Doing some research to write the previous posts, it was interesting to find a simple yet FUNtastic game that most children really enjoy and never get tired of, so it deserved a post of its own: BUBBLE BLOWING!

It is unbelievable how many websites have information about this classic game.

Image by Dino De Luca /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You can buy a bubble-blowing kit or have your children make their own bubble-making tools with everyday materials. The second option is much more fun and allows your kids to come up with some creative ideas, so before you close your bags and head off to your home exchange destination, be sure to pack any items you may need to make your bubble-blowing tools during your swap.

First, take notes about the basic recipe to prepare the bubble making solution: add 2 teaspoons of dish soap to 1 cup of water. If you want long-lasting bubbles you can add 1 teaspoon of glycerin to the above recipe. Glycerin is inexpensive, non-toxic and can be purchased in most pharmacies. Baby shampoo can be an alternative to replace the soap for younger children as it won’t cause irritation if some bubble solution comes into contact with their eyes. Wearing pool goggles during a bubble battle can be fun too! You don’t know what a bubble battle is? Just a battle in which your objective is to have your opponent surrender to your bubble-making attack.

Everyday use items that can be turned into bubble wands:

- Cloth hangers (adult supervision should be a must to work with these).

- Plastic cookie cutters.

- Drinking straws.

- Strings. Cotton strings seem to work just fine. Tie the ends together forming a loop (try different lengths for different bubble sizes), soak the loop in the solution, stretch it and then blow through the film caught in the loop.

- A variety of empty containers can have their bottoms removed or portions cut off to become a simple bubble-making device: cans, yogurt containers, plastic lids. (We would also recommend adult supervision if you choose these items)

- A funnel.

- An old racket.

- A balloon. It is hard to get the hang of it but you can use an inflated balloon to “blow” your bubbles.

- An interesting item that seems to be excellent for younger children is a fly swatter. Its small holes are perfect for the little ones to make dozens of bubbles with just one swing!

- The simplest bubble wand: your hands. And a tip we found at http://www.bubbles.org: “… it is dryness, not sharpness, which pops bubbles. This means that if you get your bubble tools wet, you can touch a bubble without popping it” (where bubble tools means your own hands).

There are many options and all you need is creativity, you can also come up with competitions like: the biggest bubble, the longest lasting bubble, who can blow the most bubbles in one minute… Have fun!!!

Image by ahmet guler /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As we promised yesterday, today we continue with ideas for a great day of outdoor fun with your children.  One great advantage of home exchange is the possibility to be “at home” while you are away on vacations so your family can share a special day in the yard just as you would do in your own house. Some ideas may even be of help to your home exchange partner because you can keep his garden green while you have fun with your kids, as a garden hose or sprinkler may be everything you need to let the fun begin.

Water balloon wars - This is a classic game for a hot summer afternoon, so the next time you go shopping, remember to get some water balloons for the next time you need a fun game to cool down.

Fishing ice-cubes - If you have a kiddie pool or just a bucket, you can dump some ice-cubes into it and compete to be the most effective fisher, catching as many ice-cubes as possible but with your feet!

Ice-cube brigade - In this game, teams compete to be the most effective in carrying ice-cubes from a common bucket to their respective jars. Only hands can be used to transport the ice-cubes and the team that gets the higher final volume of water wins.

Wet potato - As in hot potato, players stand or sit in a circle and pass around a water balloon. If a player fails to keep the water balloon “alive” or if he or she intentionally makes it explode by throwing it too hard, he or she is called out and leaves the circle. The last person standing (still dry!) wins the game.

Sprinkler-jumps - If there is a rotating sprinkler, kids can form a circle within water reach and try to jump each time the stream comes their way. The last one to get wet wins the competition. If you have a single child and you and your spouse  can catch your breath after a few jumps, you can set your child a goal, for example completing 10 jumps before getting hit by the sprinkler.

Wet tag - Just as regular tag, the only difference being you get tagged when you are hit by a water balloon or touched with a wet soft sponge so wet = tagged.

We still have one more game to suggest you, but we will leave it for tomorrow.

It is official, summer is here. If there’s something we all associate with these warm times is outdoor fun. No matter where you are headed for your home exchange vacation, it’s time to enjoy the fresh air and the sunny days. No one knows more about having fun outside than children, they just love it, don’t they? And they have the ability to imagine the most incredible games, but sometimes they come to us for suggestions. So, to give you some ideas to keep the little ones entertained while you enjoy your home swap stay we have a few tips.

Bike Photo Hunt - Find a bike rental (if your home exchange partner does not have bikes and has agreed to let you use them), get a few disposable cameras and engage your kids in a Photo Scavenger Hunt. You may not even need the bikes, having their own cameras could be just enough to keep them excited while they go photo hunting. This is a good idea if you want to get to know the new neighbourhood by taking a walk around but you think they will get bored (and tired) if they have to walk for too long. Just think of an interesting list of things worth “hunting” on film.

