Tag Archives: kids

Poppies for Remembering

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How to sign REMEMBER in American Sign Language:

Photo of me signing REMEMBER

Are you REMEMBERING our lost soldiers this weekend?

On November 11th in Canada, we observe Remembrance Day as a memorial to the members of our armed forces who have given their lives in the line of duty in wars since World War I. Poppies are a very visual symbol of Remembrance Day since 1920 after the poem “In Flanders Fields” was written, a poem which referred to the vibrant flowers that first grew in the churned-up earth of soldiers’ graves in Europe. The poem was written by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae on May 3rd, 1915, after witnessing the death of his friend, a fellow soldier, the day before.

Poppies are to be worn on your chest over the heart.

I REMEMBER learning the poem “In Flanders Fields” in school as a child, and now my elementary school-aged kids are bringing home their drawings of vibrant red poppies and renditions of the poem in social studies projects every November. Two years ago, my daughter’s girl guide troop made pretty felt poppies, and their creative craft inspired us to make more at home. We always pop some money into the Canadian Veterans Poppy Campaign donation cans and proudly support their efforts each year, but we don’t take a poppy from the tray.

Making the poppies is easy and only requires pieces of red and black felt and some black thread (after sewing the layers of felt together, we hot-glue safety pins to the back for attaching the poppies -this keeps those usually-used stick pins from pricking, and also keeps the poppy fixed in place instead of popping off). It’s a fairly easy craft for kids to do once they are able and old enough to cut with scissors and/or sew with a needle.

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Because they are handmade, our felt poppy brooches are all unique and garner lots of attention.

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My daughter and I made some extra poppies this year for grandma and grandpa and also some for the kids’ teachers. While stopping by to visit our good friends at Bloom Essentials Spa in Vancouver, owners Kim and Nicole’s enthusiasm for the poppies gave us an idea: my daughter and I could make more poppies for Bloom to sell at their front desk and then donate proceeds to the Veterans’ Poppy campaign.

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The $2 poppies sold out in a day, and I’ve since delivered another batch to the shop for the Remembrance Day weekend. More importantly, Kim and Nicole are also generously matching our donations to give to the veterans! I’m so proud that a fun craft with my daughter turned into an activity that could teach her the power of doing, donating, and REMEMBERING.

(a very special thanks to my friends and Bloom Girls, Kim & Nicole!)

Signs of Halloween

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HALLOWEEN is almost here! Much more than just candy and trick-or-treating, I’ve always emphasized the fun and playfulness of Halloween with my kids. Halloween is a very visual event, so take the opportunity to identify and talk about the things you see out in the world with your babies and kids. Putting ASL signs within your conversations will help your babies and kids learn new vocabulary, and it’s easy!

Here are some Halloween signs to keep you signing with your littles this week:

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Here’s a song you can use some signs in:

IF YOU’RE A GHOST (If You’re Happy & You Know It)
If you’re a ghost and you know it,
You say BOO,
If you’re a ghost and you know it,
You say BOO,
If you’re a ghost and you know it,
And you really want to show it,
If you’re a ghost and you know it ,
You say BOO!

Come inside for a little Halloween fun at my house!

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Yes, Halloween is one of my favourite family “holidays”. There’s lots of kid-friendly fun stuff to do outside at the farms, veggie stands, parks, and neighbourhoods. Inside the house, we decorate with crafts my kids have made in the past and present, and add some little scary touches. Little by little, we’ve found some traditions that have become our own which our kids look forward to every fall.

