Author: Jess

Categories
Homeschool

Our Top 10 Favorite {Kid Friendly} Board & Card Games

Looking for simple board or card games to play with your kids? Check out this list of our 10 favorites!

We are not nearly the intense gaming family I once envisioned. Growing up holidays were spent with cousins playing game after game while munching on ridiculously yummy food. Sam grew up pouring concrete on holidays (or some other such work project) and thought holidays playing games were a trifle…boring. As a family, we’ve settled somewhere nicely balanced in between.

A good portion of our cupboard space in the Airstream is filled with card and board games – many of them intentionally purchased for homeschooling purposes. In no particular order here are our current favorites:

Ages of Kids: Rachel (8), Andrew (6), Cara (3.5)

Robot Turtles: We already blogged about this one and it definitely makes our list. Teach kids the basics of programming while they navigate their turtles through a maze to find their jewel. All 3 of our kids love this one and can play simultaneously at different levels (although that requires some seriously thinking on Sam’s part to set up the maze).

Sleeping Queens: We pretty much love any game by Gamewright. They do such a great job. Use a King to wake up a Queen, a Knight to steal one, or a sleeping potion to put an opponent’s Queen back to sleep. Easy to play, and the older 2 love it. Cara usually plays on a team.

Mermaid Beach: Cara has started playing her own cards on this one recently. A mix between Go Fish, Old Maid, and something else entirely. Super fun, quick, and easy to play.

Yahtzee Jr Toy Story: With a Buzz Lightyear lover, how could we not own this game? I love that its super easy to play – you just roll the dice and try to collect 5 of a specific character. It also plays fast. Cara can play this one by herself as long as I prod her to choose someone other than Buzz every turn.

Sequence Letters: This game was really great for Andrew about a year ago when he was learning his letters and sounds. Now its easier for him to play, but both Rachel & Andrew still love it. Too advanced for Cara to play on her own, but now that she’s learning her letters it won’t be long.

Spot It Jr Animals: This game is sweeping the nation. We were introduced by friends in Philadelphia, and given the game from Aunt Chelsea in Utah, while we had Christmas in Texas. Follow that? We bought the Jr. version thinking it would be a little easier for Cara. She normally doesn’t play, but I think we could start her pretty soon.

Tell Tale, Fairy Tales: Created by the same people as Spot It! this is a similar round card design. We play the version where each person adds a card to the collective story, that way all 3 kids can play. Great for writing practice!

The Scrambled States of America Game: Bought this one for Geography. Each player has a pile of states and has to find one that is “East of Missouri” or “Starts with the letter A, B, or C” or “Has a Capital with 7 Letters”. The person with the most states at the end wins.

Rush Hour Jr: Homeschool purchase designed to make my kids think. You have to navigate the ice cream truck out of the maze.

Qwirkle: We throw out the figurative scoring pad on this one and just play to see how many Qwirkles we can get. We help each other find the best places to put tiles and don’t keep score. Cara even enjoys pulling new tiles out and helping me match the colors and shapes.

ARGH!: I just HAD to add this one in. I LOVE this game. Its fast, fairly brainless, and super cute. More of a “I can’t stop drawing for jewels” and then “Crap! I just lost all my jewels to the pirate” kind of fun. Great for entertaining my kids while we wait at the laundromat. All 3 kids play this one.

Here are two bonus games played mostly by Sam & I:

Tantrix: We bought this game almost 10 years ago in New Zealand, and its actually a game we will play with the two of us. Create the longest line to win the game. Loops earn double points.

Monopoly Deal: I HATE the real version of Monopoly. This one I’ll play anytime, anywhere. Super fast, fun to play, and sometimes there’s just nothing you can do to win. (I just looked this up on Amazon and its been discontinued. 🙁 Apparently we’d better not lose it).


