Teach your little patriots some history with a July 4 treasure hunt! Create 10 multiple choice question cards, each with three options (A, B, and C). Place one question card in an envelope along with three tent cards...each one labeled on the outside with A, B, or C. Glue or tape a clue to the location of the next envelope inside the tent card labeled with the correct answer and leave the other two "wrong" tent cards blank. The last clue should lead to the prized "treasure". In addition to teaching them about history with the question cards, you can use the clues to teach kids about rhyming, figurative language, relative positioning, or anything else you want them to master. Below are the 10 questions I used, but you can modify them to the appropriate age level of your kids and can adapt the theme to any topic: Question 1: Who was the author of the Declaration of Independence?
Question 2: Who is called the "Father of our country"?
Question 3: What city is the birthplace of our national anthem?
Question 4: Which of the following was NOT one of the 13 original colonies?
Question 5: What do the 50 stars on our flag represent?
Question 6: Where is the Liberty Bell located?
Question 7: What is the name of Thomas Jefferson's home?
Question 8: Which country helped us to gain our independence?
Question 9: On what holiday did George Washington make his famous crossing of the Delaware River?
Question 10: Whose face is on the $20 bill?
The clues you use depends on where in your home you will be hiding the question/answer envelopes, but a couple of examples are:
Get creative and match the difficulty level to your kids' abilities.
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A couple of months ago, I spent a much-overdue long weekend away with my three older sisters. It was the first time I had ever been away from my children for more than one night. (They are now 7 and 9.) I was sure that they would miss me, and I knew I would miss them, but my son responded to the news with this elated proclamation to his father: "Hey Daddy, that means that we can do whatever we want all weekend, because Mommy won't be here to boss us around!" Alas, it's true that we all need to take a break every now and then from doing what we're supposed to do. That's why we take vacations and why we skip the gym, take a "mental health day" from work, or cheat on our diets. In this case, my son thought that there would be no one ordering him to clean up his toys, make his bed or clear his dishes with his drill sergeant Mom on leave. His hope was that it would be one long video game-playing, TV-watching, Lego-dumping weekend filled with Cocoa Puffs for dinner, chocolate cake for dessert and no church or teeth-brushing to cramp his style. Turns out he was only half-right. He forgot that his sister was also staying home...and she's bossier than all the rest of the women in my family put together. The writing piece he did for school (at right) tells it all, I think. Are those blue things fish or a bossy sister's feet? Anyway, a little time off from the regular routine is a healthy thing, and summer is the ideal time for relaxing our standards and enjoying some easy, laid-back simplicity. But there is a fine line between a relaxed routine and complete chaos...a line that is easily erased in the absence of a solid organizational foundation and a bit of self-discipline. Just like enjoying that all-you-can-eat dessert buffet, the long-term negative effects of your binge can be minimized with just a smidgeon of advance preparation and a plan in place for easing back into the rigors of everyday life when reality resumes in the fall. Also remember that kids need a little structure in place to reassure them when they crash from that sugar rush. So go ahead and savor the sweetness of these long summer days, but just remember that you still need to brush if you don't want a cavity! (And now that you've got the song stuck in your head, you may as well go ahead and listen to it! Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer ) I am blessed to have two children who love to read! In fact, my 7-year-old son is known for swiping his Dad's Playstation Magazine and hiding it under his bed before my husband has had a chance to read it. We knew his zeal for reading had reached new heights when he started making off with his nursing journals too.
My daughter insists on saving all of her birthday and Valentine's cards and routinely reads through her current stash. She reads our Webster's dictionary quite regularly, and I had even encouraged her to share a "word of the day" with the family each night at dinner until I started noticing a disturbing pattern in the words she chose...Adder, Anaconda, Asp, Cobra, Copperhead... Last Fall, we had to confiscate her Harry Potter book at bedtime in order to keep her from reading it in the dark. After discovering that she had been sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to read in secret, we had to tell her that an alarm is set to go off if anyone is creeping around downstairs after Mom and Dad go to bed. (Of course, this backfired on me months later when I wanted her to run downstairs to fetch something for me after we'd all retired upstairs for the night.) Whether it's library books, greeting cards, yard sale finds, magazines, or another generous Amazon shipment from Grandma, there seems to be an abundance of reading material circulating in our house. Even the shortest car trip requires a traveling library, and I want to encourage their bookishness. To contain all this fabulous print, we have bookshelves strategically placed in every major room of our house and magazine baskets in all the bathrooms. Yet it remains a struggle getting my little bookworms to re-shelve with adequate frequency. Thus I have introduced the "book basket", where reading material can be tossed with ease by the day's appointed "librarian" during our quick evening tidy-up. Every couple of weeks, the kids re-shelve the contents of the basket and I slyly seed it with a few neglected titles from the shelves upstairs to encourage them to select a variety of different texts to read. "So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall." — Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Ever since my kids' last embarrassing dental appointment I've been making a point of following behind their evening brushing job to make sure they are being thorough. They resisted at first, but I keep telling them it's just one more little way for me to show my love for them. So when I overheard this conversation between my husband and son at tuck-in time the other night, I had to chuckle.
Hubby: "Mother's Day is coming up this weekend, so we have to think of something nice we can do for Mummy." Son: " I know! Maybe we can brush her teeth for her!" My heart still does a little dance every time I think of that! I've never been a jewelry-and-roses kind of mom and would much prefer to receive a lumpy clay paperweight clumsily wrapped in newspaper or a macaroni necklace that's been colored with magic marker. And while brushing my teeth for me may be more than he bargained for, I'll bet no fancy salon pedicure could ever feel so good. But my favorite Mother's Day gift of all comes when I observe my offspring exhibiting their loving care for each other. These precious moments pop up from time to time throughout the year, not just on the second Sunday in May, and they always bring a smile to my face. Their cooperative teamwork in carrying a laundry basket upstairs, the sweet notes of comfort they write to one another to help sooth away disappointed tears, celebrating each others' successes and mourning each others' losses, sharing a favorite toy, and compromising on an activity as they play together. I even love to hear them echoing my advice. "When you are feeling frustrated, take a deep breath, relax and count to ten." Sure, it isn't all sunshine and roses, and there is an equal amount of arguing, but I cling to these gifts as proof that they really are listening and all my efforts are not in vain. I believe that a mother is not someone who has borne or raised a child but someone who plants seeds of love and kindness and patiently tends the shoots until they blossom and make the world more beautiful. Happy Mother's Day to all you "gardeners" out there. What's the best/funniest/sweetest/most memorable Mother's Day gift you've ever given or received? |
AuthorValerie Sheridan is a professional organizer, wife, mother of two, and Founder/Owner of EasyPeasy Living. Archives
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