangster hangout and one of the most haunted places in North America.

They offer tours Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. On Thursday after the tour, they also have Swing Night, including lessons and live music.

This week we are focusing on Global Awareness, our program where au pairs go into schools to talk about their home countries. We help them connect with interested schools, and provide them with materials to bring in, and the au pairs just spend an hour or so with the students, talking about their homes, teaching them a song, or explaining their flag. It’s fun and easy, and a great way to share cultures with each other. If anyone is interested get in touch with me and I can make it happen!

Winter is a great time to be a kid in Minnesota, but you need to take precautions.  Kids should be dressed for the weather, which includes some or all of the following:  mittens or gloves, scarves, hats, warm boots, and snowpants. For older kids in particular, it is a good idea to put layers on if you’re going sledding or skating, so that if they start to get warm, they can take some of it off without losing all their protection.

Little kids can have a blast just playing with snow, maybe learning how to make snowballs or even snow forts. You can put them on a sled with you to go down the local hills.  Keep an eye on them to be sure they aren’t getting cold – sometimes they don’t know themselves!

Older kids can do all the same things, plus skating or hockey on local rinks or ponds, riding big tubes down ski hills at places like Buck Hill, Afton Alps, or Theodore Wirth Park, and skiing.

The Twin Cities au pairs went skating in November to prepare for all of this. I was amazed at how quickly they caught on! I’ll be posting photos soon.

Remember, after an afternoon playing outdoors this time of year, a lovely cup of hot cocoa can warm anyone up!