Around the second weekend of October, the Halloween bin comes out of the basement! We love to decorate the house a little, inside and out, to encourage trick-or-treaters. Decorating also allows our family to enjoy anticipating the big night. Outside, Christmas lights with ghosts on top light up our dark-at-night walkway:

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I’ve found that gel gems and wall stickers are one of the best bangs for my decorating buck because I’ve learned to be very careful in applying and removing them. And I always save the packaging and so I can re-use them yearly. These bat wall stickers were the perfect thing for our shoe bin in the front hall:

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Because my kids are old enough, I can let them help out (and go nuts) with decorating the bathroom mirrors and inside windows with gel gems (this guy greets us as we brush our teeth and also glows in the dark):

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Instead of emphasizing the candy, we always make lots of treats to eat at home and at parties. One of my favourite treats to make with the kids is creamy jello jigglers. I have a post with the full recipe for these, but here’s a look at the Halloween-themed jello we made this year:

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What kind of Halloween fun is your family up to?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Lee Ann

A Mom’s Back to School List

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Okay, July and August are now past tense, and I’m quite pleased with what we accomplished from our family summer bucket list (more on that very soon). As far as I’m concerned, though, it wasn’t truly back to school for us today because the kids went to school for 1 hour; I don’t really count that as school, that is just all the kids (& parents) seeing each other and reacquainting themselves with school life again. The teachers and school staff are fully launched back to work, oh yes! But myself and my kids? We are very slowly wading into the “back-to-school” waters, which is actually just how I like it: nice and slow.

My kids are starting grade 2 and grade 6 this year, with my daughter entering a brand new school for the grade 6 late-entry French Immersion program -we are all holding our breath to see how another location and different language works out for her, but I have a good feeling about it. So, tomorrow will be the first full day of school, and that’s where my brain is going now…

It’s time to make a new list just for ME! I work part-time teaching my baby sign language classes 3.5 days a week, and have 1.5 days to manage our home and work lives, as well as some volunteering. I want to make what little time I have work for me, not the other way around. Making a list has become a terrific way to remind myself of what’s important in life.

I’ve been thinking hard about what kinds of things fill me up so I don’t get run down while I fulfill my passion towards my family and my work.

These are some of the things I’m looking forward to doing once my kids are back in school:

My Mommy Back-to-School List
• Drinking my morning cup of tea while it’s still hot, in one sitting (no microwave warm-ups)
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• Riding my bike, by myself with no kids attached to mine or wavering ahead of me in
traffic:
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• Listening to CBC Radio 2 as I do the breakfast dishes

• Walking once a week in the forest trails with a BFF (Best Fitness Friend):
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• Creating my new wellness plan: a proper fitness schedule actually booked into my schedule, so no excuses

• Painting my summer-scraped toenails a fun, fall pattern like this:
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• Opening up my Pinterest “Recipes to Try” board and actually trying some of the recipes I’ve pinned

• Visiting the public library and leisurely perusing the brand new books shelf for ideas

• Looking over my own favourite cookbooks to get ideas

• Organizing some meal plans and recipes with shopping lists

• Making homemade soup like this Celery Potato with Blue Cheese recipe:
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• Going to my favourite yoga class and practicing at home

• Reading a novel I’ve been dying to read with a (hot) cup of tea

• Tackling some fall home projects like organizing my pantry & switching over the closets from summer to fall

• Booking some Mommy playdates & catching up with my friends

Fall is a good time to switch gears and think about a list for just you. Here’s a hot-cuppa-tea toast to all the things that “fill us up” so we can live & work better this fall!
Lee Ann

One Fun Thing

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One of our bucket list items this summer was to visit local tourist attractions that we normally don’t have time for during the school year. Have you been a tourist in your own town?

We had started the tradition a few years back to choose one fun thing to do as a family before the summer ended. Over the years we had done bike rides, pool visits to soak up the last of the sun, evening ice cream shop visits, little stuff like that. Several years ago, our daughter started begging us to go on one of those red trolley tour buses… oh, brother. My husband and I are not keen on tour buses and we found ourselves saying, “Oh, yes, sure, one day we’ll do that!”. And yes, we managed to distract her and not do that for quite a while, but finally the jig was up, and it was her “one fun thing” end of summer wish.
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So off we went, and we had a blast! We learned tons about our city, so many exciting things we had no idea about at all, and we caught the bug for being a tourist in our own town.

