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Visit a farm with a camera and let your child create a scrap book

Posted on by Priscille d'Arifat-Koenig

Visit a farm and create a scrap book out of itIt doesn’t have to be a farm of course, it could be a zoo, a beach, a forest, an outing to the park.

The  aim is to trust your child with the camera and let him document the outing with his pictures, even if they are blurry or with a tad too many close-ups.

In the lot, there still might be some nice photos too.

Then, have them printed out and create a scrap book of the outings.

Depending on your child’s age and willingness, you may also have him write some text or illustrate the pages too.

Or you may want to write down what he tells you about the day.

Don’t turn this into a novel!

Four to five pages is plenty enough for small kids and ten-ish should suffice for older ones.

Do check our art page for some scrapbook ideas.

Being smart is being responsible… in a different way

Posted on by Priscille d'Arifat-Koenig

Smart vs responsible kidsAre you raising responsible children? Or are you raising smart children?

I love this article about raising smart versus responsible kids.

In her article Paz takes the very traditional meaning of responsibility in the sense that we have obligations to do things in a certain way. And in that sense, I completely agree with her.

Society is evolving and the world is changing. And with the economic and environmental challenges that the world is facing today, I’d rather see some smart and creative adults tomorrow than responsible and conforming ones.

I do have certain reserves about including children in very important decisions, because I believe that our role as parents is also to give a secure structure and environment to our children and that includes to me bearing the opportunities and challenges of such decisions.

And at the end of the day, I believe that if you raise smart kids… they’ll definitely be responsible too!

Use your child’s learning material to create a treasure hunt

Posted on by Priscille d'Arifat-Koenig

Treasure hunt as a learning toolAll the children I know love a good treasure hunt!

And even though they require a little time to prepare, they are not difficult to put together.

The process is explained here step by step in great details. Follow the guidelines to make your first treasure hunt a success.

They also have some great ideas about the format you can use for the clues.

Now, here is our little trick, when you create clues, go through your children’s school books and see what your child is working on so that you can include this material into the clues.

Continue reading Use your child’s learning material to create a treasure hunt

Indulge in your child’s interests

Posted on by Priscille d'Arifat-Koenig

Indulge in your child's interestI strongly believe that when we lead with our children’s interest, we can go a mile longer than if we ignore or criticize them.

This is actually something we do quite naturally and very easily when our children have interests we can relate to.

However, when they have interests we can’t really relate to… then we will be more critical of them.

So even if you don’t completely understand your child interest, it is important to still engage with him about it.

This is very easily don by having conversations about it. You can also be being present with him from time to time while he is involved in it and try to spark even a little interest for it yourself. Yes, even if it is skateboarding or playing PS3 games, there are still healthy ways to indulge in those!