Moving Hacks and Tips You Must Know

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Are you moving and don’t know where to start? We have got some great moving tips for you to avoid stress, save money and keep your sanity while going through this hectic time.

Get ready

Plan ahead and put away few essentials that you might need during the move (and 1 day after the move) so you don’t start digging through all of those packed boxes looking for toilet paper or wet wipes. You can find the list for  1 day essentials  at  hip2save.

Get those funny New Address Cards  to announce about your new move and a new address.

A few weeks (or moths) prior the move print this moving checklist so you don’t miss important stuff. Do you want to save some money by getting free moving boxes?

We found you a great list of places you can get free moving boxes.  

Clean your old house

Patching up wall holes can  save your security deposit. It’s pretty simple. Watch video tutorial.

Do you have some ugly nail holes in your wall after you took off all the pictures? No worries, there is a really easy fix for that.

If you have kids you probably have broken blinds too. We have all been there! Good news though – you don’t need to replace entire blinds. You can easily fix them yourself! Try this  Easy tutorial.

YES, you can clean you dirty carpets the way professionals do. We got a recipe for you!  Use this 2 ingredient carpet stain cure. It works really well! Tried it myself.  

If you move the furniture and suddenly realize that there is those little divots left behind by furniture legs all over the carpets. There is a super solution for that!    

And don’t forget the microwave! It’s easier than you think…with this  Cleaning hack.

Moving Tips

When moving toys…no need to put them in a packing box….just use cellophane to wrap the individual boxes!! No toys lost!

Are you worried about your expensive make up during the move? It could get damaged if it’s in the truck with all the boxes. Check out how cotton pad can help you save your precious make up items. Make your life easier with this jewelry packing tip. You will thanks us later!

Moving hack:  Wrap blankets (and secure it with tapes) around furniture to avoid accidental scratches and bruises. If you are worried your liquids (shampoo, shower gell, olive oil etc) will spill during the move, try this Packing hack:  wrap the top with plastic wrap. When moving clothes there is no need to fold them and pack them in boxes. There is an easier way!

 

Don’t empty drawers. It will be a breeze to ‘unpack’. via bhg Pack books in the luggage you have. It will be much easier to carry. via  bestlexever

Video tutorial how to pack TV. You must watch this.

Pack Kitchen

Wrapping drinking glasses so they won’t break is an important moving task. Don’t pack your socks because you will need them to put your drinking glasses in. Yes, it’s true and I have done this. No broken glass during the move. via complex.

Use plastic wrap to “pack” utensils, pots and the rest of the kitchen.

More genius packing ideas How to safely pack plates for moving? The Frugal Girls used disposable foam plates. I might do this on our next move. More ideas on how to pack dishes.

Pack and move furniture

There is an easy way to move those heavy washing machines, fridges, etc. This simple system that works extremely well. Lift with your legs/thighs and carry the weight evenly across your shoulders and not your arms and biceps. Everyone who tried it said “where do I get one, I will not move heavy furniture without it ! ” Highly recommended.

Move heavy appliances with window cleaner! Spraying a little of this cleaner  right in front of the feet means when you start to push it will slide with ease across your floor. Genius?

Do you want to take your “lazy boy” furniture with you but worried it will take a lot of space in the truck? Good news – you can reassemble it easy. Watch the instructions!

Did you know that you can move heavy furniture with simple jar lids? I have never tried but I will save it for the next move. Sounds smart! via designedtodwell

Cover table with fitted sheet and chairs with pillow cases to protect your precious dining set. via Pinterest  

And if your dining set has removable legs, take them off – you will save a lot of space in the moving truck.

Have a lot of heavy mattresses to move? Use a  mattress sling.

More  Packing and moving tips

Move your bedroom’s furniture last on the moving truck. That way when you arrive to the new house you can get your bed and other essentials FIRST. Make sure you can reach your crock pot easily. That way when you arrive to the new house you can make easy meals while unpacking goes for few days. Moving with kids? Make sure to read these 6 tips to make this process easier for everyone.

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A Is For Angel — Letter A Craft

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This Letter A Craft is the perfect way to help kids begin learning the alphabet. They will have easier time learning their letters and making phonetic connections when provided with activities that are engaging.

Making an angel as a letter A craft is a fun way to introduce the very first alphabet letter. It’s a really simple craft and kids are always very impressed of the end result.

They love working with pipe cleaners and feathers that are being used in this craft.

