Halloween is my favorite holiday! This year we are having a party but every other year we have gone trick-or-treating. Here are some tips to make your Halloween fun and safe:
- Very small children should not trick-or-treat with their older siblings without parents.
- All kids should use the bathroom before they put their costumes on.
- Make sure your child’s costume and shoes are comfy. It is no fun to trick-or-treat if you are too hot, too cold, or something in the costume is itchy, pulling or uncomfy.
- Don’t let yor kids wear costumes that drag on the ground. You dont want them to trip and fall.
- Rollerblading in costume is not the safest way to go about trick-or-treating.
- Trick or treat only in neighborhoods you are familiar with.
- Bring your camera!
- If the costume includes a hood or mask, make absolutely sure your child can see well out of it at night. If not, then take off the mask between houses while your child is walking.
- Kids have a tendency to get excited and are more likely to run across the street on Halloween. It is best to trick-or-treat on one side of the street at a time rather than zig zag back and forth on both sides.
- Have your child hold a flashlight at night and put one of those glow stick neon necklaces around her neck or wrist to make her more visible to cars.
- Parents should take a wagon or stroller to pull small kids around when they get tired. Include an extra large bag to dump candy in so your young trick-or-treaters don’t have to lug around a heavy bag of candy. Include water for drinking.
- While on the trick-or-treat trail, let your kids eat candy from houses you are familiar with.
- The younger your children are, obviously the quicker they will get tired out walking. So you wonlt want to trick-or-treat for too long with tiny kids.(I say this, yet we have always been obsessed with getting as much candy as possible and stayed out for hours every single year!)
- When you get home, everybody should wash their hands!
- Throw out any candy that is open or looks odd in any way.
- Have fun with your treasures, and organize your candy by type. Be sure to count it!
- Pace yourself and your little ones as far as what you eat. Ever eat too much Halloween candy? Of course you have! It doesn’t feel very good afterward. And when a 4-year-old gorges, the consequences are rather unpleasant for the parents!
- Freeze your chocolate bar candy for later, but not Twix. The cookie part gets mushy in the freezer. You can put a small candy in your child’s lunch (or yours!) every day.
Happy Halloween!
I dug through stacks of old photos looking for my daughter’s homemade Halloween costumes, so I could share them with you. There are more – I just have to find them! (Sorry for the poor quality. I took photos of old photos.)
Riding on a witch’s back
Hefalump
Smart Poodle
Monty Python’s Black Night
One great way to teach your kids about geography is to look up the weather in cities around the world and then find those cities on a map. It’s fun!
For Tuesday, October 27th at 7pm EST, the temperatures F are:
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- Astana, Kazakstan – 1 degree, clear
- Baghdad, Iraq – 55 degrees, clear
- Beijing, China – 50 degrees, foggy
- Cairo, Egypt – 75 degrees, clear
- Calgary, Canada – 36 degrees, partly sunny
- Havana, Cuba – 86 degrees, passing clouds
- Helsinki, Finland – 43 degrees, mostly clouds
- Hong Kong – 75 degrees, passing clouds
- Honolulu, HI – 75 degrees, sunny
- Istanbul, Turkey – 63 degrees, partly cloudy
- London, England – 57 degrees, clear
- Manila, Phillipines - 77 degrees, scattered clouds
- Miami, FL – 84 degrees, clear
- Murmansk, Russia – 32 degrees, foggy
- New York, NY – 55 degrees, foggy
- Panama, Panama – 84 degrees, thunderstorms
- Paris, France – 46 degrees, clear
- Prague, Czech Republic – 48 degrees, passing clouds
- Rapid City – 46 degrees, cloudy
- Seoul, Korea – 45 degrees, foggy
- Tokyo, Japan – 61 degrees, partly sunny
Data from http://www.timeanddate.com/weather
Love Mondays? Is that possible? Aren’t we supposed to dread Mondays? I say “Why should we?”
Here’s what you can do to make Mondays a whole lot less of a dread and a whole lot more cheerful.
I Love Mondays!!!
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- During the weekend, make sure you have enough gas in your car so you don’t have to rush out the door and start your week at the crowded gas station.
- If you make lunch for yourself for work or for your kids for school, do so on Sunday night. There’ll be less chaos in the morning.
- Do some yoga or meditation (or both!) on Sunday night for a better night sleep and less anxiety.
- Go to bed a little bit earlier on Sunday night and jot down what you need to do the next morning so you don’t stay awake worrying about it. Don’t spend a lot of time on it though.
- Read a great, non-business book before bed to relax.
- Don’t eat a heavy, late dinner and don’t drink caffeine in the evening or before bed.
- Teach your kids to put their homework in their backpacks and take out their clothes for school the night before. If they need to wear uniforms, you are lucky, because it makes life a lot easier!
- Get up early enough, and get your kids up early enough, so you don’t have to rush.
