Vacation Time is on it's Way!

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Summer vacation will soon be upon us.  I hope you can find some helpful tips from a Mom who has done her share of traveling.

Going the Distance with Kids: Family Vacation Tips from a Traveling Mom

It's the little things that pile up on a vacation. You start out with all the excitement while planning but somewhere in between the 10th bathroom break and flying ketchup packets, you realize that something went wrong with your family vacation. Never fear! All family vacations go a little haywire at some point, but getting away is so worth the trouble. You also don't have to be an expert planner or experienced vacationer to have something go wrong. However, you can lessen the effects of chaos and gain a better handle on your kids without going to your angry place. It's all in how you how you travel, pack your stuff and set up your travel kit.

1. Know Before You Go

Purchasing a vacation package seems simple enough. You shop online, find a great deal and bam, you're done. However, did you look at the fine print? What kind of hotel deal are you really getting? Sometimes it’s better to forgo the vacation package. In many cases, you won't really know the hotel that you're paying for until much later, and it may cost you more in the long run. Pick a hotel that's specifically geared towards families. The best hotels offer activities and entertainment areas like kiddie pools, water slides and arcades. You also want to find a hotel that has free breakfast, so you can fuel up before heading out on your getaway adventures.  When my family of five decided to visit Hawaii, we knew we were interested in a family friendly resort.  After a little research and some advice from other parents, we were able to find the best family friendly hotel in Honolulu for our bunch.

2. Pack It Up

Kids need stuff to keep them occupied, particularly on long drives. If you have movie players set up in your car, then you already have won half the battle. However, you can pack up games and snacks for the car that will make the drive less tedious. For snacks, think about dry goods such as pretzels and trail mix. You also want to keep a few sweets around like gummy bears or cookies as a reward for good traveling behavior.

When packing up your car or preparing for a flight, bring something small yet comfortable to help kids take naps. The ultimate paradise is a car ride with sleeping children. If you pack up blankets, pillows and stuffed animals to help make the ride more comfortable, you'll be a happier traveler indeed.  If you’re traveling during the day, think about a sunshade to encourage naptime.

3. Safety First

With all the excitement surrounding vacations, it’s easy to overlook the more mundane aspects of your trip.  But safety really is key, especially when traveling with your most precious cargo.  Create your own first-aid kit with all the traditional essentials in addition to items geared to your family’s needs.  Vacations often call for a great deal of walking, so make sure to bring blister Band-Aids in addition to the traditional kind.  You will want plenty of ibuprofen, Benadryl and Tylenol in addition to any other medications your child may need, such as an EpiPen.  Make extra copies of your insurance cards in case you take your original one swimming. 

Finally, summer vacations invite many opportunities to cool down at the pool or surf the waves at the beach.  It’s a great idea to register your children for swimming lessons prior to your trip, to make sure you’re all well versed in water safety. 

I hope you have a safe, happy and memorable adventure this summer.

Photo Credit: peasap via Compfight cc

Bio: Kendra Thornton: Travel advocate, TV spokesperson, PR businesswoman, proud wife and mama of 3. I am a long time travel expert who has been packing my bags and traveling the world since I was 3 months old! I've found my utmost desire in life is right here in my own home. I have taken my excitement for travel and brought it to you with some of my favorite travel tips and tricks. Enjoy!

Space Week

Hi everyone. I hope you all have been doing well and enjoying your time with your children.  Our school days are flying by and we are almost done.

I was excited this past week we had some new experiences I wanted to share with you.  Last week, we had a fun space week.  Mrs. D put it together and the kids had a great time.  We talked about the planets, the sun, the moon, astronauts, and even aliens.  The kids loves the aliens the best.

Our first craft was a moon picture with some fun aliens.  The children got a black piece of paper,  they painted a moon on the paper with puffy paint.  We made the puffy paint with 1/4 cup glue, 3/4 cup shaving cream, and some white paint.











After the moons dried we added some cute aliens, drawn by Mrs. D and colored by the children.  The pictures were great.






















This day also involved the children making rockets.  Mrs. D drew a rocket that they colored and cut out.  Then she had taken two Solo cups one was the rocket, and one was the launch pad.  The rocket cup had two rubber bands attached--Mrs. D did this.  The children attached the rocket to the cup, then the rocket cup was pushed down on the launch pad and they "shot" it into the air.

The second day was alien/astronaut day.  The children came to school dressed as either an alien or astronaut and we had fun with this all day.  Mrs. D had bought everyone a glow stick.  Then we pushed some tables together, threw the parachute over it--to darken the area--then we blasted off to space, they thought it was great.

We painted a styrofoam ball that day to which was the beginning of an alien we would finish on Friday.

Our experiment that day was to string a string across the room with a straw on it.  Then we blew up a balloon, attached it to the string and blasted it off across the room.

