Here is the weekend round up in case you missed a post this week. On Monday Moxie we heard all about the Nanny Day that Twin City Professional Nannies had.
Tuesday Tips Mallette shared some craft and gift ideas for the upcoming holiday season.
Wednesdays Creative Nanny Glenda shared a great recipe for Thanksgiving Blessings Mix that you can share with your friends and neighbors.
Thursday Table Talk Alice interviewed Kat, a professional nanny and certified Car Seat Technician.
Coming up next week on Regarding Nannies: Patty from Nanny Mall gives us some ideas on what we can do while we wait for the perfect job and Alice will tell us how to get a preview of the Black Friday Sales!
Mallette Perry is a professional nanny in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota as well as the President of Twin Cities Professional Nannies (TCPN)I have known her for years and she has some of the greatest ideas for holiday gifts for her charges and parents.Today she shares some with us.
Many of these activities can use items you have on hand at home or from the local craft store. If you have a Michaels or AC Moore Craft Store near you, make sure you are signed up for their email lists. They will email you the coupons weekly along with the ads. You can use the AC Moore coupons at Michaels and vice versa. Be sure to sign up today so you can save more money while making holiday crafts.
Some of these projects take time to dry, there fore you will want to work on them during the month of November and early December so that you and your charges are not rushing.
For Kids or Adults:
Snowman Sweatshirts/T-Shirts
What you need:
T-shirt/Sweatshirt (light blue works great)
White fabric paint
Fabric pens
Snow flake stamp or use fingers if you don’t have one
cardboard or wax paper
What to do: 1. Put some white paint in a dish pan
2. Put a piece of cardboard or wax paper between the shirt to keep the paint from leaking through to the back of the shirt.
3. The child puts their foot in the paint. May need to paint if not all covered or if the child is younger.
4. Then with their toes pointing down put on the sweat shirt. This makes the snowman’s body.
5.Put the snowflake stamp in the white paint and stamp away. If you don’t have the stamp the kids can use their fingertips to make the snowflakes.
6.Once dry decorate the t-shirt with the markers. You can personalize your Snowman.
Reindeer Shirts
(2 hands as antlers and the foot as the body)
What you need:
Sweatshirt/T-Shirt (I used a light green)
Brown paint
Fabric pens
What to do: 1. Paint the foot and then with toes down put on the sweatshirt
2. Paint both hands for antlers and put them on the sweatshirt
3. Once dried decorate the reindeer.
Gift Ideas for Parents, Grandparents & Teachers:
Glass Plate (great wall hanging item)
What you need:
Mod Podge/sponge brush/paint brush
Glass plate
Paint -acrylic works
Porcelaine 150 Marker (marker used to write on glass/porcelain –found at craft stores)
What to do:
Paint the child's hand make a handprint on the back side of the glass paint.
2. You can write the Child’s name or whatever you want on the plate and the year on the back of the plate as well. This can be tricky as you have to write it backwards. So when it is turned over it is read the right way. Practice on a piece of paper first.
3.Once dry, take tissue paper and put it on the back side of the plate. You can make a mosaic with it with torn pieces or cut squares or just use one color, your choice.
4. Then you will paint Mod Podge over the entire back of the plate to cover the tissue paper. This holds it down.
This was a big hit and right away it was put up in the hallway.
Vase:
Same as above but use a vase instead of a plate.
Picture Frames:
What you need:
Wooden frames
Paint
Glue
Buttons, wooden letters, stickers beads etc whatever you have around or decide to buy
What to do:
1. Have kids paint frames
2 Have kids decorate the frames with the various items.
3. Then to fill in some of the spaces you can put words about the mom on there.
Puzzle Picture Frame
What you need: Picture frame
puzzle pieces (dollar store, or use one from home that has missing pieces)
Glue
What to do:
1. Have the child glue puzzle pieces onto the picture frame.
The Twin Cities Professional Nannies (TCPN) is a nanny support group serving the Minneapolis and St. Paul metro area.Part of TCPN’s mission is to provide ongoing professional development for local nannies, families and community members.For the past eight years TCPN has put on an annual conference day in conjunction with the organization’s annual meeting.With this year’s theme – Come Play with Us – participants enjoyed the playful side of our careers.
