Month: March 2021

Are you looking to get out of the house and get active with your family? You can find creative ways to get active with your family and you don’t have to break the bank. From tree trimming to carpet cleaning, you can involve your kids and make it a fun experience and one that they won’t forget.

Go on a Nature Walk

Children really love to play and there is no doubt that a forest is an ideal environment to do so. It provides creative ways to get active with your family. For this reason, we recommend playing games in nature. A great possibility is that adults organize a fun game and then the children, with their self-confidence and imagination, develop the playful action. For example, you can play as a family and try to find a treasure hidden in a forest by giving some clues (a chest with jewelry can be perfect) or pose another challenge to the children. Let them find a collection of natural objects from the environment (flowers, leaves, seeds, caterpillars, snails, etc.). Another option is to go to one of the large urban parks that many cities have and enjoy a long and rewarding walk, or sign up for an organized activity. Many of these parks organize guided tours, organized children’s games, or observation of harmless animals roaming about. Do not forget to bring paper and crayons on your outings so that, if they feel like it, the children can draw the plants and animals they see. Many natural elements such as leaves, earth, branches, and stones can be used to make beautiful works of art, paintings, and sculptures.

Visit natural or protected parks near your home and explain what animals and plants live there. If the place you visit has an environmental center, find out if there is a guide tour service. Both the elderly and the little ones will learn that near your home there are natural paradises that must be cared for and preserved. When you are going on local park excursions with the children, organize a picnic or snack.

Invest in a Horseback Riding Lesson

A variant of the routes through nature on foot is to do them on horseback and is one of the creative ways to get active with your family. An excursion of this type has everything to truly enjoy as a family: the contact with nature, being able to interact with an animal as beautiful and noble as the horse, and the touch of adventure and freedom that trotting on the back of such an animal gives. In addition, there are also many farms for children so that they can interact with the animals, which is a great experience.

Look for Tadpoles

If you travel near a river, stream, lagoon, or pond, especially in the rainy season, it is likely that you will find tadpoles. The kids love to observe the magic of the transformations of these animals. All you need is a net and a container full of pond or rainwater. In addition to small freshwater algae, tadpoles feed on cooked lettuce, fish food, worms, and minced meat. Once their cycle is complete, set the young frogs free in the same pond where you collected them.

Complete a Family Gardening Project

A gardening project can provide enriching experiences for both children and adults. It is one of the creative ways to get active with your family. Therefore, the entire family can become involved in this. The end results will show it was worth it. Keep in mind that gardening has math-related activities such as measuring, sorting, counting, and forecasting. This will be important when you involve your child in helping to put up the metal garden gates. Remember that preschoolers can discuss science-related early learning parameters as they learn about gardening tools, life cycles, uses of plants, the effects of climate on plants, and the cycle of plants. Plan to give children opportunities to record and share information about the garden by drawing, writing, and discussing what they learn. Be attentive and notice the ways in which children express curiosity and initiative as they learn to solve problems cooperatively. Bring tools and other supplies that will be needed, especially, if you will be initialing tree trimming as part of your home garden project. Help the children learn more about the plants. Which ones smell nice? Which ones can you eat? Which ones attract little birds or butterflies?

Apply a Fresh Coat of Paint

Another of the creative ways to get active with your family is to give your walls a special finish with the Venetian stucco technique. The beautiful texture makes it one of the most used by decorators when it comes to giving a different touch. Include the entire family in this neat project. With stucco painting, it is best to prepare the surface. When the surface is ready, encourage your kids to mix the stucco and the color, which would normally be earth or reddish tones. Remember that the quantities in the mixture vary depending on the measurements of the space to be painted. Once the stucco has been applied, assign the little ones to get involved, scrubbing constantly for a higher shine with the use of a 10-inch iron.

