New Chapter- resources, ideas and information for family and kids - New Chapter... children & family ministry

New Chapter... children & family ministry

Recording baby memories and milestones

12/3/2013

Sweet photos! And it's wonderful to record those precious moments and share with friends and family.

But... when you're exhausted and suffering sleep deprivation, it's difficult to maintain the photos and notes about baby's early development. And it's even more difficult for subsequent children.

So, check out these suggestions:
Story of you is a free ipad app that makes it easy to upload your photos and add the details to create a unique story of your little one that can be shared and printed. The site includes a step by step demo, here, but really it seems very simple, just create, view, share and print. There are multiple design templates to choose from if desired and simple fill-it-in areas for noting special details or to journal milestones and special moments.

But if you'd rather a hands-on version but something can be created in less time than it takes to talk about it, check out My First Year Cards.

These cards are simple and easy to fill out and are a great way to record baby's first year. They come as a set of 5 for $20 from Strange Birdy Studios. The site states: 'We like to think of it as a uniquely fun “annual report.” No boring numbers or obscure data to decipher – just a great looking, interactive way to record the most important milestones of a baby’s first year.'

Ready for Back to School

28/1/2013

Children often start back at school with mixed feelings- the excitement of seeing and playing with their friends, the worry of handling the school work and the concerns of teacher expectations.

Parents dread the early morning rush to get ready, to organise lunches and the afternoon battles with homework. Now, you can be super-organised with a Back-to-School Checklist. Find it here from iMom.

Avoid the 'night before' panic to complete an overlooked assessment due. Download and print a homework calendar for each child with Disney characters from Family.com Fill in the school subjects and enter the projects and assignments due dates. see here

Kids grow too fast and you need to take a moment to save a memory. Take photos of these special days. Print off these freebies from HowDoesShe.com to create a first day of school memories. see here You could also download the Back-to-School photo checklist from simpleasthatblog.com. It provides some great photo ideas that won't take forever to set up... wonderful for creating unique photo memories.

Now.. what about school lunches? Well, kids will really look forward to lunchtime if they have some edible crayons in their packs. They are uper easy to prepare and the kids can help. You can find the directions at gourmetmomonthego.com. The instructions use pretzel sticks but I found Arnotts Fun Sticks worked best. Just dip each end into coloured choc melts and wrap a printed label around each.. done!

Kids really enjoy stickers, notes or labels in their lunch boxes. You can find plenty of ideas for this. Tinyme.com.au have some great Australian animal cake toppers or labels that work well for any Australian theme.

If you want to encourage your kids to eat their fruit and brighten their day, add some tags from AlphaMom.. You are 'pear'-fect! You're the apple of my eye! and more.

Or, try some colourful Muppet lunch labels from spoonful.com to print off and include to really make lunch time fun at school.

Some of these suggestions will add real colour and excitement to your kids' day and you will enjoy it, too.

Helpful family planners and calendars

16/1/2013

Whether we want them or not, the New Year will bring new challenges; whether we seize them or not, the New Year will bring new opportunities. ~Michael Josephson,

The new year's calendars line the shelves and many have set new resolutions to become more organised. Organisation is not something relegated to business and office work but is really helpful for families, too, enabling families to do more than survive the deluge of family and school commitments, schedules and events, but instead to thrive. Help is at hand! There are some handy resources that you might like to consider to help you take control of your daily and weekly tasks and schedules... and some of these are listed below.

The Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner is a terrific printable that enables you to take control of your home tasks as easy, manageable lists of to-dos. Purchase and download this planner for $9 or $14 for the extra planning forms. Plus, there is the choice to download it with a daily Bible reading.
See here...

If you prefer to work with an iPhone or iPad app, take a look at HomeRoutines. This helpful little app has been designed to 'help you manage the repetitive jobs that are part of all our lives, particularly the ones related to housework. HomeRoutines is the app to wrangle those recurring tasks, and keep them from cluttering up your email, your calendar, or your big to do list.' This is a great app and can be customised to include all your regular and recurring tasks easily and without drama. Check it out here...

