Looking for a creative and fun activity for your kids that will get them away from the Wii? An old-fashioned lemonade stand is always a fun idea. Thanks, in part, to the great book, The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, my daughters have been inspired. They love to create posters and sell lemonade and Girl Scout cookies or homemade brownies. They seem to get more creative every time they set up their stand. And the empowerment they get from doing it (mostly) on their own is great.

Marketing

Have the kids paint/draw signage to display around the block to promote the sale. Big, bold elements work most effectively here. Let them think and get creative. For example, my daughter Hope wrote: “Free water with every box of girl scout cookies!”

Entertainment

Help them write a lemonade song or choreograph a hot-weather dance to entertain patrons or relieve the boredom on a slow sale day.

Profit

Teach them “Lemonade Math”: $ Earned – $ Spent = Profit

Financial Responsibility

At the end of the day, acknowledge all of their hard work and then plan what to do with the profit.

We usually go by the 1⁄3 rule of thumb: 1⁄3  charity, 1⁄3  save and  1⁄3 spend.

Product Expansion

You don’t have to stick to just lemonade and cookies:

Fruity Frozen Hand Popsicle

• Pour your favorite juice into latex surgical gloves (powder-free).
• Knot them at the end around a popsicle stick.
• Pop them into the freezer overnight.
• Cut the glove to remove and voila! Fruity Frozen Hands
  (store in a cooler at the lemonade stand).

Great Grape Necklaces

• Wash a variety of green, purple and red grapes.
• Poke a hole (lengthwise) in each grape with a shish kebab skewer.
• String the grapes on a plastic lanyard, alternating colors.
• Knot the lanyard to close the circle to the desired length.
• Spritz with a mixture of fresh lemon juice, a little agave and mint.

You can also raise $ for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF). For every stand opened, Electrolux will donate $1 to the OCRF. You can also help the cause even more by buying and sending virtual glasses of lemonade to your friends and family, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting OCRF [click HERE for more info]

CHEERS!

Fresh out of Father’s Day weekend, Laura agreed to pitch in & blog about kicking up the summer heat..in the kitchen.   Enjoy!

You don’t need to have reality TV aspirations to engage in some good old cook-off fun.  We recently had a big extended-family weekend at our house where my brother-in-law, Michael, (who happens to be a professional chef) & I had an unofficial guacamole competition.  All good-naturedly, of course, we bickered about who made “the best” guacamole and then proceeded to alternately make it every night for four nights in a row, in effort to prove our cases.

Up to their ears in guacamole, the samplers were quizzed on which ingredients added up to the better dish.  He insists the spicier the better, with hot chili sauce and fresh, hot peppers.   With kids around I usually skip the heat but I like mine extra lime-y and garlicky.  His is usually pretty consistently smooth and I make mine lumpy and chunky.  The rest of our recipes are pretty much the same, but the most important thing we agree on is finding perfectly ripened Haas avocadoes.  It’s not even worth making it if they’re not, in my humble opinion.  If you’ve got those, some salt, pepper & lime juice it’s hard to go wrong and almost anything goes.

The good news is that the testers got to eat a lot of really awesome guacamole.  And, truth be known, it wasn’t about competition at all, but about sharing good food and exchanging ideas about how to improve, change, mix-up & spice up our old ways.  Chef brother-in-law is coming out for the 4th of July weekend and I’m thinking of challenging my husband to take him on in a BBQ throw-down.  Pulled pork, Baby-back ribs, bar-b-qued brisket…. Yum!   I’ll happily be the judge.  Cooking for a group is a lot of work, but it can also be social, and such a pleasure, especially if you make it fun.

Guacamole Recipe
3 ripe Hass Avocadoes
½  medium onion, diced
1 medium tomato, chopped
½ c fresh cilantro, chopped
1  Jalepeno pepper, seeded & diced
1 clove fresh garlic, minced or smashed
juice of 1 lime
salt & pepper
Hot sauce to taste (optional)

Mash the avocadoes with a fork.  Stir in the other ingredients using your taste as guide.

I’m in awe of characters that are timeless.  Superman has transcended generations due in large part to its juxtaposition of human and superhuman.  A regular guy with super hero skills.  I’m fascinated with the creation of characters.  I wanted to know who were the brilliant creators behind Superman?  It is one of the most iconic designs and characters of our time, yet, we don’t know the backstory.

I reached out to award winning author, Marc Tyler Nobleman who wrote the interesting and eye opening book, Boys of Steel, about the creators of Superman.  I love the book and recommend it as a great summer read to middle school kids and above.

