Owl Pellets

Welcome to Week 3 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster Series. 

This week’s summer boredom buster is dissecting owl pellets.  Owl pellets are the regurgitated indigestible parts of an owl’s prey.  Owls like many birds swallow much of their small prey whole leaving behind in their digestive systems the indigestible parts like the bones, fur, and teeth of their prey.  The owl’s two part digestive system breaks down the soft parts of the owl’s prey, but is unable to process and break down the larger harder pieces such as the prey’s bones.  The softer pieces are digested and passed through the owl’s system while the larger indigestible pieces are formed into a pellet and regurgitated through the owl’s beak.   When pulled apart, the remnants of the owl’s prey can often be found in the pellet making it a fun science activity for kids.  Kids can dissect the owl pellet and compare the remnants they find in the pellet to a bone chart.  Combined with interesting owl books from your library or owl puzzles and activities, this is a great educational and fun activity that will keep kids busy and learning during the long summer days.

Good luck!

Make Your Own Household Cleaners

Welcome to week 2 of our 8 Week Summer Boredom Buster series.  You can find week 1 here.

This week’s summer boredom buster idea is making homemade household cleaners with your kids.  A little like cooking, kids and parents can have a lot of fun mixing ingredients together and seeing what new colors, consistencies, and textures the mixed ingredients turn into. 

In addition to fun, making your own household cleaners is also a great way to sneak in some summer learning.  Use the opportunity to talk about the environment and how cleaning molecules breakdown dirt.  And once your cleaners are made, you can use them as well as any commercially made cleaners you may have to do some effectiveness tests or to see which ones can break down Jell-O.  Parents can also sneak in some math by working with the kids to compare costs and time of their homemade cleaners to the ones purchased in the store.

Start by taking on only one cleaner at first to save a little money on supplies and to ease initial confusion.  You can make more than one batch of the same cleaner (for example one for the bathroom and one for the kitchen) so that all of the kids have a chance to mix.  If you and your kids enjoyed it, you can always do more later. 

To find recipes, you can use online homemade house cleaner recipes or borrow the book, Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan from your local library.  This book is filled with a lot of great information on how to make many different types of cleaners, where to buy the supplies, and how cleaners work.  Another great option is to make your own laundry detergent.  Trent over at SimpleDollar.com has done a lot of research on how to make your own laundry detergent and can walk you through the entire process. 

Once you decide which cleaner to make,  work a time into your family calendar or mom planner to buy the supplies and sit down together to mix your cleaners.  Once your household cleaner is made, work with the kids to design a creative label for your bottle.  Be sure to come up with a jazzy name for your cleaner and include the recipe on the label so that you can easily re-make the cleaner in the future.  If you have a child who enjoys computers this may be a good opportunity for them to get creative and use their computer skills.

And last but not least, once your cleaners are made put them to the test by letting the kids use them to clean stains, fingerprints, or even better the bathroom!

Good luck!

 

New Family Calendars, Organizers, and Kids’ Travel Games

We have recently added 4 new products to our store.

Family Message Center - A great new dry erase wall calendar complete with a recordable voice memo feature.

Mom’s Plan It Weekly Magnetic Calendar - The latest addition to the Mom’s Plan It product line. A 17 month weekly calendar with a tear off notes section.

Travel Scratch and Sketch - A new fun kids’ travel game. Using a wooden stylus, kids replicate 20 of the world’s wonders.

Got Kids? Get Organized! - A great new family organizer for busy families.  Keep track of activities, schedules, and paperwork with this handy comprehensive family organizer.

Alternatives to the DVD Player While Traveling

Worried your kids spend too much time watching the DVD player on long car trips and vacations?  Here are four ways you can unplug them from the DVD player and into something new.

Audio Books - Audio books are a great alternative to the DVD and a great option for anyone in the family who gets carsick from reading.  AudibleKids.com offers a lot of great options for kids and there is Audible.com for parents.  You can either download the books to your iPod or CD.

Learn Something New - Use the opportunity during long car rides to learn something new about the places you are visiting.  You can print out maps and state quizzes , use a map game, or download a book from AudibleKids.com on the particular state, country, or region you are visiting.  Another option is to highlight on a map your journey, laminate it, and then let the kids follow along during the ride.   Still another option is to check books out of your local library before you leave on the places you are visiting.

Oldies But Goodies - Before the creation of kids’ travel games and DVD players, families kept occupied in the car with good old fashioned road trip games that require nothing other than an imagination, creativity, sense of humor, and your family.