The Cozi calendar and app is another helpful calendar and planner and we reviewed it in a previous post. See here...

Digital resources and apps for Christmas

18/12/2012

With less than a week before Christmas, almost every email I've received today has started with the words, 'It's not too late to order for Christmas!' But if you have downloaded the Christmas badge Countdown app, you will know exactly how many days, hours, minutes and seconds before Christmas.

Hopefully, all your gifts have been bought and wrapped and your Christmas cards signed and sent to friends and family. If you have missed someone, it's not too late to send them Christmas greetings. Dayspring cards have a wonderful selection of animated Christmas cards that you can email or schedule to be sent at a particular date and time.

Take a moment or two to sign up for a Christmas or Advent reading plan from YouVersion. You can even track the number and location of those reading the Christmas story across the world with the YouVersion Christmas Story tracker.. here.

Read the story of the Nativity to your family with the Very First Christmas story app ... see here
A Charlie Brown Christmas is an interactive storybook classic that highlights the real meaning of Christmas.

For some Christmas fun with the family, check out some of these apps:
* Hidden Objects- Christmas update with 50 levels
* Christmas Tree Maker pro- create the perfect Christmas tree
* Christmas maze game- 3D Christmas race experience
* Magic Puzzles Christmas- easy to operate with 4 levels of difficulty
* Player Piano Plus- the sheet music shows the notes to play as the piano lights up. Play along with a full accompaniment.

5 different styles of advent calendar apps

4/12/2012

If you've left it to the last minute to look for an advent calendar for this year, then perhaps you should consider one of advent calendar apps available.

With attractive illustrations, Bible verses to read and festive music, the free app Bethlehem the Beginning Advent Calendar is a great way to celebrate the approaching holiday season with your children.

You might also like to check out the previous post with links to creatable advent calendars here...

The Advent Calendar app includes digital chocolates each day plus Christmas traditions from around the world, facts, fun, music, great graphics and falling snow.. a different approach to the countdown for Christmas and remember Christ's birth. Check it out here...

For something a little different, check out the Jacqui Lawson Advent Calendar-Village, with animated sketches or stories for each day. These daily creative animations include classical music and carols.There is also a London version but it is a larger version- 87MB.

The Advent Calendar 2012 by Keitai srl includes Christmas pictures for children to colour and share through Facebook, Twitter or email.
Find it here..

Christmas Story- Reason for the Season app includes the biblical account of story of Jesus' birth.

Top 10 creative advent calendar ideas

28/11/2012

At the moment, commercially produced advent calendars are prominent on the shelves in all the stores. But this special festive celebration is so commercial and mass-produced, and I was really looking for something that was a little different, more creative- a home-style advent calendar. Once I started looking, I found so many great ideas that I found it hard to choose which ideas had the greatest impact and appeal. Check out the following selection and see what you think. Click on each image for the link to the source and instructions with printables, where possible. Please let me know if you've come across any other great ideas that should be included.

Healthy vegetable fun with VegieTales apps

14/11/2012

If you regularly find yourself singing the VeggieTales theme song in the produce aisle, or even if you’ve never heard of VeggieTales, you and your kids will enjoy the VeggieTales Spotisode Collection app. This free app features high-quality colour animations with clips from VegieTales movies, Silly Songs and gameplay. Through object recognition games kids develop valuable skills and learn life’s important lessons while having fun . Find it here..

The people from VeggieTales have also produced a digital interactive book, 'The Surprising Knight- a lesson in loving others'. This app is also available.. see here.

But they have now released a new game app in conjunction with their latest movie, 'The League of Incredible Vegetables'. The game app puts the player into this interactive movie world as they choose from different VeggieTales characters and try to defeat fear and save Bumblyberg. The movie and the app present a lesson in handling fear; will the Veggies remember to turn to the One who is bigger than all their fears before the whole town ends up on ice?