Carrie Stolar presented Getting Kids Healthy and Back Outdoors.Carrie shared the most recent facts on children’s health and gave us ideas of fun things to do with kids outdoors! Ms. Stolar serves as Senior Brand Manager of the Säjai® Foundation. She graduated from VanderbiltUniversity, and earned her MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at NorthwesternUniversity. Carrie’s responsibilities at the Säjai Foundation include product development and brand management.She introduced us to a child friendly program that is being launched with children from six to twelve, and also gave us great hands-on practical ideas to get children – and ourselves – outdoors and active.We all took home a handout full of new and rejuvenating ideas to use immediately.
Paulette Pelletier presented Fun & Healthy Snacks. Paulette shared ideas and recipes to liven up snack time.We all shared our experiences with snack time challenges and the incorporation of all ages at snack. Paulette came to us with 20 years experience and has an Early Childhood background.She presents workshops for those working in the child care field and has been a Toddler Head Teacher and Child Care Center Director. Paulette currently is the Conference Coordinator and Field Representative for Providers Choice-sponsor of the Child and Adult Food Program.Not only did we have a chance to share our experiences of success or challenge with snacks and mealtime, but we also had the opportunity to explore other options that the children in our care could benefit from right away.
Paulette graciously agreed to fill our third speaker slot since she had become ill.Her vast experience working with child care providers made it easy for her to shift gears and bring us Homemade Games.This presentation fit into our theme like a glove.Paulette demonstrated easy to create games, crafts and activities for all ages.She generously shared her supplies and ideas allowing conference attendees to actively participate in a make-n-take session.Although a last minute addition to the conference schedule, Paulette’s Homemade Game session turned out to be a participant favorite.
TCPN Founder and current President, Mallette Parry had these sentiments to share:
On October 10th of 2009 TCPN had it 8th annual conference. I am happy to say I did a much better job leading this year than the very first one we had 2000. I know and I can speak for many when I say that we had a wonderful time this year. We used the theme "Come Play with Us". The speakers were centered on this theme. There were three speakers planned for the day. The first talked to us about the importance of outdoor play, the next one talked about Healthy Snacks and Homemade Games. Our second speaker stayed because our 3rd speaker became ill the morning of the conference. From what I heard she was a favorite to many. We had just over 20 nannies attend the conference. As a current board member I was very happy. We had several new nannies attend the conference for the first time. I look forward to seeing them at future events and the conference next year.
One of my favorite parts of the conference was the centerpieces. Shellie, our conference chair brought in children’s toys which included: a child's tea set and battleship. And I brought in a bead toy.
We had a wonderful conference committee. The board and the committee worked very hard to make it a huge success again this year. The day was very rewarding and I came away with the reminder of the value of being outside, great snack ideas and some wonderful homemade games. I also want to extend my thanks to all who donated for door prizes this year. A special thanks to Regarding Nannies for their donations. Over all, I have to say we were very pleased with the whole day.
Other attendees made these comments:
"I loved coming away with so many ideas" "All of it was great!" "A really good conference, they keep getting better."
TCPN is fortunate to have a group of nannies who care enough to volunteer their time and talents to bring an annual conference of this caliber to local nannies.Hours of work and planning went into it and another great conference was the reward.
Regarding Nannies is the creation of three professional nannies with the goal of bringing together a variety of professional nanny related blogs that will project a professional image of the nanny industry and serve as an information source for all nanny/child related topics.
The goal of Regarding Nannies is to bring together a variety of professional nanny related blogs and resources that will assist in projecting a professional image of the nanny industry. As well as serving as an information source for all nanny/child related topics and resources to nannies regardless of where they are on the career ladder.
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