Pinterest Can Benefit Kids Too!

Sometimes I feel guilty about how much time I spend on Pinterest but then I quickly think of all the great benefits personally, professionally and for my kids. 

Here are a few ways my kids have benefited from my time on Pinterest.   I have included links to the boards for examples.  If you are inspired by the boards, please follow us on Pinterest.

Art Ideas- Pinterest provides great resources and ideas for teaching your kids various types and styles of art.  

Board: Enriching Art Education 

Homework Support- To organize all the great teacher suggestions and material I can use to help my kids with homework and enrich their education at home. 

Boards:  Writing & Vocabulary Enrichment, Reading Enrichment, and Math Enrichment

Education- As a school counselor and parent, it is a passion for me to be involved and up to date on topics related to education.  

Boards: Educational & Parenting Resources  and Critical Thinking, Creativity & Enriching Education

School Project Ideas- Pinterest is full of ideas for book reports, projects including science, art and endless ideas of things kids can make.  

Boards:  Fun Ideas for Kids to Make & Create, Science Education Enrichment, Reading Enrichment, and Art Enrichment

Consumer Awareness Projects & Business Ideas.   For school, my kids had consumer awareness projects where they had to make something to sell at school.  Once they came up with a general idea of what they wanted to make to sell, I searched and pinned a large variety of ideas for them to look at for inspiration.  One of my kids choose to make something out of Duct Tape and one wanted to start a photo booth business.  They also enjoyed setting up their own Lemonade Stand last summer. 

Boards: Duct Tape Creations, Lemonade Stands and Photo Booth Ideas

 

Crafts & Building- My kids have built some fun and creative things such as a bike, bike rack and sprinkler out of PVC pipes all inspired from my findings on Pinterest.  They see the idea and then build their version of it or it sparks a totally different idea such as the bike.  There are endless ideas for making jewelry and other crafts.

Boards:  Fun Ideas for Kids to Make & Create and Summer Fun for Kids & Families

Sports & Passions- My kids are passionate about 2 things: Soccer and Rocks!   We find images of all their favorite soccer players and unique rocks they might want to add to their collections someday.  

Boards: Soccer Rooms & More Soccer and a family run Soccer Blog & Pinterest Profile ILiveFutbol

Gift Ideas- I find gift ideas for my kids as well as things they can make for gifts for family, friends and teachers.  

Boards: Mother's & Father's Day Ideas, Fun Ideas for the Kids to Make , and Travel Games for Kids 

Technology- Great reviews of apps and resources for kids both fun and educational.  There are so many great articles on top games and apps which saves me research time.  

Board:  Enriching Education with Technology

Photos- I love showing my kids funny photos I find on Pinterest of animals, amazing places, and interesting photos of nature that I would never find just searching the web.  

Inspiration- I have a frame on my fridge that I change every couple weeks where I post an inspirational quote, saying or holiday/seasonal subway art print.   

Boards: Inspirational Words & Quotes  and Inspirational Quotes & Messages for Kids

Summer Fun & Summer Enrichment- I have a board full of ideas for the kids for those days they say "I'm bored".  They always find a fun new activity to try from the board. I also created a Summer Educational Enrichment Board with strategies to encorporate education into the summer break.  

Boards: Summer Educational Enrichment and Summer Fun for Kids & Families

Communication & Relationship-  I am inspired by so many great posts and articles on parenting issues.  I have found great books and articles that help me be a better mom to my tween age kids. I also created a collaborative board with other great bloggers to provide resources and information for parents and educators addressing common issues with the tween (9-12) age group. 

Boards:  Parenting Resources Board, Quality Family Time board  & Counseling and Communication and  (Navigating Life with Tweens)

Holiday Traditions- I always found great holiday ideas from various parenting and Family Fun magazines but now with Pinterest...wow! the ideas are endless.  Our family has started many new holiday and seasonal  traditions.

Boards: Christmas, Easter & Spring, Halloween, New Year's Eve, 4th of July, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, Fall & Thanksgiving, Snow Fun and Summer Fun.

Decorating ideas- If you are trying to decorate your kids rooms check Pinterest.  When my kids were changing their rooms from little kid rooms to tween rooms I would pin ideas I found so they could tell me what they liked and did not like.  It saved tons of time going shopping and looking at numerous websites to show them items. My soccer room board became a design board for their rooms.  