The app includes 28 different play levels and features simple touch-based controls and entertainment for kids 4-years and up. Courage points are earned as they progress through the games to buy super powers. See the promotion clip below.

Calendar/planner designed for busy families

6/11/2012

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Sports practice, school concerts, end-of-year
events, appointments…keeping track of all the family’s commitments is always a
headache but at this time of year, it’s almost impossible.
The award-winning Cozi is a FREE family organiser and mobile app that
helps you organise your busy life- Family Life.. Simplified. It’s well worth
checking out, especially as the mobile app is now available for Australian
families.

FAMILY CALENDAR
A calendar for the whole family is easy to set up along with reminders for everyone assigned (txt or email) and a weekly emailed list of the upcoming events for the week. Recurring events like school schedules can easily be included. And, it syncs with other calendars.

TO DO LISTS
Use the To-Do feature and receive timely reminders. Assign tasks for kids, too, and print off a chore list for each child. Use a premade planning check list for any upcoming event from the lists of household cleaning, party needs, birthday party checklists, pantry needs, school supplies and more.

FAMILY MEALS
Plan meals with the drag and drop recipes feature to create your weekly dinner plan. Add recipes and ideas to the online recipe box and add ingredients to your shopping list. Your shopping list is available on your app or can be emailed so that it’s always available.

FAMILY JOURNAL
Easily add family memories and milestones to the family journal/blog and share family news via email, on a private family website or on Facebook. The Cozi homepage also includes regular, helpful family articles and ideas. Find Cozi HERE...

Cozi wins awards year after year and you’ll find it invaluable as a family organiser. There are other apps available from Cozi, too, that you might like to check out: Cozi Password Vault and Cozi Kids Colouring.

Check out the Cozi clip below for a comprehensive overview of the Cozi organiser- specially designed for busy families.

Free family magazine apps

1/11/2012

While we all recognise the need to keep up-to-date with media reviews and great ideas to enrich our family life and deepen our faith, we all find it difficult to find time to find quality content. And, the cost of such material can be an issue.

Here are some helpful sources.. content that is free and is readily available to download in-app to your iPad or Smartphone. Check them out:

Thriving Family (Focus on the Family) provides a free magazine download with content covering family stages, media reviews, ideas for including family faith into your busy life, devotions, family living articles and more. Read it yourself and encourage other families to download and read these informative family articles and features, too. (iPad app)

HomeFront (David C. Cook) is another free downloadable magazine app that you may like to consider. Download and read the magazine as a digital magazine or look through the listed resources- Environment, God's Word, Food and Fun, Traditions, Storytelling and more. Then choose 2 or 3 ideas to incorporate into your family times during the week. You'll find conversation starters, recipes and activities for different age groups.

And.. all these articles, ideas and resources are ready-to-hand on your iPad or Smartphone.

Take time to record a memory

15/10/2012

A constant refrain for many families is, 'Life is too busy!' and, while we acknowledge its truth, we seem incapable of slowing down. But it's especially important to slow down sufficiently to take photos, regularly, of our kids and grandchildren. Someone once said that film of childhood can never be run through for a second showing, and if we miss those moments, those days, those seasons of our children's development, we can never reclaim them.

One way to set up a regular photo reminder to record a memory is to use the app TinyBeans. If you missed our earlier review of this app, you can read it here.

It's also helpful to have a suggested list of photo ideas or suggestions to help you create an unique and meaningful snap of your family. Rebecca Cooper has provided free downloadable lists to trigger your imagination and make these photographic moments fun! You can check out her list 'Embrace the Camera: 50 photos to take with your kids' below (just click on the illustration to enlarge) or see more of her lists on her site here.

Her books, 'Don't Say Cheese', and '40 Top Tips for Better Photos' provide you with ideas and tip to help you make the most of any photographic opportunity with your children. Your can find her books here.

Family

Every family is unique; but all families are made up of individuals with the same need to connect, to interact and share with others.

Follow on Bloglovin

Archives

January 2014
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012

Categories