Categories
Tips & Tricks

5 Tips for Entertaining Kids on Road Trips

Tips for Entertaining Young Kids in the Car

With all of our cross country traveling, we do spend more time driving than the average person (and more money on gas) but its actually less than most people think. Our goal isn’t to travel as fast a possible across the 50 states. You can’t see anything that way. We love to take it slow and often we will only move 150-300 miles per week. That’s it. Anymore than 3 hours in the truck and we all start to go a little stir crazy. In fact, we often will drive only 1-2 hours to our next destination. A 4, 5, or even 6 hour day is rare and only if we are out in the middle of nowhere and there simply is no place to stop. That said, we have developed a sort of a system to help keep everyone happy and so far, it works great.

Here are our 5 tips for helping to entertain young children while driving in the car:

1. Take it as Slow as Possible. I realize that a typical family wants to usually get to their destination. They have limited vacation time, and don’t want to spend it driving wherever it is they are going. Just get there and THEN enjoy yourself. However, the journey can be just as fun.  Plan your  budget to take two days driving instead of just one and get a hotel with a pool. Find a National Park, a Historical Marker, or something else of interest along your route. Excellent tools for this include RoadTrippers and Google Field Trip. It helps break up the monotony of being in the car all day long. You need to stop for bathrooms and gas anyway, so take an extra 30 minutes and pair your stop with something interesting to look at. Everyone will get back in the car feeling refreshed.

2. Have Lunch at a Park.  A lot of our driving happens between 10am – 1pm, especially on days when we do have to drive a bit longer than we’d like. We always find a public park to stop at for lunch and the kids love it. They get to run around and play while I’m fixing lunch, we eat, play just a little bit longer and then jump in the car and go. You could also grab a Little Caeser’s Pizza and have a picnic in the grass on a blanket. The easiest way to find a local park is to pull up Google Maps on your smart phone, scan ahead to whatever city you’ll be in and look for green spaces on the map. You can also do a Google search for “public park” but I feel like scanning does the job quite nicely.

3. Don’t jump to Electronics. We don’t let our kids watch movies or play tablets the moment they get in the car. Most days they have to play with toys, read (they don’t really get car sick), color, or just look out the window for a good hour before we turn the electronics on. Too much staring at a screen makes everyone cranky. When kids are bored it is amazing what their little brains can come up with to entertain themselves. Even Cara (3.5 years old) will happily play with her planes and cars for a good hour all by herself. Get her siblings involved and sometimes we can stretch that even longer. Don’t automatically assume that your kids have to be watching a movie or playing Plants vs. Zombies to not whine. They also only get to watch ONE movie, or have an allotted time (an hour) playing games. Then they get turned back off and its back to playing.

4. Listen to Audio Books. We listen to audio books ONLY in the car. Best. Decision. Ever. If we don’t drive anywhere significant for 4 or 5 days, the kids will BEG to get in the car and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just so they can listen. Rachel and Andrew LOVE them. I think Cara tolerates them. She’s gotten really good at playing quietly while we are listening since otherwise everyone is “shhhshing” her so we can hear. Our favorites so far are the Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and the Enchanted Forest Series. Most of them I’ve been able to borrow and download through our library’s Overdrive system, but we are willing to purchase them as well since our kids love them so much. With some of the Percy Jackson books, Amazon will discount the purchase of the audio book (through Audible) with the purchase of the Kindle Version. The trick is to find the well narrated ones. We tried a few others (Charlotte’s Web, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) but the rendering wasn’t as compelling and the kids quickly lost interest. Other series on our list are Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus, The Red Pyramid Series, and Peter and the Starcatchers (read by Jim Dale who also narrates Harry Potter). We’ve also heard the audio versions of the Ranger’s Apprentice are really fun as well.

5. Warn them about timing. We’ve found that we can minimize the whining when we warn the kids in advance, particularly when listening to an audio book or playing with electronics. We warn them about 15 minutes or so before it is time to be done. We also warn them when it’s going to be a longer drive that day, a bit before bathroom stops, or when we are going to stop to see something interesting. Having a warning and a preview seems to help them enjoy the stops better, and everybody is happier.