For Friday, we finished out alien with lots of goodies--eyes, pipe cleaners, feathers, etc.  They turned out so cute.















The best part of the day though was the experiments.  The kids LOVED them.  First we took a bottle of diet soda and added four pack of Alka Seltzer to watch the blast off of soda.  The best one though was shooting off our rocket.  Mrs. D's husband had made rocket out of a soda bottle, and some balsa wood.  He then made a a fuselage for us to add "rocket fuel."  We put vinegar in the soda bottle, we filled a little more than about 1/4 of the bottle.  Then we filled the fuselage 1/2 way with baking soda.  We carefully put the fuselage into the rocket and waited for the two substances to mix.  My first try, I wasn't quick enough and the rocket shot sideways while I was talking to the kids.  When we tried it a second time I was quicker and we shot it in the air.  I wish we had someone recording it, it was great!

Take care and I was so happy I had some new fun to share with you.

Happy Easter!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to wish you all a very Happy and Peaceful Easter. Take care

Spring is Almost Here!

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to check in to let you know I am still here plugging away.  My days are filled with preschool fun and play.  I haven't posted as we haven't really done anything that I haven't already told you about.

The children are all doing fine.  Number books have gone home for the Pre-K, they are writing their first and last names, and we have a few more letters for the alphabet book.

The 3yr. old class has finished they color and shape books and we are practicing becoming pros with the scissors.

We have celebrated Valentine's Day, President's Day, did some winter activities and enjoyed a day at the bowling alley.  Of course there is so much more.  We are all doing fine and growing by leaps and bounds!

Our Senses

The Pre-K class finished up with the five senses last week.  I did pretty much the same things that we did last year for all of the senses:  binoculars for sight, tambourines for sound, finger painting with and without salt for touch, our smelling station, and our taste day.

I just wanted to share the smelling station and taste day with you as they enjoyed them so much.

For smell I set up different smells on our "rainbow" table.  The children took turns smelling the items and deciding which smell was their favorite.  The smells I included were:  Dr. Pepper soap, deodorant soap, perfume, chocolate, a candle, bay leaves, rosemary, coffee, syrup, cinnamon, garlic, and vanilla.  To my surprise they all hated the deodorant soap!

For taste day I have parents send in a "special family recipe" to share with the class and we have a tasting party.  We got some great stuff this year:  pizza, quesadillas, zucchini bread, banana bread, chocolate chip bread, chocolate chip cookies, humus with carrots, green pasta, cantaloupe, potatoes, and a fruit and veggie dish.  They were really good about trying the different things and boy were we stuffed!

Fun With Shadows

Hi everyone.  I know it's past Groundhog's Day, but we still love enjoying all the fun things one can do for this day.

I know I have posted these before, so I just wanted to put a link to the past fun things we did on this day.

Beautiful Snowflakes....?

I wanted to do a new project with my three's, so I thought I would do a snowflake print.  I had actually seen this in The Mailbox magazine and they made it look so easy.

The idea was to cut out some snowflakes from tag board  tape them to a piece of construction paper, then paint over them with white paper.  Then remove the snowflake patterns.  My first three paintings went okay, then problems ensued.  The snowflakes got way too damp and then the tape would no longer stick to the snowflake, or the paper.  I tried different kinds of tape and even tacky--no luck.











So I decided I would cut the snowflake pattern out of foam and stick that to the paper.  Here the problem was the foam was too thick and the paint made the snowflake would flip, or the paint just seeped in too thickly.

Finally--when I only had about 5 paintings left to do, I came up with a brainstorm.  I continued to use my foam shapes, but what I did was to paint the foam shapes.  Then I had the children press them on their paper.  I think they came out much better.

The Pre-K class also did snowflakes.  Last year was my first experience with giving the children a folded piece of paper and letting them cut it.  It didn't go too well for me, so I was a bit apprehensive   about the project this year.  Thankfully Mrs. D was there this year.  She had the children use a small circle instead of a large square like I used last year.  This went much better.

After the  children cut out their pieces, they glued the snowflake to a piece of blue paper and put some "snow" glitter on them.  They look beautiful hanging on the wall.

It's That Time of Year Again

I just wanted to give a quick reminder to any parents of children that may be starting preschool soon.  It is actually almost time to start registering children for the 2013/2014 school year.  I know, isn't that amazing?  2013 just started and it's already time to think of the upcoming school  year?

Now, your region may be different, but where we live, registration for preschools begin on February 1.  We open our registration to church members and present families in mid-January, then open to the public on the first of February.  The last few years, our school has been full by about 10:00 AM on the first of Febrary.

This month we have been busy with school visits, telephone calls, and emails.  If  you are thinking about sending your child to school in September, now is the time for action.

If you would like, I wrote an article a while ago about preschool regisitration if you would like to read it:  Registration.

Good luck and have fun!

