Monthly Archives: August 2014

Don’t forget your education requirements!

Au pairs are required to complete 6 credits or 8 CEUs or 72 or more hours.

EduCare Companions are required to complete 12 credits or 16 CEUs or 144 or more hours.

You may take credit or non-credit classes from an accredited college. Look on the right side of this page for accredited schools in our cluster area. 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. Au Pairs education allowance – $500, EduCare education allowance – $1000

There are ways to get your credits for just 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.

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.)

A recent email from an au pair

“Dear Au Pair in America,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend a year abroad, get to know a different culture and have the time of my life! I just came back to my home country after I finished my year as an au pair in a suburb of Washington, DC and I can definitely say it was the best thing I could have ever done! I found amazing friends, a second home and got to get to know myself a little bit better. I got to travel the world, make new memories with people I share a lot with and got to take care of great kids. Being an au pair is not always easy; there are so many ups and downs and your mood can change from one moment to another. One day you’re homesick and you want to book a flight to go home and the other day you never want to leave the place you also learned to call home – but in the end it’s worth it. It is such a great program and I want to thank you for always having your counselors by our side, being supportive in everything and giving us the feeling to be part of something special! I will always keep those memories and experiences I gained in my heart and will always come back to the States!”

Love, Lena (Germany)

Are we there yet?

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Ideas for making those car trips memorable in the very best way:

1. WINDOW AS CANVAS If you don’t mind wiping the windows, let the kids use dry-erase markers to color pictures. Kids love to play tic-tac-toe. A baby wipe clears it up fast — makes the kids great travelers.

2. FOR VERY YOUNG ONES Pick up two clipboards at the dollar store to draw on. Tear pages out of coloring books and bring plain white paper. Let them use crayons – not as messy as markers. Also bring along some favorite lost and forgotten figurines from the bottom of the toy box. It was fun and quiet.

3. TAPES & ZIPLOCS Bring for each child lap desks for coloring, and individual snacks packed in their own Ziploc snack bags, and lots of sing-along tapes.

4. WIRED FOR PLAY Borrow a small tv/vcr and hook it up in the car so the kids can watch movies.With Red box or Blockbuster you can borrow them here and return along the way at other locations. Let them bring headphones and tapes or CDs they like. Get a couple of books on tape for the youngest kids that they really liked to listen to. The oldest can bring cards to play (like Uno, Go FIsh, a regular deck). Also pack a Frisbee, ball and gloves, and some bubbles in an easy-to-get-to place, so when stopping at a rest area you can all get a little exercise.

5. BOOKS & ACTIVITY BAGS Make a trip to the library and let each child pick out a couple of books for the ride. Pack an activity bag that straps onto the seat in front of the kids that are stocked with papers for drawing, activity books, and colored pencils (crayons melt in hot cars). Also bring a family activity bag with small magnetic games like checkers, Chinese checkers, etc.

6. MODEL MAGIC Take a couple of packages of multi-colored pipe cleaners and several packages of Crayola Model Magic which sticks to itself but not to the interior of the car or the kids’ clothes, it doesn’t blend unless the kids make it blend. Any little crumbles can just be brushed out or vacuumed away.

7. NIGHTTIME TRAVEL Even if it is a baby toy, kids have fun with ANYTHING that lights up. The dollar store has neon glow bracelets and sticks (the kind you’d purchase at an amusement park or nighttime parade) that kids can connect and make bracelets or necklaces out of. Glow-in-the-dark star stickers are fun to get out too. Have them use their mini-flashlights on them to get them to shine. They can stick them above their seat in the car (if they are big enough), or you can have them do it before it gets dark when stopping for gasoline or something quick.

8. TRAVEL JOURNALS Create travel journals in a 3-prong folder. Print off info — state bird, state flag, state capital — on the states you will be vacationing in (and also driving through) from state Web sites. Print out coloring pages from free Web sites on subjects having to do with those states (a moose for Maine, seashells for the beach). And to stop the dreaded “Are we there yet?”print out a map of our route and highlight the roads, marking off the parts as we complete them.Take all of the printables, add a few sheets of lined paper, and start each new section of the journal with “Our Trip to … Summer 2012.” Then the kids add what time we left, where we stopped, what we saw on the way, etc. They now have a collection of memories in one folder of all our trips.

9. TRAVEL BINGO Purchase auto bingo boards for sale, or just make them yourself and get the kids to help out.

10. SMALL SURPRISES Prepare small gifts along the way to keep the children occupied. Wrap them and tell the kids they will receive a gift if they are well behaved until the next stop.

11. CAR LICENSE GAME Play the car license game with them. Older kids can identify the states, and younger ones can look for the different colors, letters or numbers.

12. MAD LIBS Buy some Mad Libs. The kids will take turns filling in the answers and will love reading the funny stories

Make a fossil!

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For children ages 4 and older.

Mix together 1/2 cup of plaster and 1/4 cup water in a clean plastic container (or follow package directions).

Cover a seashell with petroleum jelly (Vaseline). When the plaster begins to set (thicken and harden slightly), press the shell into the plaster.

Let it dry overnight and then remove the shell (it should slide out easily).

Use the plaster mold to make clay fossils.