Supplies needed for our Letter A Craft:

• pipe cleaner
• 2 googly eyes
• 2 feathers
• marker
• construction paper in any color but white
• letter A cut out (white color)
• glue
• scissors

Instructions:

Trace and cut out letter A.

Glue it on the construction paper.

Shape the pipe cleaner to look like angel aureole and glue it on top of the letter.

Glue on the googly eyes and the feathers. They will be angel’s wings.

Use marker to draw angel’s lips.

A is for Angel craft is done!

Watch the short video to see how we made letter A angel.

Sign up for our email series Fun With Letters, full of activities, worksheets and coloring pages.

More Activities to Extend Letter A Learning

• Letter A handwriting sheet
• Letter A printables and worksheets
• Letter A coloring pages

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15 Ways You can have Fun with a Hula Hoop

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Hula hoops are so simple, but it’s often the simple things that make our kids the happiest. Of course, getting your hula hoop on is fun, but don’t stop there. It’s a versatile toy that can provide hours of entertainment with these clever and creative hula hoop activities.

One of the best things to do with a hula hoop is make giant bubbles…and here are some other great activities for kids.

Creative Ways to Play With Hula Hoops

Repurpose an old hula hoop with this creative weaving craft for kids.

A hula hoop hideout is the perfect place for kids to play in the shade on a hot summer day.

Help your toddlers with their gross motor skills. Hopping on two feet from one hula hoop to the next is great practice!

Are your kids learning to tell time? Make a hula hoop clock with a hula hoop, sidewalk chalk and sticks. Smart!

Pair large balloons and hula hoops to make planets for an outer space party.

A rope and a hula hoop can provide hours of fun! Crawl through the hoop, toss a ball through it, swing the hoops back and forth…

Play  hula hoop hopscotch with the kids.

This Venn diagram sorting activity is genius for helping kids learn what things have in common.

Fun Hula Hoop Games

Play hula hoop blockers. Place one kid in each hoop, and give them a bean bag to toss. Players have to block the bean bag from entering the hoop.

Make easy outdoor tunnels for your kids or the pets using hula hoops and tablecloths. Secure the tablecloths with duct tape, and you’re ready to go!

Here’s a fun one for toddlers: a hula hoop ball roundup. Older children can sort balls or other toys by color, size, etc. using multiple hoops.

This rabbit hole game sounds so fun. One person is the fox, and the others are rabbits. When the fox starts his chase, all the rabbits have to make a run for the rabbit hole. Rabbits who don’t make it become foxes, too.

What’s more fun than a hula hoop? Making giant bubbles with one. All you need is a kiddle pool, a hula hoop, water and some dish soap for this super fun activity.

When you have lots of people, try the team-building caterpillar game (video). It’s perfect for camp or reunions!

Make a spider web with a hoola hoop and masking tape. Let the kids toss cotton balls or pom poms at it to see how many will stick!

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How to Help Your Kids with Their Homework Without Doing it Yourself

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This post is in partnership with Sylvan Learning.

There’s a fine line between helping your kids with their homework and doing it for them.  As a busy mom, I get it…

After a long day, the last thing I want to be doing at 7 pm is trying to figure out how to solve a math problem that I haven’t done in decades myself.

And higher level math?

Forget it!

Thankfully, there are things you can do to help your kids with their homework without doing it yourself.

Our friends at Sylvan Learning have inspired this post.  They are an amazing team to have in your corner when it comes to homework time.

Homework Help for Kids

Here are some ways that you can help your kids without struggling through projects and papers with them in the wee hours of the night.

1. Outside Assistance

Moms, dads, grandparents, babysitters, neighbors are all great, but when it comes to getting help for homework, sometimes outside assistance is the best. Sylvan Learning offers kids a chance to get their questions answered, their problems solved, and their homework completed in record time. The best part is that, because it’s someone other than mom and dad explaining how to tackle a problem, kids usually listen and learn without a fuss. The fact that Sylvan makes it fun doesn’t hurt either.  If your child only needs homework help on specific assignments, that’s fine too, because Sylvan has “just-as-needed homework help.” You can schedule sessions just when your child needs it so that he gets the assistance he needs from expert tutors who can make it fun.

2.  Homework Help Line

Some schools offer a homework help line in the evening for students in the district.  Kids can call in or log on to the school’s web portal and get help from a teacher right away.  Your child’s teacher might also have specific times that she’s available for homework help.  Having kids utilize the free services that are available to them is a great way to help them advocate for themselves.  Be sure to check with your child’s teacher and school to see if this is something that they offer.

