Outdoor Adventures Yield Learning Opportunities – from the National Fatherhood Institute

We’ve been encouraging you to take advantage of the nice spring weather and engage your kids in outdoor activites (or indoor when it’s raining!) Not only will this create fun memories for you and your kids, but getting outside together brings some great learning opportunities. As you are spending time with your kids, wherever you are, look for the teachable moments – whether it’s educational or character building.

Here’s some “teachable tips” for outdoor activities for you to do with your kids as we wrap up April Adventures.
Teachable Tips for Outdoor Activities:

Stargazing and Astronomy: Grab jackets for everyone and a blanket to sit on and take the kids outside to enjoy the night sky. This article has some great tips for stargazing with kids. Get a star map and find constellations together. Teach your kids about the phases of the moon, too.

Horticulture and Gardening: Help your kids learn about types of plants, how they grow, and how to care for them by planting a garden together. If that’s more than you want to take on, try some of these fun, easy, kid-friendly gardening projects suggested by Family Fun. If you don’t have a green thumb, a trip to a local garden will provide an educational fun outing. Find one near you.

Finances and Yard Sales: Make spring cleaning fun by challenging your kids to choose a certain number of old clothes and toys they don’t use to sell at a yard sale. Let them keep the proceeds. Having a yard sale is a great way to teach your kids about being grateful for what they have and some basic financial principles.

Sportsmanship and Games: As you’re playing games with your kids, take advantage of the opportunity to teach them how to be a good sport. Following the rules, taking turns, encouraging others, and not boasting when you win or pouting when you loose are all part of good sportsmanship. Praise your kids when they exhibit good sportsmanship, and when they don’t, talk about what they should do better next time.

Hard Work and Projects: As you work on projects in your yard or garden with your kids, help them understand how hard work, dilligence, and doing something to the best of their ability yields results later.

Fitness and Fun: And of course, as you and your kids are having fun and playing outside together, there’s the added benefit of fitness! Being active is an important part of being healthy, and by encouraging your kids to get outside and play, you’re helping them develop good fitness habits.

Fun Activities to Do With Your Kids This Spring

Spring is nearly here. The pasty white skies, drizzle, and snow will soon be just a thing of the past. If you’re like me, your kids are eager to get out of the house and do something, something which doesn’t involve soaking wet socks and layers of jackets. Now’s a great time to take advantage of the warmer weather and gear up for a little quality time. If after reading these, you are still interested in finding activities to do with your kids, head over to Dad Blogs.org where you will find more great ideas from dad bloggers.

Yard Camping

If your kids are younger than tweens, you can probably excite them with this relatively low-stress activity. Yard camping involves all the excitement of camping that kids enjoy–sleeping outside! campfires!—with less of the pain that actual camping involves. You won’t have to escort scared little ones to far away bathrooms in the middle of the night or field complaints about a lack of delicious drink and food.

The secret of a successful yard camping adventure is to prepare as if you were actually far away from home. Prepare a fire, if possible, get camp-type food, and drink hot chocolate out of tin mugs. Put up the tent and extract the sleeping bags from the attic. A battery-powered boom box is always a good bet, and a scary story or two can come in handy. The beauty of yard camping is that you’ll always have the house right there should anybody desperately need something inside.

Tie Dye

Old t-shirts, white sheets, socks—these are all excellent candidates for becoming tie dye masterpieces. Tie dye is a great spring activity because it’s best done outside (unless you’re interested in giving your living room carpet a new look). It’s also easy, and takes a bit of time, but not an intense amount of concentration.

I suggest buying a tie dye kit or two; Amazon always has several options. The kits come with rubber gloves, dye bottles, dye packets, rubber bands, and instructions. Beware, most kits require you to presoak whatever you are dying in a warm water and soda ash solution—this allows the dye to stick to the fabric and lets your creations stay vibrant longer. You’ll also need a plastic tarp or tablecloth for covering your work surface, to keep the dye off. Then you’ll just need a creative vision and a towel rod or clothes pin to achieve that swirly look (the dye kit will give you a step-by-step).

Paint a Mural

Another great excuse to spend some time outdoors? Painting! You and your kids could team up on one large piece of art, or you could each have your own surface for a bit more individuality. Large pieces of plywood or other relatively smooth-surfaced woods are low-cost options for the surface of your mural.

Decide how much time and energy you want to put into this project, before you invest in paints and brushes. Want a quick weekend creation that will be forgotten promptly? Then cheap tempura paints are fine. Have little artists on your hands that will spend hours agonizing over their work? You can consider painting a base coat of white latex paint, then purchasing acrylics (available at any big box store) to use over this base. Acrylics are easy to clean and get out of most clothing. For paintbrushes, you’ll need one or two large, flat brushes for covering large surfaces, and round brushes of medium and smaller sizes for getting the details. After putting down the latex base, you and/or your kids can pencil in the outline for what the basic gist of the mural will be.

Berry/ Fruit Picking

Strawberries, cherries, blueberries, strawberries: these are some of the crops that will be ready to harvest in spring and early summer, depending on where you live. U-pick and pick your own farms around the U.S. make it easy to spend a morning outside, loading up baskets of delicious fruit. In my experience, kids love this activity, even if you worry that it might be too boring or tedious. Mine always competed about who could load up the most fruit—so much that we had to tell them to slow it down (the farms charge by the weight of your haul).

Wear old clothes and comfy shoes, and pack a big hat or sunglasses. Bring smaller baskets or containers for your kids to load their fruit in (some farms charge a fee for containers). Don’t forget the sunscreen. And snacks, drinks, and baby wipes are always good to have on hand.

Sources

Instructables

Pick Your Own

Stage 1

Having “emergency cash” is the first stage. It’s having $5-7,000 liquid for life’s inconveniences (the furnace going out, the car needing work, etc.) When faced the inevitable challenges that arise, many people are forced to run their credit cards to make it through. They become stuck with high interest rate, non-tax deductible borrowing.

Stage 2

The second stage is the elimination of “bad debt.” I define “bad debt” as any debt whose interest is not tax deductable. Obviously, those high interest rate credit cards must be the first to go. But, we also want to divest ourselves of the borrowing associated with car loans, student loans, and personal loans because it typically can be done cheaper.

Stage 3

Shockingly, when you arrive at stage three, you will be considered in the top 5% of Americans in terms of financial security. Stage 3 is accomplished when you have 3-6 months of your total expenses in reserves. The average American has less than 1 month in reserve! When life shows them a minor inconvenience (like a job loss, an illness, or worse) most people are in a panic situation. With 3-6 month’s reserves, you will have time to weigh options and make better choices.

Stage 4

True financial security is attained when you become “debt free.” But not without debt. I consider you “debt free” when you have enough liquid assets to pay off whatever mortgage they have outstanding. Wealth building accelerates utilizing the tax benefits of having a mortgage in combination with strategies that utilize the 3 miracles of money…

My next post will be about the 3 Miracles of Money!

Make it clear to your child that nothing he or she does could ever cause you to love him or her less than 100%. The most wonderful gift you can give your child is the absolute conviction that you love him or her completely, without reservation, no matter what he or she does and no matter what happens.