You can also use plaster to preserve a child’s hand or footprint. The plaster washes off skin easily with warm water, but make sure you run lots of water down the drain!

Handprints make wonderful gifts for parents and grandparents.

Lose a tooth?

It’s Tooth Fairy Day!

In the US when a child loses a tooth the Tooth Fairy comes during the night to take the tooth and leave a surprise. The surprise varies by family. What is the tradition in your country when a child loses a tooth? There are some fun books about loose teeth. Sometimes loose teeth are exciting and sometimes children can become upset.

Look for these books to help them with the experience: Little Rabbit’s Loose Tooth by Lucy Bate,Andrew’s Loose Tooth by Robert N. Munsch, The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist by Stan Berenstain.

Click on the link below to print a free coloring page:

http://printablecolouringpages.co.uk/?s=%20fairy%20letter

National Radio Day

Before the days of television and computers, families would gather around the radio for entertainment. In many areas of the country there are still children’s radio programs.

Check your local listings – these might be fun to listen to in the car, during meals or just for a little quiet time on a hot day.

Children’s recordings can be used the same way. If your host family doesn’t have any, check the local library.

Children love to listen to stories or music.

Click on the link below to hear an old radio show:

http://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

It’s Potato Day!

In the US we most often eat potatoes baked or fried. However, almost every culture has its own way of preparing potatoes – introduce your family to potatoes as you know them.

Potatoes are also useful for many craft projects. Cut one in half and carve a simple design into the cut end, then dip it in paint and use it for printing.

Cut an end off a sweet potato and let it sit in shallow water for several days. It will start to grow into a beautiful vine.

Happy Birthday Davy Crockett!

Davy Crockett “King of the Wild Frontier” was born in 1786 and is a symbol of the frontier in the United States. He was a hunter, a trapper, an explorer, a soldier, a State Legislator, and a Congressman. He was killed at the Alamo in the famous battle that helped to bring Texas independence from Mexico. The classic home in the frontier was a Log Cabin. You can make your own following these easy directions.

Tell a joke today!

Create your own book of favorite jokes and riddles with your children ages 4 and up. Children love jokes and will treasure a collection to look at over and over. Write just one of two jokes on each piece of paper. If it’s a riddle, put the answer on the back of the page. Draw colorful pictures to go with the joke. Follow the directions below to turn your collection of illustrated jokes into a book.

    Step 1: Get two pieces of thin cardboard at least 5.5 x 8.5 inches (14 x 22 cm), to match the size of the paper.
    Step 2: Gather the following: ribbon, string or a stapler, crayons or markers, or if you want scissors, glue, white paper or colored construction paper.
    Step 3: Cut the cardboard into the size you want for your cover. Cut two pieces: one for the front and one for the back. Make two holes along one of the long edges, in the same spot on both pieces. Your ribbon or string will go through here to hold your pages together. (You can also staple the pages together if you want to keep it simple.)
    Step 4: To decorate the covers: Draw right on the cardboard or create decoration using glue, paper and whatever else you might have around the house (magazine pictures, material, pressed flowers, old buttons, etc.) and place them in a design on the cover.
    Step 5: When you have the items placed where you like them, then take your glue and start gluing the items down. Continue gluing until you are done. Set it aside and let it dry for a few hours.
    Step 6: Punch holes in the paper you’ve written the jokes on to match the holes in the cover.
    Step 7: Take your covers after they have dried and put the joke papers between the covers. Take your ribbon and thread it through the holes of the covers and the matching holes in the paper. Tie the ribbon into a knot or a bow. You can always add more pages later.

Meet an au pair!

Photo: "Hi Au Pair in America,I took this picture last week at our Au Pair Meeting in the park. It was a really nice time and I wanted to share the picture with you Thank you guys, I am having such a nice time here!Kim-Marie from Germany"

This is what Paola wrote on her flight home after a year as an au pair:

“A year ago when I arrived in the USA, everything was so strange, so different, I never thought I would get used to it that fast, I never thought time was going to go by that fast.

So many things were in my head, so many plans and things to do in one year, which I thought was not enough, now I know that it was more than enough.

I had time to get to know my host family and think of them as my own family. Time to meet people, friends that are now like my family, friends that I know I’ll see again and that I’ll never forget. Vacation time, Orlando with my real family, the best trip with them. The cruise with my new sister, the best trip I’ve ever been on. Time to party like I’ve never partied before. Time to study, to shop, to make small trips.

Being in another country makes you learn about other cultures and traditions, but this program made me meet so many people from so many different countries and let me learn a bit about their culture and traditions.

During this year I changed a lot. I improved my English, I grew up as a person, now I think before I talk or act, I’m more responsible, I help others more than I used to, I appreciate everything I have, I love my family even more because you never know when you’re going to lose them. I smile a lot, and I think the most important thing is that I live my life as much as I can.

My year is over and even though I knew this was coming I can’t believe that day is here…

Just like when I came here, I have a lot of things going round in my head, will I see all the people I met here again and will my host kids remember me in years to come?

I have made some plans for my future, but this time I’m not going to worry so much about that, I’m just going to let destiny work – I’m going to work really hard to get what I want and to achieve all my goals.

A year with no regrets, a year I’ll never forget…

Paola, Au Pair in Altanta, Georgia.”