Shape Scavenger Hunt - Another good idea that can keep your children entertained during a walk. Get them engaged in another kind of scavenger hunt: have them look for shapes. Having prices could be a good way to attract the least enthusiasts and the list may look like this: Find 2 circles, 2 squares, 2 rectangles, 2 triangles, 1 oval, 1 spheres, 1 pyramid, and 2 cubes. If you have younger children, then make it a Colour Scavenger Hunt.

The Navigator(s) - When you are on vacations, you have more time to do things,  so something simple like walking to the get the groceries becomes an enjoyable activity rather than a duty. This game will allow your children to play a game while they tag along. The idea is to have them take the navigator role during your walk: The navigator can trace your route on a map and periodically report in which direction you’re walking (learning to use a compass can be a lot of fun!) and how far you’ve walked (how many blocks). This is much more fun if you plan several stops and have them give you directions after “studying” their map.

This post is so much fun we will continue with more ideas tomorrow.

Some home-exchanging families will be be taking their children with them on holiday. When evaluating whether you want to accept a home exchange request or not, the question of children is something that requires consideration.

If you are not a parent yourself, you will need to think about the suitability of your home for potential exchange partners and their kids. For example, do you have a lot of breakables? Do you have expensive carpets that are difficult to clean? Are there any unprotected high-points from which a young child could fall? Do you have an open fire or a swimming pool? Do you have crockery that can be used by all, or do you only have precious plates and glasses?

Do you have a bath-tub? This can be an important consideration as sometimes children are not yet able to use the shower. Do you have any toys or games, whether they be computer learning games or physical toys?

If you are a parent hoping to do a home exchange with a user from a child-free home, it’s also very important to think about your compatibility. If you have babies, you’ll be able to take all the paraphernalia that you need with you, and also contain the possible mess made. However, with toddlers upwards, you’ll need to make an assessment. Will they be able to manage with the facilities in the prospective home? Is there a high-risk of breakage? Will they be amply entertained with the pass-times available? Will they be within close enough reach during the night-time?

The best thing to do is to look at the photos of the prospective house, and then have a talk with the prospective home exchange partners. You need to ensure that both parties will be comfortable and that the prospective home meets your family’s needs!

Home exchange is a great opportunity to go on a cultural holiday. This can be a fundamental part of enriching your children’s development. For those culture vultures out there that really like to explore the history, old buildings, grand churches and the archaic historical sites, doing a home exchange in a rustic part of Europe is a brilliant opportunity.

But do children really enjoy it? There is plenty to be gained from visits to cultural sites, and it’s evident that they can really capture their imaginations in a way that all the interactive media in the world could never do.

However, if they’re really little, then they’re not yet capable of making these mental leaps, and can end up getting very tired, bored and unhappy, especially when they’re far away from what is familiar.

So a way of combining educational visits with something more fun is to go to a farm. There are some really impressive antique farm houses that are still alive and kicking in mainland Europe, especially in France. It’s a great chance for little children to make the connection between the brightly coloured cartoon animals in their young learners books, and the bigger, life sized, smelly noisy real farm-yard animals. Not only do they get to learn the names, sites and smells of all kinds of farm-yard paraphenelia and life-forms, but they also get to see the processes behind the scenes. These can be really fascinating, engaging, and children tend to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

So if you’re hoping to do take advantage of the cultural nature of a home exchange, then bear in mind a farm trip as a fun and educational day out for the children.

What´s the best way to bring up a child?

I haven´t got the faintest idea. Nor do I trust the opinions, formulas nor the instincts of the majority of people.

So what do we do? How do we give our children every opportunity possible to grow, develop and become better versions of ourselves? Or just better…people. (It´s not really about perpetuating our own selves into immortality, is it, grumble grumble… All this they told us about furthering our own genes was a big trick! A trap!)

But seriously, it´s difficult. I know a few people, brilliant, wise, kind, people who have horrible devils for children. Wild, untameable children. There is definitely something that is out there to defeat us. Some rogue gene that we never knew we carried, but that bode its time and struck just at the moment we made our lives more complicated then they had ever been before.

And even if they are calm, well behaved little devils, every day we are confronted with difficult decisions. Be lenient, be strict, explain candidly or sugar-coat until they are more emotionally developed. Make them happy or make them responsible, let them make their own mistakes, let them learn from other people, oh god oh god it´s all so confusing.

But one thing that we can do is expose them to lots of different ideas, sights, sounds, smells and people. Taking a family on holiday is usually expensive. And it´s so important that children have the chance to see a different country. They find it so overwhelming and wondrous when they do get to see other parts of the world. Filling them with awe not only helps them develop intelligence, knowledge, a bank of experience, but it also spurs on their imagination. But with home exchange this is all possible, on the cheap!