Board: Soccer Room & More Soccer, Kid spaces & Bunk Beds and Reading Nooks 

Travel- I love showing my kids unique and amazing places we would love to travel to someday on life list/Bucket list board.  Our family travel bucket list has grown rapidly since I joined Pinterest.  Again, many of the pictures of places I see on Pinterest I would never just randomly search the web for pictures of.  The downside to this is.....Bora Bora is now on their bucket list of places to travel. 

Board: My Life List/Bucket List 

Birthday Parties & Celebrations- Kid's birthday celebrations and parties on Pinterest are amazing.  Before Pinterest I would spend hours searching the web for creative ideas for my kids parties.  With Pinterest it is so much easier and you can create a board full of all the ideas instead of bookmarking and printing out everything you find.  There are ideas are for any theme and budget you could imagine.  

Board: Birthday Celebrations

Daily Notes- Pinterest provides me with lots of fun lunch box notes and jokes to print out and put in the lunch boxes so they get a kind note or message at school each day.  I am pretty sure this will be the last school year I can get by with adding lunch box notes to their lunches.  

Board: Lunch Box Notes

I love the feeling of having all my ideas and resources in one easy location.  My boards are full of beautiful and inspirational pins and I finally feel so organized.  So now when your kids or spouse give you a hard time about spending time on Pinterest just remind them of how it benefits the whole family!  Please join me on Pinterest for daily new pins benefiting your whole family.  

Happy Pinning from ThinkingIQ! 

If you are new to Pinterest or just looking to get more out of Pinterest, check out Pinterest Savvy by Melissa Taylor. She provides valuable information covering all aspects of Pinterest. 

Valentine's Day with Tweens

I know tweens are at the age where they become uncomfortable discussing love! So Valentine’s Day can be a tricky holiday to celebrate.  However, with the ideas below you can make it fun while building family memories and traditions. 

I have compiled some conversation starters for fun family bonding with a Valentine’s Day  “LOVE” theme.  They are free and can be downloaded from my Teachers Pay Teachers store here. 

Gift Ideas

The best way to show your kids how much you love and care about them is to spend quality time with them so the gift of time can be the best present.  The past several years we have given them coupons for special time with us.  A few examples are movie night, game night, date nights alone with each parent.  I was going to compile a complete list and create the coupons for you however, there is already a great post and free printable coupons by InspiredbyFamilybymag.com here.

Activities

The conversation starters make great dinner time conversation to celebrate Valentine’s Day. 

Game Time-  This Heart Yatzee game by MomsbyHeart.net is on our list for this year as well as the conversation heart minute to win it games featured by Sassy Sites. 

Creating silly love stories is also a yearly tradition for us on Valentine’s Day.  You could make your own imagination dice, or for ones to purchase I suggest Rory’s Story Cubes or Tell Tale cards.

For reflection and creativity, please check out our Valentine’s Day Think Book.  You can download a free sample page here or purchase the entire packet from my Teachers Pay Teachers here. 

Have fun with these Valentine’s Day activities.  Remember to discuss and model healthy loving relationships with your kids.  The conversation questions above are a great way to spark conversations that lead to more meaningful disucssions regarding love and relationships.  It is a great time to share family love stories including any you know from the grandparents and earlier generations.

 For more fun Valentine's Ideas follow my Valentine's Day Pinterest board.  

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentine's Day Think Book

To celebrate Valentine's Day, we created a Valentine's Think Book to add to the popular Think Book Series.  

The Valentine's Day Think Book contains a variety of questions and prompts to give kids a fun place to express their ideas. It is not an ordinary diary or journal. The creative prompts engage kids in active thinking and imagination. 

Who is the Think Book for? It’s for kids and families. The questions are targeted for tweens ages 8-12. Parents and older kids may easily adapt the questions so the whole family can participate. It would also be a great classroom tool for teachers to give to their students.



Suggestions for use: 

• Use daily or weekly

• Place in a binder

• Create a scrapbook (smash style journal) by cutting out the various activities and gluing into a journal

Includes 6 pages of activities and questions



Examples of activities included are:

• Writing Prompts- short answer and story prompt

• Creative drawing prompts

• And much more….

To purchase the Valentine's Day Think Book, please visit our Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) store.  You can download a free sample page from our store as well.  
For more fun Valentine's activities and ideas, follow our Valentine's Pinterest board.  

Best wishes for wonderful Valentine's Day!