Twin Cities Au Pair in America Blog

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!

We went to the Midwest Mountaineering bouldering cave for our April meeting.

Earth Day is an international celebration designed to ”increase awareness, responsibility and action toward a clean, health future for all living things.” Depending on the ages of your kids, you can find many activities to commemorate this.  For older kids, parks in the area have “Clean Up” day, where you pick up the litter leftover after the winter. Even little kids can plant seeds in an empty egg carton or paper cup. If you want, you can start the seeds by putting them on wet paper towels in a plastic bag and leave it on a sunny counter. In a day or so, roots and leaves will start to show up. Talk to the kids about what’s happening and then plant the seedling. You can also try to come up with special activities to reduce waste or energy use. Have fun!

Alfred Butts who was born on this day in 1899 invented Scrabble, the game that uses letter tiles to spell words. As soon as children learn to read and spell they can play an easy version of Scrabble.  For very beginning readers you can create your own simple game by making letter tiles from index cards for each letter that is used in the words the child knows. Be sure to make extra vowels (a, e, i, o, u) as they appear most frequently. Uses these letter cards together you can help strengthen the children’s reading and spelling skills while having fun.

Libraries are great places to take kids of all ages! National Library Week is the ideal time to check out all the opportunities at your local library. From preschool story time to resources for high school research projects, libraries can be an important part of caring for children. In the Twin Cities, go to www.hclib.org to find your closest library and check out what’s happening!

We went snow tubing at Theodore Wirth Park. For most of the au pairs, it was their first tubing experience, and everyone had fun – even though it was 10 degrees and the tow rope broke!

Au Pair in America is celebrating our 25th year! We were the first federally-approved au pair agency in the US, starting in 1986. We have brought together thousands of families with thousands of au pairs from all over the world. Anyone have any stories?

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!

Money Magazine just published its annual list of the 100 best places to live, and once again a Minnesota city tops the list! This year it’s Eden Prairie, a terrific suburb near downtown Minneapolis, with lots of parks and shopping, and great schools. Minnesota has 5 cities in the top 25!

If you’re new to Au Pair in America, and sign up and match with an au pair, you can get some truly awesome discounts! Go to www.aupairinamerica.com for more details. Now could be the perfect time to try live-in childcare – with an international flair!