Three Kings Day

This year Mrs. D was interested in doing a small craft to recognize Three Kings Day.  During the month of December we had talked about Christmas, Jesus' birth, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and of course, the kings.

To recognize this day we did a very simple craft, but it was cute--aren't they all.  We had gotten a book from the library, but I can't remember it's name.  The book was a story of the birth of Jesus.  It took each part and gave an explanation of what was happening, but not too detailed that we lost the children.

For the kings, it gave their names, what they brought, how they traveled following the star, and their camels.

Mrs. D decided we would do a crayon resist picture.  A "desert" scene was drawn on a piece of white paper with crayon--an extremely simple drawing, some sand and then stars were added.  One star was larger than the rest to symbolize the star they followed.

The children then water colored over the crayon.  We used a darker blue instead of the black.  After they watercolor was dry the children added a camel.











This craft could have been more involved if one would like, but time didn't permit us lots of fancy options.  The children thought it was great that you could still see the crayon even though they painted over it.

Starting Off a Happy New Year

We got back to school this week.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and happy new year.  We started school on Wednesday and decided to kick it off with a talk of new year's; US and Chinese.

The children got to make a new year "hat" and we did a color by number of a Chinese Dragon.  We also looked up what year the children were born in to see what year of the...they were born in. These children were born in the year of the red pig, or year of the rat.

Anyway, to make the hat each child got a large circle.  We then put out all kinds of fun stuff for them to decorate the hat.  There were foam pieces, sequins, markers, buttons, etc, anything that would decorate.












After the children decorated the hats, we cut a slit to the middle of the hat.  Then we folded it over to make a cone shaped hat.  They thought it was very cute.



Hope you have a great 2013.

A Merry Christmas to All!

Christmas Day will soon be upon us.  I wanted to take this moment to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Most all of my Christmas ideas are posted on line so I don't have anything especially new for you.  I do have to say that some of our parents brought in some great snacks the last couple of days at school.  The parents said they found the items on Pinterest, so you may have already seen them if you were looking for great Christmas snacks.

There was a reindeer made from a small chocolate donut, broken pretzel antlers, a red M&M nose, and white icing eyes.  My favorite was a marshmallow Christmas ornament for which I don't have a picture--my camera was dead.  These were great.  It was a marshmallow that had been dipped halfway in chocolate, then the chocolate part was then dipped in rainbow sprinkles.  The final piece was a small candy can inserted in the top like the "hook."  They were great.

One new craft we came up with this year was from Mrs. D's crushed Christmas decoration.  When she was getting ready to decorate her home, she came across a decoration that had been crushed.  We used this decoration which was a pine type of decoration, with fake pine needles, to make the parents' gift tag.

We painted a 3x5 index card with red glitter paint.  We then had to cut the needles from the crushed decoration.  After the paint had dried, we created a tree shape with glue.  The children took the needles and made a Christmas tree on the card.  Then we topped it off with a star sticker. We attached these to the parents gifts.



























Well, I'm off to enjoy Christmas and New Year's with my family.  I'm excited that this year we are traveling to Jekyll Island, Georgia.  This is our first Christmas trip like this.  Hope everything goes well.

Again--have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy some time with your family!

Run, Run.....

Friday was our last day of school before our Christmas Break.  Boy, are the children ready.  It's almost like they have been living on chocolate chip cookies for the last week.  They are very EXCITED Christmas is coming.

So just to jazz things up a bit--like the children needed it--we had a great activity on Friday.  I LOVED it and the children talked about our day continuously.  Mrs. D created a Gingerbread Day.

This is an activity she used to do when she was a kindergarten teacher.  First we read "The Gingerbread Baby," by Jan Brett.  At the back of the book was a note from the Gingerbread Baby telling the children he was hungry and had gone to the kitchen for a snack---you should have seen their faces!

We rushed down to the kitchen.  There we found a note that the Gingerbread Baby had decided to go to the church to say a prayer.  We quietly went to the church.  When we got there, the Baby had left a note that he wanted to sing a song, so he went to the stage to perform.  Quick...to the stage.















When we got to the stage there was a note that the Gingerbread Baby had traveled to our front door.  Then he left a note he was waiting to see us in our classroom.  When we got to the classroom there was a note that said his mom made him go home, but he left some supplies for the children to make one of him.

Here is where the activity was a bit different then Mrs. D's original activity.  She used to have parents bring in plain gingerbread cookies, then the children decorated them.  Because of time we had a gingerbread shape, buttons, eyes, crayons, and glue available on the tables when the children got back to the room.  Then, they children made a Gingerbread Baby to take home with them.





























The kids really, really, liked this activity.  It was one of the first things they told their parents before  our Christmas show began.  There were even a few children that "saw"  Gingerbread Baby footprints.  This is definitely an activity we will be doing every year.  I loved seeing how excited they all got.

We also made Hershey Kiss Pretzel Bites--just what they needed, more sugar.