Sing - Let all of the pent up energy and excitement out of the kids by singing some classic songs together as a family.   Not sure you remember the words?  Then be sure to print off the song lyrics before you leave making sure you have enough copies for every family member.

Letterboxing

Keeping kids from getting bored during the summer months is no small task, so to help we have kicked off an 8 week Summer Boredom Buster series.  Over the next 8 weeks we will post a new summer boredom buster idea each week.  This is Week One and our first summer boredom buster idea is letterboxing.

Keep kids active and busy this summer with a letterboxing (also called questing in some parts of the United States) adventure. 

Letterboxing is a treasure hunt hike that families take in search of hidden letterboxes.  Hidden letterboxes contain a log book, pens, an ink stamp, and sometimes an inkpad.  Using clues found on the internet (most letterboxes are hidden in a park or central community location), families set out on a hiking adventure in search of the hidden letterbox.  .  Once the letterbox has been found, families then use the pen to leave a message in the logbook along with an image from their personal stamp.  Families then use the stamp found inside the letterbox to record their adventure in their own personal journal.  Once families have left their mark so to speak and recorded the letterbox’s image in their journal, they must re-hide the letterbox for the next letterboxing family.   Be sure to be discreet and hide the letterbox well.

To get started on your letterboxing adventure you will need these things:

• A Rubber Stamp - Families need to choose a rubber stamp that symbolizes their family. This is the stamp that you will mark in the letterbox logbook. Simply head to your local craft store, and choose one from the many different styles. Rather than just one stamp for your family, families can also choose individual stamps for each family member or if they are really enthusiastic about letterboxing try making their own stamp.
• An Ink Pad - Not all letterboxes have ink pads in them, so be sure to buy one of your own and bring it along in your hiking backpack.
• A Personal Journal - To record your adventures and the images of the stamps found in the letterboxes, families will need some type of journal. A family journal is a great option for this or a nature notebook is another choice.
• A Backpack - Bring along a backpack with water, snacks, band aids, camera, sunscreen, and anything else you think you may need along your hike.
• Compass - A good compass is optional and most likely dependent on the degree of difficulty of the clues.

Finding Clues and Other Resources

There are many letterboxing resources online to help you get started.  You can find clues to local hidden letterboxes as well as additional information at www.letterboxing.org and www.atlasquest.com .  To talk with other people new to letterboxing as well as veteran letterboxers you can join the Newboxers chat group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newboxers. 

Good luck!

How to Get Ready for a Family Vacation Without Losing Your Mind

Families spend a lot of time prior to vacation dreaming about all the fun and cool places they will see, but very little time thinking through how much time it will actually take to get everyone packed and out the door.  After all packing is no big deal, right?  All we have to do is throw some clothes in a suitcase, pack a cooler, grab a couple of travel games for the kids and we’re set. 

Unfortunately packing for a family vacation rarely goes as smoothly as we have imagined because in all the excitement of planning the family vacation, parents and kids tend to forget about all the small stuff that needs done before leaving and all the distractions that will inevitably occur.  Distractions like kids getting sick with the flu, last minute assignments from your boss, and your son’s baseball team making the playoffs when you didn’t think they had a chance, all make packing for a family vacation that much harder.  And then there are all pre-vacation things that need done before leaving.  Things like getting the car tuned up, stopping the mail, making pet arrangements, and mowing the grass.  All of these things seem to fade from memory as we dream of sandy beaches, but bring us crashing back to reality the day before vacation begins. 

Depending on the size of your family, the ages of your kids, the length of your vacation, and the complexity of your life, most families need at least three weeks prior to their vacation to get themselves pulled together and packed.   Allowing for a lot of time prior to your vacation helps parents and kids feel less overwhelmed, less anxious, and keep their cool.  Use the suggested timeline below to help you get started.  Feel free to adjust it to accommodate your family’s specific needs.

Three Weeks Prior to Vacation

Make a pre-vacation checklist of everything that needs done prior to your departure. Be sure to include things like cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, and laundry.

Make and finalize your travel packing checklist.

Make a list of things to buy for your vacation. Be sure to include things like sunscreen, new bathing suits, goggles, and supplies for your first aid kit. Use your pre-vacation checklist and travel packing checklist to help you decide what needs bought.

If you will be eating in on vacation and need to do some cooking, make a meal plan for the week and a grocery list. Be sure to include any snacks you will need along the way.