3.  Be the Assistant

Let your child take the lead and you can simply assist when necessary.  Think of it as a homework sous chef!  What this does is give the child permission to figure things out by himself, but have assistance when needed. It puts him in control of tackling the assignment but also reinforces that he needs to advocate for help when needed. Not only does this take the pressure off of you, it gives him practice with valuable skills that he’ll need throughout his school career.  You might even want to establish a rule that he needs to attempt a problem before turning for help if you sense that there’s more assisting going on than might be necessary.

4. Beat the Clock

Set a timer and try to beat the clock! Don’t let homework be that endless chore that turns minute assignments into hours. By racing against the clock to get homework done quickly (and accurately!), children learn valuable time management skills. You can model this behavior by trying to get your own tasks done during the time your child is working on his assignment. Sometimes friendly competition between mom and the clock can make homework a lot more fun!

Homework time doesn’t have to be the stressful, frustrating experience it is now. There are ways to make sure your child gets what he needs without any sign of homework tears or anger. Sometimes the hardest part about Sylvan Learning is realizing that it might be better to have someone else help him instead. Here’s to stress-free, tear-free homework times for us all!

If you have ever considered outside help, here are 10 Things You May Not Know about Sylvan Learning.

The post How to Help Your Kids with Their Homework Without Doing it Yourself appeared first on Kids Activities Blog.

A Letter Hunt on The Stairs

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Click here to read A Letter Hunt on The Stairs on Hands On As We Grow

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Earlier this year, I realized that Louis just wasn’t grasping his letters.

I had a moment of panic and wondered Why? He’s 4 and his brothers grasped them much earlier.

So I started doing letter activities with him to help him begin to identify them. He knew the letters in his name well, so I started with those and built on them to build his confidence.

This letter hunt on the stairs totally engaged him and he did it several times.

It worked well because I also included numbers for him. Louis is amazing with numbers and gets excited about them. So that’s how I got him excited about the activity.

I chose five letters to begin with and wrote them on sticky notes (affiliate link). I wrote several of each. If there were 3 of one letter, I wrote a little 3 in the corner of the note. If there were 5 of a letter, I wrote a 5 on the corner, and so on. I tried to make every letter have a different number.

I then stuck the sticky notes on the stairs, two or three per step. We did it several times with different amounts, so it doesn’t matter how many you start with.

We also did this hunt on the stairs for sight words

Then I simply asked Louis to find the letters on the stairs.

Can you find 3 B’s?

If he struggled with the letter, he could look in the corner for that number 3.

I constantly asked him to remind me what letter he was looking for as he searched up and down the stairs to reinforce the letter to the shape of it.

Once he found all the sticky notes of one letter, he stacked them into a pile at the top of the stairs.

When he finished the ’round’ we went over the letters again to reinforce them one more time.

Sometimes he started to grasp it, sometimes not.

After getting the hang of it, we started just walking up and down the stairs shouting out the letters as we stomped on them.

If you don’t have stairs — get creative! Trail the letters along a few hallways, up and down a wall, or along the kitchen cabinets.

As for learning his letters. I’m not sure how much our letter activities have to do with it, but a couple of weeks ago I realized that Louis not only knows all his letters (both upper and lowercase, with the exception of W that he always gets stuck on), he also knows his letter sounds. I was amazed how it all clicked for him so fast.

I honestly don’t think our letter activities have a lot to do with it. He was just ready to learn now and that’s when he soaked it up. But the letter activities can’t hurt!

How can you use a “hunt” game to help your child learn?

How to Mom When You Have No More Mom Left

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It’s very cliché to say, but being a mom is HARD. Really hard. Yes, there are times that are amazing, you’re rocking it as a mom and you’re loving it all. But with all of the positives come many challenges: whining, crying, spills, injuries, fights, tantrums, hitting, not sharing, arguing, manipulating, not sleeping and more.

Moms have such a difficult task in trying to navigate all of this along with managing the logistics of the family, driving kids places, being responsible for feeding, bathing, AND keeping kids safe, healthy and loved (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg).

Oh, and there may be a significant other involved so we should probably give that relationship some attention. And mom might actually have a job on top of all of this—it’s no wonder we’re exhausted sometimes and feel like we have no more left to give.

What can you do when you feel you have nothing left?