We don’t drive long periods at at time, but overall we do spend quite a bit of time in the car. How do you handle road trips with your kids? Any tips for us?

Categories
This Week on Instagram

This Week on Instagram

This Week on Instagram Feb 8-14 Whew! 5 days at Disneyland. It was amazingly fun, but by the end we were all exhausted. Lots of Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse, Cars Land, and yummy food!!

 

Categories
Airstream Meetups

Airstream Meet Up: Scott Jarvie

An Airstream Meet Up with Scott Jarvie

Scott Jarvie is an amazing photographer and friend from back in Utah. We first met him at a Utah Photographers Meet-Up in Salt Lake City, and have interacted in various ways over the years. He primarily is a wedding photographer, travels a lot, and recently ran a successful project on Kickstarter called “Faith In America“. His idea is to travel to all 50 states photographing religious buildings for ALL religions. Popular ones, out of the way ones, small ones, big ones, you name it.

THE NEED FOR FAITH IN AMERICA
It’s about uniting people of all faiths together. They all have faith, they all believe in something and we can celebrate that.I will do this by focusing on the major symbols of Faith… the religious buildings. The buildings that bring all these communities together and were a vital part of American History. -Scott Jarvie 

By the end of Jarvie’s Kickstarter funding period, we were in Virginia, working out the specifics of buying and living in an Airstream. Suddenly we noticed that Jarvie had a similar idea. He bought a 19′ Bambi trailer, gutted it, and re-did the inside to fit his needs. He has a huge desk with two monitors for editing (totally jealous) as well as a lot of Goal Zero battery and solar polar (also jealous). We watched him work on his trailer and get ready for travel, and then tear across the country headed for fall in New England.

He ended up in Virginia just about the time we left (November 2013), and we met up near Williamsburg for a morning to hang out, chat, see each others’ Airstreams and enjoy some local BBQ for lunch. It was great to see him and hear updates on his project. We knew we would travel much faster than he would, so it was our only chance to meet-up.

Its been fun to see where his journey takes him, as well as the amazing photos he takes along the way. Recently, he even went to church with THE Robertsons from Duck Dynasty!

The end goal of his journey is to produce two books: one of religious buildings of all faiths, and one specifically of LDS Temples. You can still pre-purchase these and help fund his journey HERE. Books are due out by the end of the year as he plans to wrap up his journey November 2014.

You can also follow him on Instagram, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, or his Blog.

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Categories
Featured Destination Washington DC

Our Top 14 Things To Do in Washington DC With Young Kids

We spent 3 months in the DC area and saw A LOT, but what if you don’t have the luxury of seeing only one thing every day or every week? What should you take your kids to see? What should you skip? Glad you asked. Here’s a list of our favorites (and not so favorites):

1. National Mall Monuments & Marine Corp Monument: These are an obvious must. I wrote a blog post awhile back on how we toured the National Mall on bikes with our kids. It would work walking too, it’d just take a little longer. The Marine Corp Monument is farther away, but there’s a free parking lot there so its a quick in and out. Its a lot bigger than we expected.

Korean War Veterans Memorial

2. Natural History Museum: Our first experience with the Natural History Museum didn’t go so well. There were tons of people, we weren’t sure what we wanted to see, and consequently it was a mess. Luckily, we gave it a second chance and we really enjoyed it. My recommendations? See the Live Bugs, but skip the butterflies (they cost extra anyway). Learn how the mummification process works on an interactive screen (what kid doesn’t love that?) Stroll the Bones exhibit and show your kids different animal skeletons such as a turtle, snake, fish, and a even a kiwi. We also explored the Gems & Minerals and I sent the kids on a color hunt. “Find a big one that is blue” or “find a small one that is orange”.  Definitely pack a lunch as the cafeteria downstairs is expensive and not that great.

