Ideas to Help Kids Serve at Home ... and around the World

One of the greatest goals I have as a parent for my children is to teach them to look outside themselves and to use their time and resources to improve their world. I've compiled a list of ideas that my kiddos and I will be trying this month (and some we'll be getting to later). Enjoy:

Service starts in the home and children need to learn how to help those closest to them. Here are ideas you can use to get kids serving at home:

• The Secret Service Box:
We've made a shoebox and my son Jack has drawn a picture of a way to serve each
family member. We've placed these pictures in our decorated shoebox, labeled "The Secret Service Box." Some example include: "Read a book to brother," "Pull 10 weeds in the yard," "Give a hug," or "Do the dishes." Each morning this summer we will be pulling a slip of paper out of the box after breakfast. We haven't tried it yet, but Jack is counting down the days to use it. He is excited to use the cards he's made.



• July Christmas Party Cleanup: In July, we're going through all of our toys and having a family Christmas party where my kiddos can give their gently used toys to donate to a local shelter. We get to play Santa in July and give the presents. Since we're making this a family tradition, we're also having a fun Christmas dinner and making sugar cookies (we might even bring a plate to our neighbors)!

Service in the Community

• Volunteer to read. Libraries and schools are always looking for volunteer readers. Offer to
staff your public library’s reading hour with families from your church, or encourage kids
to help younger readers at their schools outside regular classes.

• Be a good neighbor. Older kids can help neighbors by weeding, mowing, painting, housesitting,
or pet-sitting. Preschoolers enjoy leaving flowers or handmade cards on doorsteps.
• Give something special. Encourage families to clean closets by giving gently used clothing
and toys directly to less fortunate families or organizations supporting families in need.


Service Across the Country
As children get older, they gain more understanding of needs outside their communities.
Elementary and preteen kids love to get involved with national projects. If you are religious, you can use prayer as a way to teach children to think about others in the world around them.

• Pray for States—Pick one location each month and have kids pray for the people living there.

o American Red Cross (www.redcross.org) has a number of ways kids and families can
gather funds or needed items during national crises. Contact your local chapter for
more details.
o Salvation Army (www.salvation army.org) has many ways for families with younger
children to serve, including serving holiday meals, ministry to the homebound,
clothing drives, bell ringing, and special needs at times of national disaster. Check
with your local chapter to see how your kids can serve.
• Celebrate your kids’ service on National & Global Youth Service Day

(www.ysa.org)


Service Around the World
The world is a big place, but children better understand their impact when service projects are
tangible and practical. Kids’ vision and comprehension of the world expands when we involve them
in hands-on, meaningful projects.
• Kid-to-Kid is one of the world’s largest
forces mobilizing kids to serve other kids. This project has kids work together to create
blankets for children in Latin America. For more information, go to Blankets for Children
• Have kids choose a world region to learn about and pray for the children there
regularly.
• Join a 5K as a family and educated the your children on the special cause you'll be running for.



via Redcross.org


via olathebible.org

Make Your Saint Patricks Day a Magical Day to Remember

***Disclaimer****
Apologies in advance. The blog needs lots of work and I'm finally getting it updated, so be patient with it's lazy style and lack of organization. I'm working on it!
I'm going to use this space as a way to document and share the fun family traditions we have in my house.
I love making life magical for my cute kiddos and my neighbor kiddos and why not share in on the fun! Email me if you have any ideas you want to add!

So, let's start with today! How we make our St. Patrick's Day a day to 'dye' for!


The house is exploding in food dye! Seriously, this day alone is probably going to give my children food-color poisoning... or ADD or whatever else is linked with too much color!

Saint Patrick's Day is such a fun and amazing opportunity to create some mischief and magic in your kiddo's lives. Since the Holiday is kinda nonsensical in the States, we have some flexibility to not attach any serious meaning to any of it! I'll show you the ideas on how I make this one of the most look forwarded to days of our year!

For breakfast:



(Food aside, I highly recommend buying liquid food coloring which is a lot less messy and more versatile.)
http://www.amazon.com/8-Oz-Color-Splash-Liquid-Watercolor/dp/B000GPRO0I


Those tricky Leprechauns!They've been up to no good playing tricks on our house today! They dyed all of our toilet water green! (Here's a tip, if you're using generic food coloring, you'll need to add a few drops of yellow with your green to make sure it doesn't turn blue after sitting a while!)



My favorite part of this day is seeing how close we can get to those Leprechauns. We always make a trap out of something green (like frozen peas) string, blocks and whatever else my kiddos find, and put it on the porch.



I went to the craft store earlier this month and bought some hats that look like the ones below, only a lot tinier. When the trap gets set off, and we find no leprechaun but we're not disappointed! Instead we find a note in one of the mini hats. The note leads us on a treasure hunt.



And usually our treasure is in the oven, but today it was outside under our porch. The Leprechaun left us this, this year:


If you need some quick "Leprechaun Gold" do what I do, spray paint some rocks you find in the yard. Kids are no dummies, plastic coins won't cut it, but rocks 'feel' like real gold!




Of course, every clue should be accompanied by green glitter or green sprinkles you have in your cupboard!


***Barbie dolls and action figures make great tool for making footprints in the mud outside if your kids need some Leprechaun clues. If you don't have mud, mix some white glue green sprinkles and walk the doll across your counter or table. When it dries, it peels right off and won't stain like food dye would!


My Jack wants to be outside all day today looking for clues, and since I don't want to spend my entire day doing that, you can find some really fun online games for kids to play to keep them busy.

Here's a link to a variety of games and skill levels


or


Games and puzzle like Tic, Tac, Toe and Find the Leprechaun

This is a fun dress up game for girls, but the doll you dress starts in her undies so if you're not comfortable with that either skip or preview before your kids do it.


Dress Up Alice the Leprechaun



For dinner tonight we're doing this.
Another family fun recipe found
here.



We did these last year, but using paper plate bowls in an easy way to make Leprechaun hats: (Paint 'em black and doubles for pots of gold.)





The cupcakes I haven't tried yet, but I'm going for it tonight. Don't they look fun?
Recipe here

Here's a fun video to watch with your little kiddos if they want to see a Leprechaun.



Also, as a side note (Don't tell dad!) the Leprechaun is planning on playing a trick on dad when he gets home from work to take a shower. The floor of the shower is going to be covered in slimy pistachio pudding.


And here is the pic of that. It turned out so well! The neighbor kids have been over all day setting traps!

Preschool/Playroom

This is where I teach my preschool:

Shel Silverstein...

Mario Room

This is a Nintendo themed room that I'm working on. We're putting up green pipe chair rail that aren't in the photos yet.

The Sports Room

These photos were taken from an iPhone so forgive the quality of pics. I really need to make sure I bring a photographer with me next time we do a room.

This room was for two little boys (Caden and Blake) who wanted a sports themed room. Our instructions were simple, just leave the original paint color on the wall and do whatever else we wanted. So, I had this crazy idea to have a basketball and some soccer balls coming out of the wall. (The picture of the room before we painted is at the very bottom of the post).














The Room Before:

Baby B's Room

This room was done as a nursery with a dinosaur theme. The rock wall is actually 3-D with shelves and fossils coming out of the wall.