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The Mother Lode of Father’s Day Ideas
Ask a random stranger in early May about plans for Mother’s Day, and he or she can likely give you a full itinerary for the day, including church with Mom, lunch with Mom, flowers for Mom, and gifts for Mom.
Ask the same random stranger in mid-June about plans for Father’s Day, and you’ll probably get something like this:
Awkward silence. A contrived cough. Crickets chirping.
Because, let’s face it: Father’s Day just doesn’t get the same kind of respect.
Now some will immediately chalk that up to a cultural assault on fatherhood, which I won’t dispute exists, though I don’t necessarily think the less-than-stellar celebration of Father’s Day is the best evidence of it. Mom and home are always closely connected, and so I wonder sometimes if celebration of mom is also celebration of all things nostalgic. Plus moms make gift-giving easy for their children! Sappy tears and a bright, emotional response to kisses and hugs and simple gifts make celebrating mom pretty effortless in many ways.
Men, on the other hand, can be more of a challenge, only because they’re different from us in all the incredible ways God intended. Though most of them don’t necessarily pine after fresh flowers or weep uncontrollably at the sight of a crayon-scribbled card, (not to say it could never happen!) they deserve all the love and appreciation we can shower on them on their special day.
So whether you’re in search of some information about Father’s Day or looking for simple gifts or easy crafts to commemorate the day, you’ve come to the right place! Call this Father’s Day Central:
The Mother Lode of Father’s Day Ideas
Father’s Day Gift Ideas
So you’re thinking a tie, right? Maybe a coffee cup. Argyle socks. I’m not knocking those choices (I’ve pulled out a couple of them myself a few times), but you can probably come up with some more original ideas.
Father’s Day Gift Ideas for Dads at Church, Co-Op, Etc.
If you’re buying Father’s Day gifts en masse, for all the fathers in your church, for example, or those in your homeschool co-op, you’ll need different gift suggestions than if you’re buying only for your own father. Here are some suggestions for “group” gifts that are fun and inexpensive. (Some are more expensive than others. Of course, you’ll need to choose based on how many dads you’re buying for and how much you have to spend.)
Father’s Day Gift Ideas for Your Own Dad or Your Children’s Dad
Edible Tackle Box
But when you’re looking for a gift for your children’s father, (or maybe even your own,) here are a few gift ideas I count among my personal favorites is this Edible Tackle Box Isn’t this the cutest thing ever? And it’s easy to assemble and tasty too! Below is a link to the box and to some candies that are perfect for filling it!
Dad’s Stache Jar
And I mustache you a question. (And, yes, that’s a bad joke. An old, bad joke even. Forgive me.) But have you ever seen a cuter idea for Father’s Day than this Dad’s Stache jar? I also like using these wire clamp jars too.
Mini Toolboxes
And I adore these Mini Toolboxes made from old mint tins using mini tin boxes
I always have such a hard time throwing away mint tins. I mean, they’re reusable! Well, this is a great way to put them to use. Just follow the step-by-step instructions, then fill with nuts and bolts, screws or nails, or any other useful things Dad might need to keep on hand.
But there are literally hundreds more ideas where these came from!
More Gift Ideas
Free Printables
If you’re looking for simple printables for Father’s day, you may like some of these:
History of Father’s Day
Maybe you were hoping you and the kids could learn a little something about Father’s Day. Did you know Father’s Day actually began in Spokane, Washington? Believe me, the Spokanians (if that’s a word) have not forgotten! Check out the Father’s Day Birthplace website for a history of the founding of Father’s Day. Find even more information here, including poems and quotes about Father’s Day as well as info about how fathers are celebrated around the world.
Unit Studies and Book Lists
- Interested in doing a unit study related to Father’s Day? Try out Whales Passing, a literature-based unit study dealing with the relationship of fathers and sons.
- This Father’s Day reading list offers even more great book options.
…………………………………………………..
There’s no excuse for neglecting Dad this Father’s Day! With a little time and forethought, we can come up with just what we need to make the dads in our lives feel as loved and appreciated as they are. Now. It’s time for this mom to get busy on gifts for a couple of very important dads…
How will you celebrate Father’s Day this year? What do you do to make the fathers in your life feel special?