Schedule any appointments you will need for the car (oil change, tune up, tires), kids (haircuts, immunizations), and pets (boarding). Try and schedule them for the following week rather than waiting until the week you leave.

Two Weeks Prior to Vacation

Buy everything you need for your vacation as well as the non-perishables off your grocery list.

Take care of all the appointments you made in Week 3.

Get your suitcases out of storage and find a central place to put them for easy packing.

Begin scratching things off your pre-vacation checklist.

One Week Prior to Vacation

Finish up things on your pre-vacation checklist

Begin packing. Start by doing a little bit every day with things like toys, swim gear, DVD’s , and clean clothing that doesn’t need worn before vacation begins

Two Days Prior to Vacation

Do laundry

Finish packing clothes and all other non-perishables

Clean the house

Mow the lawn

One Day Prior to Vacation

Pack the car

Finish any last minute things on your pre-vacation checklist

The Day You Leave

Pack the perishables in a cooler and the car

Complete any last minute things on your pre-vacation checklist

Relax and enjoy your vacation!

Planning Your Family Vacation

Families with purpose are families who dream together and work together to make their dreams and goals a reality.

I spent hours and hours planning our family vacation to Disney world.  I read the right books, visited and subscribed to all the popular websites, made reservations in advance, and when all of it was done I had detailed plans day by day of how we would spend our days at Disney World.  My carefully crafted plans minimized wait times, allowed for rest times in the afternoon, and had us blissfully enjoying our 7 day stay at a comfortable pace.  Though my plans were extremely thorough they didn’t take into account my husband’s theme park strategies.  Strategies he had developed over the years of standing in long lines and having limited funds.  A strategy that was a combination of engineering ingenuity and a Superman like pace that no human (including me and the girls) could keep up with.  Don’t get me wrong, his strategy had some great points and if we had talked about his strategies BEFORE the trip and BEFORE I had spent hours and hours of planning things would have gone a lot smoother.            

Avoiding arguments is just one reason why it is helpful for families to spend some time prior to their family vacations planning them together rather than leaving the planning up to the parents or in our case just one parent.  Planning family vacations together makes kids feel involved, gives them a voice, and teaches them how to plan.  Planning family vacations together also helps build cohesiveness and closeness in a family by allowing families to share excitement and a sense of fulfillment after the vacation is over and all has gone well. 

So to get your family vacation off to a great start this summer try these family planning suggestions: 

To get things rolling, start by scheduling a couple of times on your family calendar or in your planner when you and the family can sit down together to discuss the vacation.  The bigger and longer the trip the more time you will need.  Also, take into account the ages of your kids.  A general rule of thumb is the younger the kids the shorter the meeting.  It is better to hold several short family meetings rather than a couple longs one if your children are young.  Make sure everyone knows about the family meetings.

If married, talk with your spouse beforehand about any specific parental decisions that need to be made.  Things like budget, activities that are off limits, sleeping arrangements, and means of transportation (car or plane).  Parents should be united before the meeting on the big things so that it doesn’t distract from the other decisions that the kids can help make.

If your children are small (ages 3-7), print off pictures or have brochures handy to show them what the vacation spot will look like and what their choices of activities will be.  Don’t overwhelm them with a lot of choices.  Pick some of the more interesting ones, and let them choose a few.  If your children are older (ages 8 and up) get them involved by asking them to do some research on the computer before the meeting.  Let them look up possible activities and outings and interesting places to stay and have them come prepared to the family meeting with their findings.

Negotiate the differences of opinions by taking votes and possibly splitting into two separate groups for a while.  For example if your son absolutely loves alligators, but your daughter would prefer to skip them, make plans for one parent to take your son to see the alligator exhibit and another parent to either stay behind with your daughter or to do something she enjoys.  Just be careful to not let your FAMILY vacation become a fragmented vacation.  It is okay to split up for some things, but try and make sure that the majority of the vacation is spent together.  Another option is to just compromise and spend time at exhibits and activities that everyone enjoys.

If your children are old enough, give them responsibility to pack their things by giving them their own travel packing checklist.  If they can’t read yet, but are anxious to pack their things, make them their own packing list using pictures rather than words.

Use your family journal to help keep notes of your discussions and decisions.  Put one of the older children in charge of keeping the notes.

If you feel comfortable telling them, share the vacation budget with the kids and let them help you keep track of how much everything is going to cost.  This is a great way of teaching the kids the value of money and how to budget. 

