Giving back is one the best ways to feel connected to your community. Getting children involved in volunteering at a young age is a great way to start a lifelong commitment to giving. Here are five safe ways to volunteer — with your kids or grandkids — this month!
Change of seasons means a change in our routines. Some of the changes are really big. For those with children, the entire routine of the day and evening changes to school and fall sports schedules, and overlapping plans. Some of us even change homes and look forward to spending the colder months in a warmer climate. But routines change in smaller ways, too, that aren’t quite so obvious. We change our diets – the cold salads that got us through summer change to pots of stew and soup that warm the kitchen. Clothes change. Beauty routines change as we come in from the humidity and sun to a drier home. Cleaning and tidying changes – we are putting away the outdoor furniture and moving indoors, and the opening of school means keeping up with the clutter that schoolwork and projects bring in. So we are going to Routines and Things…
So many families are thinking of opting outside for fall adventures this year… so if you’re new to National Park adventures, here are a few tips and tricks!
We love when style and great causes meet — so when Mark and Graham launched their new Pendleton pet collection, it caught our attention! The retro vibes — classic Pendleton design– are inspired by National Parks. As Mark and Graham write on their site: The National Park Pet Collection helps support Pendleton’s efforts to protect and restore the national parks we all love through their partnership with the National Park Foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of collection items will be donated to the National Park Foundation. Great cause and some pretty great canine style! View the collection here.
We’re not into clutter — but we ARE into function. These six tools are must haves in your kitchen and won’t take up too much space. From cherry pitting to collapsible salad spinners, we put these tools to the test and they all passed our high standards.
Create a Personal Book Challenge to focus your reading.
Have you tried riding an electric bike? We weren’t sure what the purpose was other than getting out of the hard work on a bike ride — but quickly changed our minds after talking to Becca at Pedego Baltimore County Electric Bikes for a few minutes! The beauty of an electric bike is that it gets you outside and moving and staying active – but it takes away the stress of worrying about whether you can handle a bike tour. How many would like to go out touring through beautiful countryside but worry about how hard the hills will be, or if the distance is too far for you, or that everyone else will be far ahead and waiting for you to catch up? The Pedal Assist mode solves that – it can be set at different levels and turned on or up when you need it, off when you…
One bright spot in a year of social distancing and meet-ups with friends and family mostly taking place outdoors, is that more people discovered the local parks and trails, “stopped streaming and went to the streams.” If there’s a downside, it’s that a lot of parks and trails are now so crowded, cars are being turned away and many parks are considering a reservations system to limit capacity. When we witnessed a tubing logjam on the Gunpowder Falls and saw a line of cars stalking tubers to grab their parking spots as they left, we knew it was bad. But there’s help. Download the All Trails app on your phone or visit the All Trails website and you will be amazed at how many trails are available for hikes. You’ve probably been driving past trailheads and didn’t notice them. Here are three suggestions. One takes you out of the city…
Baltimore author and illustrator Joyce Hesselberth has a NEW book… and it’s perfect for the pint-sized naturalists in your life! Joyce, the award-winning creator of Mapping Sam and Pitter Pattern, introduces young readers to everything there is to know about trees in Beatrice Was a Tree. This gorgeously illustrated informational picture book is an exceptional choice for your home library and a beautiful gift! “When it’s time to go to bed, Beatrice imagines how much fun it would be to stay outside with the trees all night long. If she were a tree, she would have a trunk and branches and lots of leaves. Her roots would reach deep. She would catch the morning sun with her limbs and cradle a bird’s nest in her branches. And when the air turned crisp, Beatrice would wait patiently for spring.” Enjoy Beatrice Was a Tree ‘al fresco’ at The Ivy Bookshop’s new…
Packing the kids up for camp — and wishing you could also go off for long afternoons of art and creative experimenting? Social Studio wants YOU to have that same, carefree crafty fun!