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7 Must-Have Cybersecurity Apps for Android
These days, cybersecurity apps are a must-have. Cybersecurity apps protect you against security threats that might be quite costly. Vulnerabilities might arise as a result of a lack of awareness or laziness.
When slackers are linked to the internet, they are never safe. Nowadays, security is a top priority, and many third-party apps have worked to improve it.
The applications listed below will assist you in safeguarding your Android smartphone from online identity and security concerns.
1. SecurityAnywhere
Antivirus and malware protection with multi-vector protection against Trojans, keyloggers, phishing, spyware, backdoors, rootkits, zero-day threats, and advanced persistent threats. When utilizing the Internet, the built-in Identity & Privacy Shield prevents data from being stolen or taken, and the outbound firewall prevents viruses from stealing data.
It is among those cybersecurity apps for your android that you really need to look into. Cloud-based security eliminates the need to worry about or perform updates, ensuring that endpoints are always up to current.
2. Google Cloud Platform
The Cloud Platform is a collection of cloud-based services that can be used to build anything from simple websites to sophisticated applications.
3. Avast Mobile Security
Avast is an excellent software for protecting your Android phone from viruses and other threats. Avast is a trusted free antivirus for Android that warns you when spyware and adware are installed and intrudes on your privacy. The current Android malware has a detection rate of roughly 99.9%, with nearly 100% of malware discovered in the recent four weeks. This is one of the best cybersecurity apps for you if malware and safe browsing are your main concerns.
4. SafeDNS
Web security solutions to protect your organization and resources from data theft, phishing, botnets, and other malware.
5. MalwareBytes
Malwarebytes sophisticated security will safeguard your Android devices against ransomware, malware, and other threats.
It can effectively detect and remove hazardous threats before they compromise your device. While using the Chrome browser, Malwarebytes provides real-time protections and scans for even the most complex phishing URLs. It will also notify you if it detects anything unusual.
6. Secure Call
It protects your calls by ensuring that no one can hear them. Secure Call encrypts all of your private calls from beginning to end, preventing strangers from listening in.
Use Secure Call if you’re seeking for cybersecurity apps that provide end-to-end encryption for phone calls.
7. LastPass
With people having several accounts online and each account having a different password, remembering passwords is becoming increasingly difficult.
LastPass is one of the best password managers on the market, allowing you to save passwords for many accounts with additional protection layers.
NOTE:
Please note that we do NOT endorse any cybersecurity related app aforementioned. It is advised to design security measures as per your risk appetite and research/explore the subject matter thoroughly. If you find any ambiguities, please feel free to contact us!
Conclusion
I hope the cybersecurity apps listed above will assist you in keeping your Android mobile/devices safe and secure. On top of these security features, our readers would like to take a step further on securing their cell phone numbers. Efani would love to facilitate this new journey of securing our users against probable sim swapping vectors with our guaranteed protection and $5 million insurance.
8 Tips for Helping Special Needs Kids Transition from School Year to Summer
Many children have trouble making the transition from the school year to summer vacation. The same can be (and often is) true of transitioning from summer back to school in the fall. My oldest child (now an adult) has autism. For her, transitioning from one season to another (and even from one activity to another) was often a huge source of stress and anxiety. With years of experience, I’ve learned to minimize the stress and, thankfully, she’s mellowed as she’s grown up. It can still be stressful making transitions, though, especially with younger children.
Not only are our children (whether special needs or neuro-typical) transitioning from school year to summer, but they’re usually moving from a time of many hours of structured activities to many hours of free time–or at least much less structure. Even if you homeschool over the summer or homeschool year-round, you still may have a lighter schedule, so your children probably still have less structure and a more open and flexible schedule.
There are ways to help minimize the stress of transitioning from the school year to summer break, though. These aren’t magical methods for removing all anxiety from the change, but they are ways to help make it easier!