Let the kids help plan the travel games or car activities and get them packed for the trip.  Using a DVD player to help pass the time?  Let the kids each choose a couple of movies and give them responsibility for getting them packed.

Once all the plans have been finalized, ask one of the kids to update your travel organizer with the itinerary and important contact information.  While on vacation, let the kids get involved by entering in the vacation expenses. 

Lastly, document your memories.  Give each of your kids a disposable camera and let them take pictures and write about their vacation in either your family journal or a travel journal. 

Though our family vacation to Disney World was a great time and is the source of some wonderful memories for all of us, it did result in some stress along the way; stress and arguments that could have been avoided if we had just taken some time to plan the vacation together rather than separately.  So give yourself and your family the gift of a wonderfully pleasant vacation by planning it together!

STOP IT! - Keeping Your Cool on Family Vacations

A family with purpose is a family who acknowledges their problems and who work together for resolutions. They deal with their problems and issues with open communication and with confidence.

STOP IT!  My yelling these two little words into the backseat of the car is usually the first sign that our family vacation is beginning to take a detour and if we don’t stop to regroup we will end up in a place that none of us wants to be. 

You love your family with your whole heart and would even give your life for them, but after a couple days of backseat squabbles, smells of questionable origin, and a few wrong turns, it gets a little hard to keep your cool as the excitement and happiness over the long awaited family vacation melt away to become tiredness and irritability. Let’s face it, though most family vacations are more good than bad, there can be times during the vacation when you suddenly find yourself counting down the days until you can return to work.  So to avoid having the time you completely lost it be the family vacation memory your kids talk about for years to come, use these tips to help keep your cool during your next trip.

Know and Recognize Your Family’s Weak Spots

Every family member has them, you know those little things that really push our buttons and send us over the edge into craziness.  For me sharing a cramped hotel room with 5 other people will wear on my nerves faster than anything and send me into a nervous state that nothing short of a separate room will save me from.  For my husband, the never ending requests from 4 daughters for bathroom breaks will drive him insane. Whether your button happens to be cramped hotel rooms, never ending bathroom stops, or something else, it is important to recognize those weak spots before the trip and try to minimize their impact by talking them through, negotiating solutions, and compromising.  It’s easier to come up with compromises and solutions before the problems happen when your mind is clearer and less emotional. 

Slow Down Your Pace

Prevent yourself and kids from getting tired and crabby by slowing down your pace.  No one can enjoy their vacation if they are constantly running and never get a chance to relax.  After all isn’t relaxation one of the reasons we take vacations?  So when planning your vacation, take into consideration the pace you have set and make sure you aren’t going to come home more exhausted than when you left.  Easy ways to slow down your pace are by adding in extra travel days, building in down days in which all you do is hang out at the pool, and emphasizing quality over quantity by cutting back on some of the sightseeing events.

Build in Breaks for Parents and Kids

An easy way to help with the nerves while on vacation is to simply build in breaks from each other during the vacation.  Parents can give each other a break by taking some time for themselves while the other parent stays with the kids or if you are comfortable and it is available, consider using the resort’s babysitting service.  If the kids need a break from each other, use the opportunity to get some 1:1 time with them by taking them separately for ice cream or doing something else they would enjoy doing. 

Laugh it Off

I know this is easier said than done at times, but sometimes you just need to let it go and laugh it off while remembering patiently that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

Good luck!

How to Create a Family Travel File

 A family with purpose is a family who strives to manage and balance their lives and who work diligently to prevent their lives from being controlled by outside factors. A family with purpose sets priorities and lives their lives accordingly.

You are thumbing through a magazine and find an article on a really neat fun place to vacation, or you are surfing the net and stumble on an incredibly fantastic resort.  So you either rip the page out of the magazine or bookmark the webpage.  The magazine page gets filed away in some drawer and the webpage gets added to the already thousand bookmarks you have created.  A couple years later while cleaning out drawers or cleaning up your computer you find them and say “oh yeah, I forgot about this place.”

Does this sound familiar?  If so, then maybe a family travel file will help.  Organized by destination, a family travel file helps families keep track of all the information they pick up and want to save on either a vacation spot they visit frequently or a new place they may want to try.  Here is how you create one for your family.

Things You Will Need

3 Ring Binder

Tab Dividers

3 Hole Punched File Folders

A working knowledge of your browser’s bookmark or favorites feature

How to Create

First decide if you want to keep both an electronic and paper based system.  Since so much information comes to us over the internet it is helpful to have both versions, but if you prefer to keep everything in one place stick with the paper system for now.