Flash forward to this year, and we decided to embrace the not-so-sunny weather this week for our “one fun thing” before summer ends. We hit the UBC Botanical Garden and Greenheart Canopy Trail, a new local destination for our family.
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It was a great place to go to on a cloudy day because the trees protected us from moisture (okay, yes, I mean rain!) and the cultured trails took us through all sorts of wild forest growth. We could let the kids run and play without getting lost easily. There is a paved path suitable for strollers:
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This path leads to the more formal cultivated gardens -an Alpine, Carolinian, Food, B.C Native Garden, and a very cool labrynth -that you access through this cool tunnel:
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We didn’t spend much time in the formal gardens, but my kids ran back and forth through this tunnel a few times listening to the echo as they ran yelling at the top of their lungs,
“ECHO! ECHO!.. Echo!… echo!… echo…”

There’s also a woodchip path which leads you through all sorts of glades and more wild forest areas.
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Following the woodchip path leads you to the Greenhart Canopy Walkway which is a suspended trail system which allows you to literally go up into the trees and walk 75 feet above the forest floor.
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So, because we were now those people who liked guided tours, we waited at the trail entrance to meet the free forest guide:
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(It’s entirely possible we might have played leap-frog here).

The guided tour was fantastic! We got to listen to an enthusiastic university grad student who also had helped build the walkway tell us about the treetop trailway, forest history, the first nations’ uses of local forest materials, and lots of cool facts about the trees of this coastal temperate rainforest including western red cedar, western hemlock, Douglas fir, grand fir, and red alder. We learned that some of the trees we saw were over 400 years old, and some were thought to be close to 1000 years old at least!

I was fascinated hearing about the Taiwanese “Coffin” tree (a relative of the redwood tree which also grows in BC) whose wood is so hardy and resistant to rot, it was used for making coffins. It also has remarkable needles whose extra-thick coating of protective sap allows the massive trees to withstand the hot & sunny climate of Taiwan -the needles look green on sunny days but show blue on cloudy days due to its protective sap. We got extremely close to these enormous trees in the first part of the walkway, and because it was a dull day, we could touch and feel the sticky, visibly blue needles.
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You can see the Taiwanese coffin trees’ needles close up in the top photo above, and then how the trees look blue-er than the surrounding greenery shown in the bottom pic.

My kids were thrilled to traverse the swingy walkways (slightly more than my husband and I were, mind you) and we all loved the incredible balance of adventure and learning. We didn’t make it through all of the gardens, but we plan to return soon. The forest is an incredible place to visit all year around. (Please note: the canopy trailway is best suited for bigger kids aged 5 and up, in my opinion. It is quite swingy and a wee bit tippy.)

So there’s this year’s “one fun thing” before school starts and we ticked off visiting a local tourist attraction (without getting too touristy) from my family’s summer bucket list, too! It was very fun and a great way to tackle a less-than-stunning summer day. I was proud to learn that the Greenheart Conservation Company which built the walkway is a local Vancouver company. They design, build and operate conservation-based canopy walkways and other nature-based attractions around the world. Canopy Walkways are the among the finest examples of the global trend in sustainable and responsible tourism:

“Construction is as non-invasive as possible using the patent pending ‘tree hugger’ suspension system. The tree hugger uses no nails or bolts or intrusive fasteners of any kind, using instead, a variable tension system to provide the least amount of infringement or impact on the trees.”

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What one fun thing are you planning this weekend?

Click here to see the ASL sign for TREE

Cloudy Day Playdate

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I’m not the only one thinking about good old fashioned free play and unscheduled activities for our kids, this summer, and I loved reading about Peekaboo Beans’s Pop Up Playdates currently happening in my Vancouver. They are organizing outdoor playdates at local parks and playgrounds and inviting families to come out and PLAY! Fantastic idea.