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3. Star Spangled Banner: This one is in the American History Museum (next door to the Natural History Museum). We spent about two hours in the museum but my kids honestly didn’t love it. Go see the Star Spangled Banner (especially if you’ve ever been to Fort McHenry) and maybe the 1st Lady Dresses and move on. They do have a nice cafeteria downstairs and didn’t mind that we brought our own lunch. One of the workers even pointed us to a bench where we could view the Washington Monument while we ate.

4. Mt Vernon: This could be a full day or a couple of hours depending on your kids. We spent about 6 hours there on one of their Homeschooling Days which I wrote about here.  Definitely pick up an Adventure Map at the front desk. The kids have to hunt for clues in the outbuildings and all over the grounds in order to find out the secret code.

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5. Gravelly Point & Jefferson Memorial: If your kids like aviation at all, take them to see the planes take off or land (depending on the wind direction) at Reagan International Airport. From there, the Jefferson Memorial is only a short bike ride or walk away. For more details, check out our blog post here.

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6. Arlington Cemetery: This was a quick visit. I honestly would’ve spent hours wandering among the rows of graves if I thought the kids would have stood for it. As it was, the day was cold. We climbed the hill to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, watched the Changing of the Guard, and then left. We also witnessed a few wreath presentation ceremonies which was fun but also took forever.

Arlington Cemetery

7. Jones Point Park: One of my favorites. A nice, quiet space amid the bustle of Alexandria, Virginia. See our full blog post here.

Jones Point National Park Washington DC

8. Spy Museum: Definitely for older kids, UNLESS its an event night. We went during their Spooky Spy Night Halloween Event and it was fabulous! The kids had to look for dressed up spies wandering around the exhibits. They had also set up a room with treats (food is not allowed in the rest of the museum), games, and fake mustaches to disguise yourself. The majority of the museum involves reading exhibits and is not very hands on. On a regular day, I think my kids would’ve been bored.

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9. United States Capitol: Arrange a tour with your State Senator prior to visiting to get a private tour. I enjoyed seeing the Capitol and it was fun for the kids as well. See our full blog post here.

US Capitol Rotunda

10. National Archives: A must-see AFTER you watch National Treasure with your kids. We also spent a little time in the Public Vaults which I found fascinating and there was enough to keep the kids occupied for about 30 minutes. No photography in the Rotunda, so unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the Declaration of Independence.

11. Visit the National Zoo: It is, in fact, a zoo. This doesn’t make it unique to the DC area, so if you are going to skip something this would probably be my choice. Its also very hilly so my kids tired out pretty quick. They have fun exhibits (and the Giant Panda is famous) but nothing overly extraordinary.

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12. Touch a Piece of the Moon: The National Air & Space Museum wasn’t particularly riveting. Just inside the entryway there is a piece of the moon embedded in an obelisk which the kids enjoyed. There is also a few airplanes they can go inside, and an exhibit with levers and pulleys to learn how things fly. We didn’t find much else, however, and didn’t spend a great deal of time here.

13. Visit the White House: When we were there tours of the White House were cancelled, but we did walk by to see it. On two different occasions we visited both the north and south sides, even taking the subway from the Capitol building to add excitement and cut down on the walking. If you have to pick one, visit the south side as I found it more picturesque than the north (pictured below).

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14. Earn a Junior Ranger Badge: There’s actually 3 your kids can earn. The National Mall, the White House, and President’s Park. In order to earn the White House Badge, you have to actually go on the tour (so we didn’t get that one). The National Mall badge is being redone, so we were able to earn a special Martin Luther King Jr. March on Washington Badge. President’s Park is the area around the White House (including the National Christmas Tree) and this one was probably one of my favorites.

President's Park Junior Ranger BadgeWhew. That should keep you busy for a week! Of course there are plenty of other things to do while you are in the area (not to mention the surrounding area – check out Great Falls National Park). Other things we didn’t get to but heard were fun:  The Bureau of Engraving & Printing, The Library of Congress (also National Treasure Inspired), The Building Museum, Ford Theater & White House Tour.

Have you been to Washington DC? What was your favorite part?