Au pairs in Southern Maryland gathered at the Forrest Hall Farm and Orchard on a picture perfect Saturday afternoon! We grabbed a bunch of apples to sample!
Everyone enjoyed taking some silly pictures!
Corn maze, hay ride, corn hole and picking out our pumpkins!
Here is a video explaining how to carve a pumpkin (as well as some non-carving alternatives.) If you get a pumpkin at a pumpkin patch, I don’t recommend carving it until the week of Halloween, so it will stay looking fresh for big day. Follow the tips towards the end of the video to extend the life of your pumpkin! The carving fun starts at the 1:27 mark!
Find more fun on the APIA Fall Holidays Pinterest board.
Toddlers are a bundle of inquisitive energy! So much to explore! Lets look at some engaging activities, inside and out, that we can plan for our days together!!
How about some outdoor hopscotch? Grab some chalk and get creative!
Practice cause and effect with this easy craft project. Bonus points – it travels well for entertaining small hands in waiting rooms, restaurants, etc.
Try playing with muffin tin sorting! Easy to find items in the home become useful tools of play as your and your child sort, place in, take out, etc.
Try your artistic hand at making a rainbow salt tray to explore! Completely reusable, this activity has long staying power!
Use recyclable water bottles and some miscellaneous items to create a Discovery Bottle.
Try creating a rainbow sand box! This compact box is perfect for small spaces, indoors, etc. Just grab another shallow container with a lid, add in the colored rice after it dries and some digging and sifting equipment! 
Photo credits to – Ilya Haykinson – Flickr; Emma Craig – Flickr; Kidz Activities – Flickr
As with any activity, please use your own judgement about what your particular child can do or try.
World Oceans Day, June 8th, was the United Nations-recognized day of ocean celebration and action. This summer, people all over the world are celebrating under the theme of Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet. Organizations and individuals are promoting prevention of plastic ocean pollution with events in their communities, special announcements, and everything in between! As a part of this special program, au pairs from APIA have participated in several activities over the summer to bring awareness and work together to preserve our oceans.
Au pairs from Southern Maryland planned a day at the Flag Ponds Nature Park. Together, we hiked to the Chesapeake Bay, picking up trash along the trail and along the shore line, participated in fossil hunting and enjoyed a picnic! Many treasures were found, including a very big sharks tooth found by Alisa from Germany!
Au pairs are required to complete 6 credits or 8 CEUs or 72 or more hours. I will work with your au pair to ensure that she earns the appropriate amount.
You may take credit or non-credit classes from an accredited college. If you want to take a class at a school not listed here on my blog, please check with me first to make sure it is accredited. Otherwise, it would not count toward your education requirement.
Your host family will pay an education allowance to assist you in completing your education requirement. They will also ensure your transportation to class (access to a car and gas expense will be covered). The education allowance is $500.
There are ways to get your credits for close to your education allowance, but it will not give you a lot of choices. Normally au pairs will contribute some of their own money ($200+) towards their education. I can help you plan out your year of classes to make it fun, interesting and educational! 
The APIA Advantage UCLA Course is the only State Dept. approved class with an online component. No other online classes are accepted.
Note: Au pairs should only take one weekend course for their education requirement. Using only weekend courses to meet your education requirement could result in the denial of your extension application (should you decide to extend.)
Photo Credit: CollegeDegrees360 (flickr)
Almost everyone experiences culture shock when they come to a completely new environment. Everything is different: the language, the food, and the people.
Here are my Top 5 Tips for
Dealing with Homesickness
1. Make Friends – Don’t wait for other au pairs to reach out to you, reach out to them. There are other lots of new au pairs who are feeling the same way you are right now. Set a goal to reach out to someone each day. Some will respond and some will not. Don’t let that discourage you. No one will ever be mad at you for sending them a message to say hello or ask if they want to do something together. Make friends from various countries and you will also get a chance to practice your English skills together.
2. Stay in touch with your home country, but not too much. Skyping or talking on the phone every day with your family and/or friends back home normally makes homesickness worse. Try emailing instead and reduce the Skype and phone calls to once a week, until you feel stronger. It’s much harder seeing the faces and hearing the voices of those you miss.
3. Get out of the house (or your room specifically) – Go to cluster meetings, have coffee or movies with other au pairs, join a gym, go to the library, go for a walk, visit the mall, get a manicure, visit a museum, go to get ice cream. If someone invites you out, say “yes.” Also, don’t be afraid to do the inviting. If your host family invites you to do things with them, say “yes.” This will help you get to know each other and contribute to your overall happiness.
4. Realize that it definitely gets better – All au pairs experience homesickness and nearly all of them stay and have a successful year (some stay for two years, some even come back for a second au pair experience after being back home for two years) So, it must get better, right? Once you get past the initial homesickness, most au pairs report how quickly the year goes by. Make sure you tell your host family, counselor and au pair friends that you are homesick – we’ll help you!
5. Make Plans – Create your own Au Pair Bucket List (places you want to go, new foods to try, new things to experience during your year in the U.S.) and start doing them now. Pinterest is a great option to plan your adventures! Post on our cluster Facebook group to find others who may want to join you on your adventures.
Kids in our cluster are returning to school. This means changes to the au pair schedule and possibly to the duties. It is very important to communicate these changes to avoid problems.
I suggest you discuss the following (if applicable):
Here are some Printable Fill-in-the-Blank School Notes for parents. You may print these out and use them for times when the kids are absent, late, have early dismissal or you need to give permission for something.
If the au pair will be the one going through the children’s back pack and helping with homework, I suggest you designate an area for putting things that need to be read and/or signed by parents.
School Buses – Remember to discuss school bus safety and the rules about driving when school buses are near. Stopping when the lights flash and the stop sign comes out unless the road is divided, etc.
Reminder: It is illegal in the State of Maryland for a child under the age of 8 to be left alone in the home or car. Please make sure that your drop off routine does not include leaving children under 8 at home or in the car while dropping off another child. Even if a host parent gives permission to do this, it is not allowed, because it is against the law.
Photo by Jens Rost
We spent a fun Sunday afternoon enjoying tasty treats at Bert’s 50’s Diner while continuing to work on our community service project for Sending Smiles.
Sending Smiles was created by local children to bring happiness to sick children and families. Postcards are decorated by Smile Makers (children and the young at heart) and sent across the USA.
This week we welcomed four of our newest arrivals – May from Thailand, Tania from Spain, Anna from Germany and Sophie from Austria!
It is completely normal to feel homesick sometimes when we are far from home. Homesickness comes from feeling disconnected from familiar people, places and routines. It is an emotion you have to learn how to cope with while you are here. It is an emotion that passes with time. Here are some tips to help you when you feel homesick:
A little inspiration from a former au pair… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3IBmRWGnwA
Have a great year, this is your dream, make the most of it!
The Olympics are in full swing!! We have put together some great ideas to correlate with the Summer Games! How about creating your own Olympic Rings Ball Toss or Olympic pictographs? Learn about the culture of Rio or do an Olympic word search! Make a pom pom soccer field, a laurel wreath or your own gold medal! When it’s snack time, learn how to make grapes in a canoe, ring cupcakes or an edible Olympic torch! You can also learn how to chart the medals won by your country and the US! Whatever activities you chose to do, there will be lots of fun going on! Check out all of these ideas and more here!
Photo by Vincent Angler – Flickr