Speaking of playdates, this week my family invited my Very Inspiring Friend and her kids over for a playdate on very a cloudy summer morning. Our 5 kids together all range in age from 6-11 years, have known each other since birth and all get along really well, but we live about 30kms away from each other, so our visits are never frequent enough. The kids immediately scurried off to begin playing and the moms hunkered down in the kitchen to drink some much-needed caffeine. We shared stories of the summer as small boys dressed as superheroes/ninja’s crept by us under the table, styrofoam nerf pellets soared past the kitchen door, and teeny, tiny pocket doll outfits pleaded for our mom-hands to help them get even tinier dresses on over the disproportionately large doll heads interrupted us sporadically, but for the most part, the playdate was fairly quiet and relaxing for all of us. We ate some lunch, and the kids went outside to paint some rocks. The moms wandered into the living room (which, incidentally, is a designated no-toy room in my house -every other room in the house ends up hosting toys at some point, but I try to keep one oasis in the house), and we were enjoying the quiet beauty of a tidy room when the 2 big girls walked in looking for us. They had finished their rock painting and didn’t know what to do next, and being 11 meant that they were kind of interested in what we grownups were talking about, so they quietly slid into the living room and sat down with us. Then the boys came in too, because they heard that the girls were in there, and before we knew it, all 5 kids were in the living room looking at us moms.

So, usually I implore my kids to go play and leave the adults alone during playdates, but suddenly a spontaneous game of Froggy Murder started (Froggy Murder is a circle game where one person is a silent “murderer” who looks at the other people in the circle and surreptitiously sticks his tongue out at them to “kill” them. Another person standing in the middle of the circle is the “detective” who tries to watch and guess who is murdering the other frogs. You might remember another version of this game called “Wink Murder”). My son loves these circle games he learned to play at school, but which never work at home because there’s usually only 4 of us. But 5 kids & 2 adults can totally play circle Froggy Murder, and we ended up remembering a few more games of the same ilk. We were playing together for over an hour before it became time for them to go home. The guessing games were definitely an unexpected highlight on a dull, cloudy day. Both myself and my Very Inspiring Friend enjoyed the game-playing, and we realized that our kids are reaching a lovely stage in their lives -able to play with their friends without much interference or refereeing, and also super fun to play with all together as a family of all ages.

Given that I’ve dedicated this summer to thinking up good old fashioned activities to occupy our days and nights for a less-structured summer, I honestly don’t think it would have occurred to me to try that kind of game-playing otherwise, so I’m glad a spontaneous froggy murder suggestion came out and got us started. I guess just being open to unscheduled fun allowed for it to unfold that way. My Very Inspiring Friend continues to inspire me, and I’ll be adding that to my summer bucket list under “Cloudy Day Activities”.

What games do you play as a family? Did you play together while you were growing up?

HATS (not) Optional

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HAT in ASL www.growingsigns.com

I love hats!

In summer, I know wearing a hat is the best way to protect myself from overheating, sun exposure, and glare. Same goes for winter, but for warmth and keeping dry (hats also really help on days when my hair could use some extra TLC but there’s no time to give it any).  But my family hasn’t always shared my same enthusiasm for wearing hats.

My first baby was born in early springtime, and by June, the rays of summer came hot & heavy upon us as we strolled and took in summer fun around town. Besides always using the stroller’s built-in sun shade, I remember popping lots of cute bonnets and brimmed hats into my diaper bag for her. By August, as she got older & more dextrous, I remember lots of cute bonnets and brimmed hats being tossed out of the stroller -she did NOT like wearing a hat.

Every time she’d pop her hat off, I’d pop it back on and sign HAT. Every day, over and over. Sometimes I’d try really roomy hats that I’d hope she wouldn’t feel being stealthily put on her from behind…no good. But I kept trying. HAT. We wear our HAT. Mommy’s putting on her HAT. Here’s your HAT.