As a dad and an author, Marc also had some great tips for us parents, about how to leap over the summer slump in a single bound, and to have books be more powerful than a locomotive.  It’s a bird. It’s a plane.  It’s Marc Tyler Nobleman!

Check it out & let me know what you think!

Since we’re on the subject of summer travel & vacation time, I thought I’d share an interesting lesson we learned on our last family trip. It was our first day at the resort. We had settled in to a cozy spot on the beach, under an umbrella. I looked out at the turquoise sea, watched my girls start digging in the sand, and I thought, “Oh, let me just take a quick glance at my e-mail.” In an almost embarrassingly loud voice my six-year-old screams, “Mommy!  This is not an e-mail-cation!”  She repeats herself, matter of factly. “This is not an e-mail-cation, this is not a phone-cation, this not a camp-cation, this is a family vacation.”

Got it. Loud and clear. No phones, no e-mails, not even an hour at the resort’s kids’ camp.

Vacation is supposed to be a time to shut off from the world and play with the kids. And we did. We also devised a list of family negotiated rules for future vacations. In addition to the fact that there must be a pool for the kids, good food for the adults and minimal crowds (even if it means going to the Caribbean during off season), we decided on the following:

• No (or limited) e-mails or phone calls on vacation: Who knew this would be as huge of a stress reliever as it is? Truth be told, if I ever need a quick fix, I excuse myself and go to the bathroom (shh!).

• Beach in the morning for the parents and the pool in the afternoon for the kids: Silly as it sounds, negotiating this up front made us much happier. We got the calm and relaxation of the Caribbean Sea for half the day. Then we spent the afternoon at the pool being social, negotiating crowds and going down slides and off diving boards. Fun. For the kids.

• Dress up “fancy” for dinner: It was much easier to get them out of the pool with the promise of our family dinner dates. The routine also provided nice down time in between day and night activities.

• Special vacation song: This was a happy accident but we brought a new CD on our trip. Now, every time we hear that CD we feel like we’re back on vacation.

Greg & I are constantly researching for my blog and we found some great insights on family vacations from our good friend, Laura.  Laura (& her incredibly smart and talented family) have gone on some amazing vacations.  Everything from Hawaii and Costa Rica to basically “backpacking” across Europe..yes, with her kids!  What has she found out?  What tips can she share with us?

Hi Laura.  Thanks for blogging with us!

Thanks for including me!

What motivated you to start blogging about your vacations?

Angela did!  I didn’t know anything about blogging when I started a few years ago, but since I’m a teacher, a writer and a mom, Angela pointed out that I sort of had the perfect storm brewing for blogging our adventures.  It is a bit of a juggling act to be able to blog from around the globe while traveling with kids- but so worth it in the end!

What was the most inspiring place you visited?

I’m most inspired by the places we never planned to be memorable.  One of my favorite memories is driving through Alps in Austria and rounding a bend to find a helicopter hovering above the road as men below chained crates of fresh food and kegs beneath it. The helicopter was transporting provisions to a high-altitude mountaintop beer garden that was only accessible by hiking on an advanced trail.  We stood there, mesmerized, while we wondered about the people who live and work there.  We questioned whether the hikers who stop in ever consider how the beer and fresh food got to the top of the mountain they just climbed.  The kids had so many great questions that we couldn’t answer or look up in a book, but it still felt educational because it added to our broader sense of the world.

What was the most exhausting?

There’s good exhausting and bad exhausting.  Sometimes the most exhausting trips are the best.  My family likes trips that keep us busy, and in Costa Rica I think we did every activity possible. We were so busy hiking, surfing, snorkeling, zip-lining and boogie-boarding ourselves silly that half the time we ended up eating peanut butter sandwiches for dinner and going to bed early.  That’s good exhausting.  As for bad exhausting, I hate pretty much any day we spend physically traveling.  Whether it is by plane, train, ferry or car, I just want to get there already!  I need to learn to “enjoy the ride” more.

What mistakes have you made?

On our 2nd European trip I got cocky and had some tense moments where I wasn’t sure we were going to have a safe place to sleep at night.  I value spontaneity in our travels, but I also consider myself a safety-conscious parent.  For the most part, I try to make sure that we know which way we’re headed and secure a room at least a day in advance.  I look for generous cancellation policies, so if we want to change our plan and jump on a train in a different direction at the last minute we can.

What are some good tips for traveling with kids to make them educational and memorable?