Hold a Cleaning Contest

If you hold a cleaning contest, you might get your entire family to participate. Of course, your children will not want to cooperate just because you ask them to. Instead, use a point system to get them more interested. First, make a table with the names of your children, the tasks that correspond to them, and how many times they have to do that task in the week. Every time they complete one of their tasks such as carpet cleaning or more intense home cleaning service, you put a star next to their name in the box corresponding to the task. At the end of the week, you would count all the stars, and the winner gets a special prize. Normally, prizes can be things that you can enjoy as a family. The winner chooses a special dessert that you will make together for that week. They could choose a movie that you would see as a family or a restaurant where you would all go to dinner.

Plan a Fishing Trip

Want more creative ways to get active with your family? Most children love to fish, and they become intensely interested from the age of four or five. Fishing is an ecological and relaxing activity, as well as representing a real challenge. Outdoors, in the middle of nature, rain or shine, allows us to see and feel the beauty of the environment. Children learn quickly and do not usually need much explanation. If you live near the sea and you want to catch fish or fresh seafood, you can include the family. You can also think about exploring the rocks. It can be an exciting adventure. Some educators have observed that fishing develops patience, tenacity, and the ability to set goals.

Work Together on Home Repairs

It is common that we have some pending repairs in our homes. Work and daily routine could mean that you do not have enough time to fix some of the problems that may arise in the home. These days, the situation is leading parents to be frustrated that they cannot get around to the home repairs. Has the cistern stopped working? Does the faucet in the dishwasher have a leak? Does the garage door screen need fixing? Are the curtains or blinds at the windows falling down? These are DIY problems that you can fix yourself with the right tools. The perfect opportunity presents itself for you to get down working and facing those repairs that you have postponed. You can make it a family activity, not only to keep the kids busy, but to finally get things done. In so doing, the kids will learn the names and use of each tool and the steps to take in completing each home repair.

Perform Car Maintenance Together

One of the creative ways to get active with your family is to have them involved in your car maintenance. Have your kids learn how to check and adjust the fluid levels. This includes knowing which product is the brake fluid, coolant, and engine oil. You could also show your kids how you clean the engine parts and lubricate them. Open the bonnet of the vehicle and show your kids how you would check the battery terminal. Show them how the electrical system works in the vehicle. Make it more interesting by taking them along with you to the auto salvage yard where you buy used parts for installing in the vehicle. Explain the process and have them do little tasks so they can better understand the intricacies of car maintenance and identifying specific parts.

Play Creative Games

At home, you can play very easy to prepare games with your family. For this, you will need a few materials to consider creative ways to get active with your family. You will need an object to throw and another to shoot down. Let’s get into some ideas for these games that will be super entertaining.

• Throw the ball (if you don’t have one, you can make one out of aluminum foil, for example) to a certain object.
• Hitting the ball with an object (racket, paddle, bat, or some homemade object that you can use for that task) and knock down a certain object.
• Throw or hit the ball with or without an object (for example, in a bin, in the closet, or in a river if you have one).

There are several very popular games that are very easy to develop at home since you need few materials (and little space is needed. Many of these games can incorporate household material. It might not necessary to buy or have it. Here are some ideas:

• Twister
• Tic-tac-toe
• Sack races
• Rope pulls

Not all fun has to be through very dynamic games. Quiet games can still be listed as creative ways to get active with your family. You can introduce games that also require more ingenuity, creativity, and cooperation, such as the conductor game. In this game, a group is formed and one of its members will have to leave the room. The rest of the group will have to choose a leader who is the one to make “music” like an orchestra director with their hands or feet and the rest of the group members will have to imitate them. The colleague who left would come back in once notified and will have to guess who is the Orchestra Director directing the music. There will be three attempts to guess.

You can find other creative ways to get active with your family. It is best that you all sit down and listen to the suggestions of one another. Once there is an activity that excites someone, make a list of it and put them up on the refrigerator or wall so that you can plan to execute each one as a group and enjoy the activity that is a favorite for each family member. This is a great way to validate and respect each other’s opinions.

A lot of businesses are struggling right now. But certainly, big businesses are not necessarily experiencing the same issues as small ones. Financial success can be difficult for small businesses to attain when they’re up against a pandemic. It’s important for you and your family to think about what you can do to support small businesses because small businesses are essentially the backbone of most communities. With that being said, below are eight ways that you and your family can come together to support small businesses in your area.