- Check the family calendar to see what is going on for the rest of the week. You don’t want any surprises!
- Look forward to the week ahead and all that you plan to accomplish.
- Do something special for yourself on Mondays. Take a walk, stop for a favorite coffee, take some time to read something you love. Listen to a great CD or your favorite radio station.
- Try to keep ater school and after work activities on Mondays at a minimum. We just don’t need to add chaos to our lives.
- If you do have a bad day, plan something fun for the next weekend. There’s always tomorrow!
Celebrate every day whether Friday or Monday!
I decided to hack your blog for one day to tell you…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!
Even though you’re yet another year older, you’re still young at heart. As long as you keep that sense of humor I love so much, you can never get old!
I hope your day is marvelous-
Love,
Rachel
Making a bookmark is fun and easy to do! And bookmarks make great gifts for every reader in your life.
Here is one I just made for a friend’s birthday. Notice – it is not perfectly rectangular. How cool is that? Who ever said a bookmark must be boring?!
Here’s what you need:
- Sheet of watercolor paper (preferably on a block so it does not wrinkle)
- Watercolor pencils or paints
- Pencil
- Black Sharpie
- Ruler
- Hole puncher
- Assorted beads of your choice (I used glass and turquoise)
- Bead stringing wire
- Crimping beads
- Crimper
- Small key ring to attach string of beads to bookmark
Directions:
- Draw a basic rectangular shape on watercolor paper with pencil. I made mine rather large – 2.5 inches wide by 8 inches tall.
- Sketch out the design of your choice also with pencil. Go ahead a draw outside the lines as I did. Use a coloring book or clipart if you need inspiration. Ideas: Make a design using the person’s name you are giving the bookmark to; Choose a theme for the recipient’s favorite genre of books; make the bookmark look like a book!
- Use your watercolor pencils or paints as you wish. Do not use heavy amounts of water, as this will wrinkle the paper. Bold, saturated color looks best for this project.
- After it is completely dry, outline your design with a black Sharpie to really make it stand out.
- Cut along the edges of your bookmark carefully in the shape you want it.
- Take it to a copy shop that has a laminator, and laminate it.
- Cut around the edges to get rid of the excess laminated plastic. leave abut a 1/8 border around the entire piece.
- Punch a hole at the top of the finished bookmark to hang your beads.
- Cut a long strand of stringing wire.
- Choose the beads and the order in which you want to string them. A variety of shapes and sizes will make them more interesting.
- Secure 3 crimping beads at one end of the string. You may want to make a loop with the wire first.
- String your beads.
- Trim your wire when you are finished stringing it, leaving it long enough to loop back into the top 2 beads and leave a 1/2 inch loop at the top. Slide 3 crimping beads over the loop and secure with crimper. Make sure the wire stays tucked into the top beads before you crimp! Tug lightly on the crimping beads after crimping to make sure they are solidly in place.
- Use the small key ring to secure the strand of beads into place wit the loop on the strand of beads.
Voila! It’s Time to Read!
During my author visits for both elementary and middle school, I talk to students about the importance of reading, and I ask them about things they would not be able to do if they could not read well. If your child is not so thrilled about reading, there are ways to encourage him without being forceful:
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- Have that special, comfy place in the house where you read together, with no distractions. Make reading time %100 positive and special.
- Read a simple, funny book together.
- When your child is young, don’t concentrate too much on the content. It does not have to be purely educational. Rather it can be entertaining. It is more important that he just finds reading fun.
- If your child has a hobby or plays a sport, have him read about that or his favorite athlete.
- Don’t limit reading to books only. Comic books, magazines and old letters might interest a reluctant reader.
- Start a conversation with your child about a topic she finds interesting. Then check a book out about it from the library. Read it together, taking turns.
- Let your child see you reading – and enjoying it – often.
- Tell your kids about your favorite stories growing up, and why you like them so much.
- Take your child to the library or bookstore for story time.
- Talk to your child about the benefits of reading. (i.e. entertainment and learning to do so many things.)
- Ask your (not too young) child to read instructions to you while you are busy with your hands fixing something.
- Make handmade bookmarks together. It is easy and fun and your kid will want to use it!
- Find out if there is a Reading Dog program at your child’s school or public library. Kids can read to specially-trained service dogs, and the results can be phenomenal. The dogs love it, and the kids do not feel insecure when they struggle with words.
- If you suspect your child actually has a reading disability, talk to her teacher and find out how she can be tested for it by the school. Then find out what special programs are available.
Went for a walk this am in the alleys in my neighborhood and looked down to see what would catch my eye.
Here’s what I brought home:
Large coconut
Flowers fallen from trees
Various seeds
Feathers including tiny one from a wild green parrot
Balls of sorts, but none were found together
Found objects. Look down and see what catches your eye. This is fun to do with your kids!