The following summer when she was one, I found myself repeating HAT a lot: Let’s put on our HAT! Even though she was talking, I’d realized that it really helped to use signs along with my verbal words for commands or, shall we say, emphatic statements. One day, after weeks and weeks of relentless hat tossing (why do babies never tire of some things?) and HAT signing (well, I’m pretty stubborn too), I was almost blown off my own feet. As we were leaving the house for our daily jaunt, the sunlight almost blinded us through the open door: “Mommy, I need HAT!” Wait, what? She was reminding me!

Now, I keep hats for all of us by the front door and back-ups in the car. My kids know wearing their hat is part of being outside, and thankfully, you can find cool-looking kids’ hats everywhere now. Luckily my son has been more amenable from a young age to wearing a hat and doesn’t fight me on it (there’s other battles, don’t worry).

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Yesterday, our family strolled down Fourth Avenue in the blazing sun and took in the annual Khatsahlano Street Party music festival, all in our straw hats.

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Don’t give up if your baby resists your efforts to wear a HAT. Try signing HAT every time you see hats, wear hats, pick up hats, put on hats. As I’ve realized is true with all parenting efforts, including teaching signs: consistency and repetition are key. And it helps if you wear a hat, too!

How to Sign HAT in American Sign Language

The American Sign Language sign for HAT is tapping at the top of your head with a flat hand to indicate where a hat is worn.

Blankets on the Grass

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photo(1)[9]My husband and kids & I sat around the table for lunch about a month ago on a rainy June day and talked about what we wanted to do this summer when the skies finally turned blue and the days were long. Before that, during a quick mommy getaway, I had had an aha! moment realizing it was time for our little family to start having more simple, local adventures and natural world discoveries this summer, not scheduled skills camps.

When I was growing up, we didn’t go to daycamp or bike camp or even swimming lessons. Summer was free-play with a capital “F” –hot days spent running through sprinklers, or building forts in the backyard, and playing massive games of hide-and-seek with the neighbourhood kids for hours after dinner.

My kids needed some of THAT!  So it was time to make a summer bucket list to identify and write down some things we had often forgotten to UN-schedule in the summer, like laying on the grass to watch clouds or stopping to pick berries at the side of the road. But also some local fun around town while we had time to explore our city’s forests and beaches with the rest of the world.

Here’s our family’s list we starting compiling that rainy day, and we are still adding items now that summer has started –that’s the spontaneous part! Today we made this big blanket & pillow nest in the backyard as the sun was high in the sky and enjoyed it until the bugs came out this evening. Every list has to start somewhere…

  • Wake up and watch a sunrise
  • Watch a movie in the backyard (on blankets!)
  • Make a meal only from ingredients gathered at the farmer’s market
  • Look up at the stars laying on blankets
  • Write our names with sparklers
  • Paint rocks & leave them in an unexpected place for someone to find
  • Fly a kite
  • Bake some treats & have an (iced) tea party
  • Go to an outdoor movie
  • Have a sleepover with friends
  • Pick berries, eat berries, pick more berries!
  • Wade barefoot in a cold creek
  • Visit some local tourist attractions we never usually have time for
  • Try a new sport
  • Jump in a lake
  • Ride different local transit -the Seabus, skytrain, Aquabus etc
  • Hike in Lynn Canyon
  • Join the public library’s summer reading club
  • Bike around the seawall
  • Make homemade popsicles
  • Make a summer photo slide show
  • Paint our faces, and arms, and legs
  • Play showercap shaving cream cheesies tossing game and other silly games
  • Make creative s’mores over a campfire
  • Make homemade backyard relay games
  • Paint each other’s toenails
  • Have friends over for a summer sleepover
  • Play the cloud game on the grass
  • Blow bubbles in the bathtub
  • Explore 3 new playgrounds or parks, make obstacle courses
  • Have a waterfight in the back yard -sponges, shooters, & a bin of water
  • Roll down a grassy hill
  • Plan a beach party with our friends
  • Watch a sunset together

I’ll keep posting more items as we add and tick them off the list. What’s on your summer bucket list?