Fiber Fool

Well, I really know when to sign up for something new - when it is hardest, LOL!

We do not have children. My nephews were old enough when I came on the scene and live three hours away so I’m not much of an aunt figure to them I’m afraid. My last regular babysitting gig just graduated high school a couple of weeks ago and my second to last regular babysitting gig married this last October (funnily to a man who was an incoming freshman in my department in college when I was a junior). So I’ll try my best to imagine myself 17 years ago when I babysat every weekday in the summers.

1. Games! Boardgames, card games and outdoor games like Greenlight, Redlight, Hopscotch or Simon Says, it doesn’t much matter. Though a certain set of neighbor children I’m sure recall our week-long Monopoly games :-) My mom even taught me to turn everyday tasks like picking up toys into games and it works quite well!
2. Arts and Crafts! It could be as simple as coloring, but making pipe cleaner or play dough statues or even a banner for a countdown to the new year (which we accidently pulled down during a commercial rather than the real countdown - oops, thank goodness for tape). Sometimes the messier the better :-)
3. Books! I was even known to carry a kit with me that contained special books that were new to the kids to make my visit more special.
4. Cook and Bake! It is always fun (if a little messy) to stir up some cookie dough or knead some bread with kids. Since cooking and baking are applied science it can be a great opportunity to teach too.

5. Physical Exercise! Sometimes there is nothing better than to get them out into the fresh air and running around. In the summer sprinklers were a huge favorite! In addition to bringing some rosiness to their cheeks, sometimes it wears them out enough for a nap, giving you two activities for the price of one :-D
6. Peek-a-boo! For the little ones sometimes simple is best. Just two years ago I babysat a young toddler and we played peek-a-boo with a blanke for 45 minutes. Now, I wouldn’t normally have chosen to keep it up for that long, but it kept him happy and infectiously giggling so it was little sacrifice to keep going while it was working.
7. Mad-Libs! So, I love activities with kids that promote learning. Mad-Libs are a fantastic way to learn about the parts of language and it often results in large peals of laughter. This was a favorite before bedtime activity for several of the kids I babysat. As they got a bit older we even wrote some of our own. To this day, there are a few phrases originating for Mad-Libs that we still share a chuckle over.
8. Make Believe! Often there is little more stimulating that building a rich make believe world. On one of my summer gigs we built a whole city and creating that city involved many of the above tasks, including crafting with string and glue to create a stamp to cancel postage and baking cookie to sell in the town bakery. I swear we spent the vast majority of the summer in that “town.”
9. Field Trip! Sometimes a change of scenery is all that is required. Going to a new and different park can often be simple enough. But museums, libraries, public pools and zoos are especially great. In the summer free concerts in a park were a favorite.
10 Wiggle Your Ears! This last one is thanks to my uncle Sherm who has been known to quiet a unhappy child behind him in church by wiggling his ears. I don’t possess that ability, but it is magic I tell you! Even on children older than you would expect.