1) Don’t focus too much on what you expect the kids to learn on the trip.  Traveling is inherently educational; just being exposed to a different location or culture gives you an awareness that you didn’t have before, so you can relax and trust that they are learning plenty, even before you step foot in a museum.

2) Value quality over quantity and don’t be afraid of the speed-tour.  Your kids are much more likely to learn from their travels if everyone is happy, and let’s face it, spending 4 hours touring the Louvre is not enjoyable for the average 6 year old, or you when he starts climbing the statues.  It’s OK to head directly to the Mona Lisa because 6 year olds can appreciate it as an important reason for the visit.  Grab a map, circle the top 3-5 things you want to see, then hand it to the kids and have them navigate the way, which leaves your eyes free to take in other works along the way.

3) Down time is still important for kids on vacation, but it doesn’t have to be spent napping in a hotel room.  My son’s fondest memories always include the local sweets (Belgian waffles, crepes, gelato and chocolates come to mind).  We’ve found that having our dessert in the middle of the day is a good way to rejuvenate the tired and cranky traveler.  And that goes for you too, moms and dads… never underestimate the power of good gelato.

How much research went into your trips to Europe?  How did you do your research?

Not much, because the first time we decided to go only about two weeks before we left.  My husband and I had backpacked through Europe together years ago, before the age of Internet, and way before kids, so it really gave us the confidence to know we could do it.  We’re great travel partners, and I think that’s really important if you want to be a traveling family.  We picked a travel guide we liked, in our case the Rick Steve’s Best of Europe book.  We used it loosely to get ideas for locations and activities.  The places that we knew for sure we wanted to go, I reserved hotels in advance.  I was bringing along the laptop to blog, so once we knew where we were headed, we’d seek out places that had Wi-Fi and used travel sites like Trip Advisor to find rooms along the way.

From time to time, Laura will be contributing to Angela’s Clues to bring parents another unique & valued perspective. Thank you Laura!

In our house, we approach chores much the same way we teach skills on our shows: we start small and then gradually give our kids more responsibility. Our girls started “helping” us around the house at age two because, like all preschoolers, they loved to help. They would put away their toys, throw out their napkins at snack, get us a paper towel roll from the pantry (that one had them happily occupied for a while).

At around five to seven years old their chores included setting the table in stages (napkins, placemats, cups with ice), cleaning up their rooms. At ten, we wanted the chores to foster independence and responsibility: making simple meals in the kitchen, being responsible for themselves (getting ready for school is a chore!), making their beds, feeding the dog.

[see Angela’s entire Greenwich Magazine Article]

While strolling along Sesame Street last week, I bumped into Murray Monster (side note: puppeteer is my friend, Joey Mazzarino, who also played Roary on Blues Room).  While Murray was lively and nothing shy of entertaining, what I loved about our day was that he always has the kids’ best interests at heart.  He also reinforced in me the idea that we should make time to play with our children whenever and wherever we can..even though this furry red monster threatened to steal my gig!

See my interview with Murray Monster on PBS.org/parents/theparentshow and let me know of any questions you may have.

As a little girl I always wanted to go camping with my girl scout troop.  But every year, my allergist wouldn’t let me go due to my asthma and allergies.  So, when my 7 year old had a camping trip planned, I was excited to go..but then I realized what I was in for. Crammed side by side on a buggy floor (Daddy long legs in abundance!) with 16, 7 yr. olds and a handful of moms!  But look at the face on my daughter!

All she could talk about was how we all had one big sleepover!  Together!  And we had smores, had a hike, sang songs, picked dandelions, had a Girl Scout flag ceremony and came far too close to sitting in a patch of poison ivy!  Through the eyes of my 7 year old, this was the life!  It is such a good reminder for me to look at life through my daughters’ eyes.  Because you only get to be 7 once, and the joy and exuberance to sleep on a cramped & buggy floor will be thrilling..only for a short time.

Special shout out to our amazing Daisy troop leader, Virginia for spending her time making memories, empowering our girls, and growing their confidence.  And for giving the 7 year old in me a chance to FINALLY go on a girl scout camping trip.  Thank you!

Sometimes, as a parent, it takes a beautiful, insightful poem to get the point across.

The following was passed onto us yesterday, (unedited) from our 7 year old’s teacher..

Behind the Scenes Scoop…we’re introducing a NEW character on SUPER WHY! We asked kids what they wanted and guess what they said…

I also discuss my new online series “The Parent Show with Angela Santomero” as well as ways to attack the “summer reading slump.”

[ View  video at PBS.org ]