Hire and Purchase from Small Businesses When You Can

There is more of an opportunity for most of us to support small businesses locally than we realize. Unfortunately, a lot of people miss out on recognizing how to support local small businesses because they mindlessly shop at big grocery stores, or choose to work with big names rather than shopping small. While a lot of people do this automatically, some do consciously choose to avoid shopping from small businesses. While this may seem odd at first, this is in part because there are some negative misconceptions regarding small businesses. Lots of people think that small businesses are automatically more expensive than big businesses, which often is not the case; many of them are actually more affordable, if not comparable to big businesses. Additionally, some feel that big businesses are more reliable. In reality, many big businesses offer cheaper services because the services and materials they offer are of lower quality than those offered by small businesses.

There are many opportunities if you’re exploring how to support local small businesses. Look into the types of potential contractor jobs that you can have done at your home. For one thing, you may want to have a fence installation done. While there are small businesses that can potentially execute this for you, it’s often a better idea to seek out a small business that can execute the job. You can often get more creative with small businesses, as they tend to be more flexible in their practices.

Think about what you need to be done in turns of home repairs and maintenance as you explore how to support local small businesses. For example, you may need AC maintenance done. Why not seek out a small business? While you can certainly Google around for small businesses, you may also want to visit community message boards and Facebook groups. This way, you can get recommendations from local people who have experience with the businesses that you’re considering.

Follow, Like, and Comment on Social Media Pages

Speaking of Facebook, chances are that your favorite small businesses will have social media pages. There are several benefits to small businesses hiring social media pages. For one thing, every business should have a social media presence in this day and age. Social media is something that we all turn to when we want to connect with a business, and with good reason. It comes off as more personal and is often a direct line to those working at and running the small business. A wide variety of different small businesses can benefit from social media pages, whether they focus on home renovation or food service. Another benefit of social media pages is that the vast majority of them are free, at least at their most basic levels. Websites, on the other hand, are not free. Small business owners often appreciate having a form of advertising that they can rely upon without paying for it. But if you’re considering how to support local small businesses, you may be wondering about what you can do regarding their social media pages.

The answer is actually quite simple. If you want to know how to support local small businesses, you should consider liking, commenting, following, and generally engaging with their social media pages. The more engagement a social media page has, the more it is considered relevant. Quite often, social media pages that are more recommended are promoted through algorithms more for potential users. This means that if you want to really support a small business in an organic way, follow their social media page. Give a post a like. Comment on a post that is relevant to you. Don’t force your interaction, but certainly interact if you can.

Share Your Own Experience Through Positive Reviews

One of the main reasons why big businesses get chosen over small businesses is that big businesses often have more name recognition. People know what they’re getting when they work with big businesses, or at least they think they do. They turn to these businesses because they trust them, and often overlook how important it is to support small businesses. Generally speaking, the more reviews a small business receives, the easier it will be for that small business to be viewed as trustworthy. For that reason, many small business owners pursue as many good reviews as they possibly can, but it’s often difficult for them to encourage people to review their businesses. This is why it’s not uncommon for small business owners to solicit reviews from customers and clients. They won’t necessarily ask for positive reviews, though some do, but rather simply a review in the first place, which can be difficult to come by. In exchange for a review, small business owners often offer discount codes or other perks to consumers. If you’re looking into how to support local small businesses like interior painting contractors, it doesn’t get much easier than leaving a review.

You’ll want your review to count. It’s not always a good idea to leave reviews spamming the social media pages and review pages of small businesses; this can look artificial and coerced. Instead, you should leave a review on a prominent review page, like Yelp or Google Reviews. You want your review to stand out, and you should think about how your experience can help someone else making their purchasing decision. Think about the advantages that you experienced when using this particular small business, and mention that in your review. For example, if the business in question offers a guaranteed service refund, you should mention that in your review. These types of extras can make a business much more appealing to potential consumers.