If you already have a paper file started with information, begin by sorting through that file.  Toss the things you don’t want or need anymore and save the things you want to keep.  Once you have weeded this file out, sort all of the information by destination and put all of the literature you have for each destination into one pile.  Once you have this done, you will have the titles for each of your tab dividers.  Simply write in the destination’s name on each tab divider and place all of the literature you have for each destination in one of the three hole punched file folders and place the tab divider with the file folder immediately behind it in your three ring binder.  If you only have one or two pieces of information on a certain place and not sure you want to make it a separate tab in your binder, simply create a tab and title it “Maybe Someday” or “Possibilities”.  Be sure to have some extra dividers and file folders, so you can easily add to your travel file in the future.  Also consider creating a “Useful Resources” tab to collect any website addresses or general travel information you want to keep.

If you are creating an electronic version as well, the process is very similar.  Begin by creating a Travel folder in your favorites or bookmarks.  In Windows Explorer you do this by clicking on Favorites, selecting Organize Favorites, Select New Folder, Type in Travel, and hit Close when you are done.  In Firefox, you do essentially the same thing, but using the Bookmark feature rather than the Favorites feature.  Next, start by going through your current bookmarks or favorites and if it is travel related and you want to keep it, save it to your family travel file.  Once you have gone through everything, begin sorting everything in your travel folder by destination similar to what was done with the paper version.

If you only want to keep a paper version, skip setting up the Travel folder in your Favorites.  Simply go through you current bookmarks and printout any information you want to keep and place it in your paper folder.

How to Use Your Family Travel File

Once you have everything set up it just becomes a matter of maintaining and using the information.  Here are some tips to help you make the most of your Family Travel File:

Have it handy while planning your family vacation.  Use the information you have saved to create your itineraries and plans. 

While vacationing, remember to save brochures, menus, and flyers of places you want to visit again.  When you get home you can simply add them to your travel file.

If you vacation to the same spot frequently, keep any notes on costs, budgets, and travel items in your file.

Continue to tear out important information from the magazines or newspapers and just save it in your file.  Do the same thing with any new ideas or information you come across on the web.  Simply save it to your electronic travel file or print it out for your paper based system.

Good luck!

The Good Times ALWAYS Outweigh the Bad

What I Think I Know - A monthly tongue in cheek commentary of things I’ve learned (or so I think)….

I think I was probably about 8 or 9 years old when my parents, older brother, and I took a two week vacation out west in a non-air conditioned station wagon.  We were on our way to see the major sites that most families see when making a trip to the west, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon, and Mount Rushmore.  Back then my brother and I thought it was fun to bring along tape recorders and tape various parts of our trips.  We would interview each other and our parents and just do silly little things with the recorder to pass the time. 

We were all having a great time until we had trouble finding hotels with vacancies.  It seems that my mom the planner thought we should make hotel reservations in advance so that we had places to stay whereas my father didn’t think hotel reservations were necessary.  Needless to say, my mother deferred to my father’s judgment and hotel reservations didn’t get made.  And this is where our pleasant fun filled trip turned for the worse at least for my parents.  Tired from driving and spending a little bit too much time together, my parents began one of the worse arguments I had ever heard them have throughout their 40 years of marriage.  Being young and somewhat oblivious to the fragility of the situation, my brother and I saw my parents’ moment of weakness as an opportunity and recorded their entire fight on our tape recorders.  My brother and I were having a great time hunched over in the back recording and laughing at every last word.  Eventually we found a place to stay and my parents made up, leaving us to record our own thoughts and silly games.

To this day my brother and I still talk about that trip and get a good laugh out of that fight and gutsiness it took on our part to record it.  And I think we appreciate the memory even more because we are now both parents and can fully appreciate what our parents were feeling on that long 100 degree day in a non-air conditioned station wagon with no place to sleep. 

I have to admit that there have been times on family vacations where I haven’t kept my cool.  Whether it was because of the too close quarters, the lack of sleep from driving all night, squabbles from the back seat, or my husband walking away from the plan, there have been times when my tiredness overtook the excitement and I completely lost it.  But yet we continue to go every year, saving money in our family vacation jar, setting family travel goals, and keeping track of everything in our family journal because the good times always outweigh the bad, and if for nothing else than to give my kids memories and laughs to last a lifetime.