1. You need to take care of yourself. We cannot take care of others if we’re not taking care of ourselves. It seems obvious and also is so hard to do. If you ignore yourself and your needs for a short amount of time you’ll probably be okay but if you constantly push yourself to the to the back-burner, well, you’ll end up burnt out. Stop doing that! Take the time (even 15 minutes) to take care of yourself.
2. Cut yourself some slack. Many moms end up with nothing left to give because we give so much all the time. If you’ve reached a point of what feels like no return, it’s time to let up somewhere. For example, you don’t have to make dinner tonight—order pizza (or if it’s not in the budget, throw cold cuts, cheese, bread, and fruit on the table and tell everyone to help themselves). The laundry doesn’t need to be folded; it’s clean, throw it in a drawer. Better yet, let your kids do it. Find ways to let yourself off the hook and don’t feel bad about it. Remember that this is actually good for you.
3. Manage that inner critic. I don’t know about you, but when I feel like I have nothing left to give, I also have my inner critic telling me that I should be better, that I’m not doing good enough and that I should be strong enough to keep going. You know what? Tell that inner critic to shut it. Seriously. You need that inner voice to be an ally, not an enemy.
4. Create joy. One of the best ways to fill yourself back up is to enjoy what you’re doing. You may know that life should be fun, but we need to get past our heads and into our hearts on this one. You need to really feel the joy, experiencing it whole-heartedly. Joy can be created in so many ways so find what works best for you. Depending on you and your needs, creating joy may or may not include your kids. If you need a break from them, don’t feel bad—you will be in a better place after you take a much-needed break.

For some reason, moms tend to put everyone else first—this is probably part of what makes us so great at what we do—but it can also lead to burn-out. If you have nothing left to give, chances are the rest of the family and those around you are feeling the effects. So, rather than continuing to feel like you have no more “mom” left in you, find ways to recharge and get back to feeling like yourself.

What do you do when you have no more “mom” left?

This post originally appeared on RealityMoms. It has been reprinted with permission.

Sara Robinson, MA is the founder of Get Mom Balanced. Growing up she always knew that a traditional 9-5 job would not work out for her: she likes variety, creativity, free-time and also wanted to fit in a family. She is a mom of two young boys, teaches mental skills to athletes, and now helps support moms finding balance with all that they juggle. When she’s not sitting behind a computer she can be found hanging out with her boys, mostly laughing, reading and having dance parties.

The post How to Mom When You Have No More Mom Left appeared first on Kids Activities Blog.

A Letter Hunt on The Stairs

Hands On As We Grow http://ift.tt/2r1GlRO

Click here to read A Letter Hunt on The Stairs on Hands On As We Grow

---

Earlier this year, I realized that Louis just wasn’t grasping his letters.

I had a moment of panic and wondered Why? He’s 4 and his brothers grasped them much earlier.

So I started doing letter activities with him to help him begin to identify them. He knew the letters in his name well, so I started with those and built on them to build his confidence.

This letter hunt on the stairs totally engaged him and he did it several times.

It worked well because I also included numbers for him. Louis is amazing with numbers and gets excited about them. So that’s how I got him excited about the activity.

I chose five letters to begin with and wrote them on sticky notes (affiliate link). I wrote several of each. If there were 3 of one letter, I wrote a little 3 in the corner of the note. If there were 5 of a letter, I wrote a 5 on the corner, and so on. I tried to make every letter have a different number.

I then stuck the sticky notes on the stairs, two or three per step. We did it several times with different amounts, so it doesn’t matter how many you start with.

We also did this hunt on the stairs for sight words

Then I simply asked Louis to find the letters on the stairs.

Can you find 3 B’s?

If he struggled with the letter, he could look in the corner for that number 3.

I constantly asked him to remind me what letter he was looking for as he searched up and down the stairs to reinforce the letter to the shape of it.

Once he found all the sticky notes of one letter, he stacked them into a pile at the top of the stairs.

When he finished the ’round’ we went over the letters again to reinforce them one more time.

Sometimes he started to grasp it, sometimes not.

After getting the hang of it, we started just walking up and down the stairs shouting out the letters as we stomped on them.

If you don’t have stairs — get creative! Trail the letters along a few hallways, up and down a wall, or along the kitchen cabinets.

As for learning his letters. I’m not sure how much our letter activities have to do with it, but a couple of weeks ago I realized that Louis not only knows all his letters (both upper and lowercase, with the exception of W that he always gets stuck on), he also knows his letter sounds. I was amazed how it all clicked for him so fast.

I honestly don’t think our letter activities have a lot to do with it. He was just ready to learn now and that’s when he soaked it up. But the letter activities can’t hurt!

How can you use a “hunt” game to help your child learn?