Purchase Gift Cards

It’s a lot easier to take the leap and purchase from a small business when you aren’t spending your own money and are instead buying with a gift card. A lot of small businesses provide gift cards or gift certificates in order to encourage buying. If you’re interested in learning how to support local small businesses, you should look around and see which ones offer these types of options. You don’t have to spend much to encourage people around you to support a small business, and you’ll be directly supporting the small business in question yourself.

When the time comes, if someone you love has a birthday coming up, or if the holidays are right around the corner, why not buy a gift card? For a lot of people, this is hugely beneficial. Furthermore, a lot of people tend to make repeat purchases if they like a business, whether it’s a digital printing business or a restaurant. Therefore, your single gift card or certificate purchase could turn into multiple purchases quite quickly.

Order From Local Restaurants Rather Than Chains

One of the best ways for people to explore how to support local small businesses is to explore buying from local restaurants. These restaurants are often known as mom-and-pop restaurants — and with good reason. They’re run by families or small proprietors most often, and there are actually a lot of benefits to utilizing them directly. These restaurants are often able to offer food and service that you wouldn’t necessarily see at typical big chains. A lot of international restaurants are family restaurants, and these types of restaurants often are passed over in favor of fast food.

If you’re worried about the COVID-19 pandemic, you should still give these types of restaurants a try. In this day and age, delivery is much easier for small family restaurants to obtain. You in turn can use these services, like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and much more. Not only will this allow you to support these small restaurants, but it will also help you keep them afloat during a time that is especially challenging for all of them. Right now, it’s incredibly difficult for small businesses, in general, to stay afloat amidst the pandemic. Ordering delivery or takeout from a local restaurant from time to time can make a big difference.

Tip Workers More

In the same sense, you need to think about what the workers are doing on the ground. A lot of small businesses employ workers that are not only giving their time and energy but also their emotional labor to these businesses. Many workers don’t necessarily find it worth it to do so unless they are able to collect tips on top of what are often small salaries. Small businesses often have limited budgets and can only pay their employees so much, which is why tipping is so crucial.

There is a reason why these businesses incorporate the type of technology that encourages tipping; they want people to recognize the extra effort that their employees are putting in and are trying to encourage tipping. If you’re exploring how to support local small businesses, you need to support the employees as well. Don’t reserve tips for wait staff at restaurants. Many businesses will offer you the option to tip those at the front register as well, and you may want to think about doing so. Offer tips to artisans that are putting their personal touches into your work. Think about how much a little bit extra could help people, and consider tipping when you feel they’ve earned it.

Attend Events Held By Local Businesses

A lot of local businesses hold events in order to promote themselves. Often, these events have a charitable angle, which means that you can both support a small business that you believe in and support a cause or charity that is important to you. Small businesses may also hold fundraisers like silent auctions or dinners. These are great opportunities to show your support, and can come with benefits for you as well.

This because these types of events are generally seen as great networking opportunities for both individuals and businesses. Your favorite small businesses may be there, and if you’re interested in starting your own business or simply making connections with business owners in your area, you should consider attending these types of events. Furthermore, there is often quite a bit of swag given away at such events. Why not pick up one of many custom printed tshirts and wear it around in order to show your support for local small businesses?

Offer Your Own Expertise

When considering how to support local small businesses, you also need to think about the way you can offer helpful services yourself. This doesn’t necessarily mean joining their team but rather offering the services in which you specialize as much as possible. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to offer your own, especially in the midst of a pandemic that can be difficult to live within on an economic level. However, it does mean that you may want to reach out and offer your services as a consultant. Some small businesses may not necessarily be able to employ consultants, even temporary consultants, due to limited budgets. However, they may offer unpaid internships or volunteer positions that you can take advantage of if you’re comfortable with it. All of this is very much up to you.

The more specialized and relevant to the individual small business your skills, the more important they will be and the more you should consider reaching out directly. For example, if you’re an expert in sign design and you’ve noticed that a small business lacks effective marketing, you may want to reach out directly and offer your expertise.

There are so many things to consider as you explore how to support local small businesses. You can support a small business as a consumer or patron, or potentially as an employee or volunteer. Right now, it can be difficult for small businesses to succeed, but it’s not impossible. Do some thinking about how you and your family can support small businesses around you.