Posts Tagged ‘Parents’

5 Great Ideas for Safe Halloween Celebrations With Kids

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

All kids love Halloween, but many parents don’t because of worries surrounding trick-or-treating.

You don’t want your children to be out on the street on their own; you’re not keen on the quality of the treats they bring home; and you may even be worried that someone could put something in a treat bag that would be unsafe. …but all your little munchkins want to do is get out there and have some fun! What can you do?

Well, there are a whole range of options available, and 5 of the easiest are right here for you:

1. Organise a trick or treat tour.

The TOUR element is the important bit. Choose a route with a number of pre-arranged stops, and agree with the householders at those stops what to give as treats and how much. It’s a good idea if you can do this with other parents in the area. Make sure that the kids know that there is a plan and they have to stick to it – or else forfeit their treats! Make sure that there is a chaperone available to accompany the kids on their rounds too.

2. Tell ghost stories around the fire.

If you don’t live in town or near other families with kids to help you with a tour, have some old-fashioned spooky fun at home. Have an open fire or gather a few candles on the table and take it in turns to tell gruesome ghost-stories. After each story toast a few marshmallows on skewers. The person voted spookiest story-teller wins a prize.

3. Have a competition to keep the gang busy.

Got a few kids you can pitch against each other and keep them busy? Great! Have a competition to make the best Halloween creature. A ghost-making competition is a good one, as all you need are a few old sheets (from a charity shop if you don’t have any) and the colouring and craft supplies you probably already have at home. Think of a prize to give to the winner – and to forestall arguments, make it something that is big enough to share with all the others. The great thing about this sort of competition is that it works for any number of kids from 2 upwards.

4. Host a Halloween party.

We don’t often see old fashioned Halloween parties nowadays and more’s the pity. Some traditional tricks and games will keep kids (and grown-ups!) happy all evening and won’t break the bank either. Think: apple bobbing; find the eyeballs (pickled onions in a big pan of water and tea-leaves – which feels disgusting!); and the finger in the matchbox. Ask your own parents and grandparents for more ideas – they will remember doing all of these things as children.

5. Find alternative activities in your area.

If you want a quiet life, have a look in your local area for organised activities that you can take your children along to. Organised activities can be more expensive than doing it at home, but you don’t have to worry about arranging it yourself. Schools and youth clubs may be organising parties, and visitor attractions may be doing something special for Halloween this year. Check online listing sites and local newspapers and magazines for details.

Tamsin Fox Davies

Looking for alternative activities in London? Try Halloween On The High Seas by London RIB Voyages http://www.londonribvoyages.com/ . It’s an exclusive and exciting tour of the River Thames for pirates little and large. The tour takes in all the sites of pirates, buried treasure, and maritime history of Olde London Town. Tickets are

Make Your Own Snow Globe

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

www.myartsandcrafts.com for written instructions. This is a really easy arts and craft project that’s a great way for the whole family to get together. Because this craft project calls for the use of a glue gun, kids should only do this project along with their parents. You’ll use items you already have around your house, and if you don’t, you can probably buy them at the local dollar store or arts and crafts store. If you’ve been looking for a craft project to help bond with your kids, this may be it!

Scrapbooking Kits and Bonding

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Bonding with kids is important for their emotional quotient.  Sharing moments with them like going out, joining activities in school, and simply having great dinner in fancy restaurants with them are just some of the affairs they remember worthwhile as a child growing up with parents.  How about indoors?

There is one activity parent and child could engage doing at home without thinking of mistakes and errors.  That is kit scrapbooking.  Fancy ready-made scrapbook kits are sold online.  Some of them have additional items like stencils, camera, paints, colors, stickers and many other ready to tweak stuff.  It could cost but what matters is the activity it could give to a child.  

It promotes bonding while spending the time together.  Most of these scrapbook kits are to be assembled with instructions.  For such an activity, the child is inclined to follow what was instructed, with mommy’s help.  What is fun is expecting the outcome of the project.  You can never lose with scrapbooking kits because they could be kept as a nice remembrance of the shared moment.  

How would you feel as an adult looking at a scrapbook kit you assembled with your mom when you were just 6 years old?  You could just imagine the wonder and joy it can remind you of the good old days!

If you don’t want to spend a single cent in scrapbooking kit, why not make you own set?  You can start making the layout of your scrapbook by occasion.  If you really have serious passion with scrapbooking, it takes a good mood to list down ideas on how you will start with making workable templates.  You can list down important events that happen most of the time in your yearly routines like the following:

CHILD’S BIRTHDAY – if you have more than one sibling, you can decide on working a template based on their favorite colors, do sketches on how you will come up with each child’s theme and decide to finish the layout later.  You can also make a pink theme for girls and blue for boys.  

ANNIVERSARIES – you can make concept for you and your husband’s yearly celebration.  You can provide space for memorable pictures, cards, and dried flowers, which you can insert for the scrapbook.  No formalities needed as long as the layout is organized and worth to cherish and will look unique in each glance.

SEASONS – Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations may be the busiest times of the year.  Cards may flood in for everyone in the family.  It takes some thinking to realize you may also provide a space even for the stamps used in sending the snail mails.  You should also keep dedications with dates.  These are good elements to work on with a template for an effective scrapbooking Christmas kit.

HALLOWEEN – could be the coolest themes you can have for scrapbooks.  Lots of pictures and fun images could go well with a template.  Kids are definitely interested in looking at their spooky photos attached to a good scrapbook.  You can create a kit by working with scanned images you can use even in the future and for mass production, which you can distribute to involved relatives.

Yes, creating scrapbooking kits may be all about distributing the template for beloved relatives who shared important memories with you.  You could collect images, reproduce them by scanning, make instructions and compile them in kits.  Send them to at least 5 to 10 relatives.  Call a reunion and require them to bring and show each other the assembled kits.  Isn’t that a fun idea?

Robin Huber

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