For me, the most important thing of all is that they learn that people from other cultures are not WEIRDOS. Taking a child on a foreign home exchange can be so fruitful for their development that they can even begin learning a new language. But even if this doesn´t happen, they learn an incredible amount about different cultures and countries. They learn that people from different places aren´t simply a “concept”, but a living reality of people. People who are just as normal as they are.

This is a fundamental aspect of a brilliant mind. Being open. And the best way to help your child maintain and cultivate their unjudging innocence, is to flood them with pictures and pieces of the world around them. Home exchange puts you in touch with the world and helps your children connect.

In the days before 24 hours news, people tended to worry less, let´s say. Going out bike riding in the country wasn´t riddled with so many dark fears of harmful predators lurking in the bushes. Similarly, the reign of the indoor multimedia exercise-killers wasn´t so rife. Video-games, DVDs, television, games consoles and the internet weren´t there to distract us and our children from getting outside into the clear air in order to enjoy being alive. But now, times have changed. It is often reported that our children are a little on the flabby side, unfit, and declining in strength and motivation. So taking your kids away on a holiday is something that can not only stimulate their interest in sport and outdoor activities, but it can also spark their interest in playing and seeing children and things from different parts of the world. Just by playing with kids, and showing them new sites, smells and sounds, you set astir their imaginations.

Home exchange is a very safe and cheap way of taking your kids abroad. You can watch over them in the home, go on bike rides together, go and see the local sites, integrate into the local neighbourhood so that they can make new friends…

In order to maximise your trip if you´re travelling with children, we suggest that you:

Plan lots of breaks in the activities that you do, and aim for less activities than you would if you were only going with adults.

Make sure you include plenty of stops for meals and drinks to stave off dehydration and keep the energy levels up.

Keep the adult activities for the morning, and do the less demanding children´s activities in the afternoon.

Take advantage of the local activities such as swimming, parks, playgrounds, theme parks, cinema or attractions.

Plan relaxation time for yourself. Remember to organise some activitites where your children are looked after by other people, or playing with other children, so that you can pack in a break for yourself too.

If your children aren´t yet at school age, you can always take a holiday outside of the peak seasons. Home exchange is flexible and you can do it whenever is convenient for you and your exchange partner. This way you can get cheaper flights, and attractions will be at off-peak rates.

Involve the kids in the planning of the holiday. Whilst taking a vacation is very exciting, it can sometimes make children a little nervous, especially if they find changes in routine difficult. So often it can be a good idea to show the children some photos beforehand, and get them involved in the planning. If you´re going to a foreign country, you can teach them some words and phrases before you go. This way, they can really get engrossed in the trip. They can point out to you things that appeal to them, and this way you can make plans that will keep everybody entertained.

So, Europe. What does it have to offer? France. Spain. Italy. Germany. England. Romania. Poland. To name but a few of the choice cuts of the continent. Whether it be the impassioned political fervour of the French, the darkly elegant style of the Italians, or the striking openness of the Dutch, you have to admit - there´s a wealth of culture over there. And how exquisite it would be to understand the seamless poetry of Dante, the tortured prose of Proust, or the emblematic tales of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra´s Don Quijote, in their original versions.

The best way to learn a language is to get yourself in a country where it is spoken. This way you really drench yourself in the culture, you are constantly absorbing new vocabulary from the road signs, the posters, the conversations you over-hear on the metro – and most importantly of all – you make friends you can talk with.

When I was a child, we did a house exchange with a Belgian family. We stayed in their house for four weeks. All my brothers and sisters were older than me, and whilst I had a fabulous time playing with the new doll´s house that I found, eventually I wanted some company of my own age. It just so happened that there was a little girl living in the house next door. Lea, her name was. She was taller than me, wore brown buckle-up shoes, and spoke no English. And we had the best time together. Even now, I remember going with her to buy chips from the local chip shop (chips dressed with a particular sweet and sour cream that I´ve never been able to find anywhere else in the world), dressing up to perform a play for her parents, and going cycling in the velvety forest with her school friends. While I don´t remember being conscious of speaking French, it was certainly the language we spoke in, and as all children do with languages, I took to it like a duck to water.

And I now see just how wonderful and welcoming that small community was. The neighbours especially, welcoming strangers into their houses, looking after a little foreign girl, helping the slightly eccentric English family make friends and feel welcome in a different city. For the rest of my family, living in that neighbourhood for a month was the perfect way to really practise their French and make exciting new friendships.

If you´re interested in European culture, and are looking for an opportunity to practise or to learn a new language, doing a home exchange is the ideal way to do this. You get delivered right into the marrow of the community – socially, culturally, and most crucial of all - linguistically.

So if you´re a dab hand for languages, or if you just want to practise some French asking for a croissant and a white coffee while you read the paper in a quiet café in Bordeaux, a home exchange ensures that you´ll make new friends and not only see, but really live the new culture.