Parent Projects

With living in the Midwest, I find myself continuously looking for indoor activities to entertain my toddler when it gets too cold to go outside. Thought I’d share a couple of great ideas I’ve found from other bloggers that are easy and fun.

If your kids like arts and crafts projects, you can help them create a paper plate snowman with easy-to-find objects around the house. The Busy Bee Kids Crafts blog has step-by-step instructions and tips for creating this. You can read it here. My favorite part is how little clean-up is involved with this one!

Another fun project is teaching your kids how to make an indoor igloo. I found some great ideas for making the igloo by re-using an old yogurt container and some basic art supplies on the Teaching Tiny Tots blog here. ...read more

Being a mom means being a worrier sometimes. Worst case scenarios are always rushing through my mind. I’ve heard about the campaign to add an emergency contact to your cell phone directory under the label “ICE,” which stands for “In Case of Emergency.”  So, if you are ever in an accident (heaven forbid), the emergency personnel will be able to easily locate someone on your behalf.

I did this, but then I took it one step further. What if the cell phone isn’t with me or is damaged? What about my child, who doesn’t carry a cell phone? What if the emergency personnel don’t know how to work my phone? (Even I can’t figure it out half the time!) ...read more

All the talk about resolutions this week among the Out of Office blogger team got me thinking about how I can help the family keep things under control on the home front. Even more, how I can teach my son the importance of helping out around the house, even in little ways.

While thinking all this through, I came across an adorable and FREE downloadable template from The Project Girl blog. You can check it out here. The template is set up so it’s easy (and pretty!) to print and write on. Or you can copy the image into Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or other software programs at home, add text boxes, then save and update each week.

 How’s this for an easy and creative table-setting idea that also keeps your kids occupied? Give each of your children some construction paper and art supplies (stamps, markers, and paint all work well, but don’t use crayons) and let them create some holiday-themed artwork to use as placemats. They can even create designs specific for each guest, and the placemat can double as a seating assignment as well. (Or if you’re really short on time and don’t want the mess of an art project, just dig out some of their old artwork from past holidays and use that instead.)

You can take the artwork down to your nearest FedEx Office location and laminate it yourself. The laminating machine has very specific instructions next to it, making it easy to do it yourself. It took me less than five minutes to do eight pieces of artwork and it was pretty inexpensive. Each 8.5x11 sheet cost less than $2.

The finished placemats make adorable keepsakes and are sure to be conversation-starters  Just try to find any placemats that unique anywhere else... ...read more

My son has been coming home from pre-school for the last few weeks laden down with arts and crafts projects – everything from Thanksgiving handprint-turkeys to Christmas count-down calendars.  I saw this great article on the Examiner Web site I just had to share for all the parents out there battling this issue too!  Check it out here. She’s got five great ideas, and I have at least one more to share. ...read more