1. Talk about it ahead of time.
My daughter, even as an adult, is nonverbal. That does not mean, however, that she doesn’t understand what I say to her or that I don’t make an effort to help her understand. I do my best to talk to her about things just as I would talk with my other children. I think it’s important that we give our special needs kiddos the chance to receive information even if they don’t understand all of it. After all, they may understand more than we think! And it certainly won’t hurt to give them the chance to hear and understand, right?
For that reason, one of the easiest and best things we can do to help our kids make transitions is talk to them ahead of time. I suggest having a conversation a few weeks (or at least a few days) before making the change. There’s no need to go in-depth or make a big deal out of it (which may actually heighten your child’s anxiety). Instead, simply mention the kinds of changes that will be happening, and do your best to stay calm.
You might want to mention that your regular school year will soon be over. Talk about some of the special things you’ll be doing over the summer and when you’ll be doing them. Keep in mind, though, that it might be better to wait to mention anything (like a super fun summer vacation) that your child will want to do right this minute. 🙂 Sometimes our special needs kiddos don’t quite understand that the visit to the water park (or wherever else) is several weeks away. It’ll save stress on you and your child if you wait until closer to the time to mention it.
2. Let your special needs child choose some summer bucket list items to do.
If your child is able, let him or her suggest some things to add to your summer bucket list! These may or may not be educational activities, but they should all be fun activities that you can do together. These might include building things, art activities, cooking or baking, gardening, playing games, and more! You might also want to include some fun summer reading! Many younger children already love reading with parents or siblings. Even teens can enjoy reading with parents or with parents and teens from another family (sort of like a summer book club)!
If your child has a hard time verbally expressing what he or she wants to do, use pictures from magazines or printed from the internet to show some choices. Then go through the pictures together.
3. Talk about how much school work you will do over the summer (if any).
Let your child know about school work, therapy schedules, etc. For example, before my daughter graduated from our homeschool, we usually did a couple of hours of school work at least twice a week just to keep her busy and to make sure she didn’t forget important information and skills. We also kept going to physical and occupational therapy. At the beginning of the summer, I made sure she knew which days she would be doing school work and when her PT and OT sessions would be.
4. Keep as many routines as possible.
For my daughter, it was important for me to be consistent with bedtime even over the summer–at least as often as possible. I also tried to make sure she got up each morning at a fairly consistent time. She simply felt better and behaved better with consistent bedtimes and wake-up times. (She’s 25 now, and she still goes to bed and wakes up at about the same times each day!)
Another example might be allowing your child to keep morning routines or other daily routines from the school year. During the school year, my daughter knew she had to get up, brush her teeth and wash her face, and get dressed. She knew that, once she was up and dressed, we would spend 30 minutes or so reading together before having breakfast and doing school work. Then she would be allowed to play on the computer.
During the summer, we still got up, got dressed, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got her dressed. Then we took some time to read together. On “summer school” days, we then did school work. On “off” days, she got to go ahead and play on the computer. This kept our routine fairly consistent and helped her adjust. (Note: I was certain to let her know as soon as she woke up whether it was a “summer school” day or an “off” day.)
5. Plan some “down days” to help keep your child from being overwhelmed.
Even if you enjoy going and doing and being busy over the summer, it’s important for many children–especially special needs children–to have some “down days.” Try to resist the urge to cram every day full of places to go and things to do! For many children (and parents!) being too busy is overwhelming and can take the fun out of fun activities and make them stressful instead.
Maybe you and your children can take a day now and then to just stay home and take a break. Maybe you can read some library books, play in the sprinkler, or even watch a movie together and just relax.
6. Create a visual calendar or visual schedule.
Many special needs children and even neuro-typical younger children love using visual calendars! These are simply calendars with pictures instead of words so that they’re easier to understand for children who can’t yet read or don’t read well. You can print a calendar page or draw one on a poster board if you need more space. Then draw, cut out pictures, or even use photos to show activities, obligations (like doctor visits or therapy appointments), vacations, visits with friends, trips to the library or park, or whatever else you want to include!
If a month is too much information or is too overwhelming, do a week at a time instead. If a week is still too much, do a daily schedule instead! For a daily schedule, you will simply include drawings, pictures you’ve cut out, or photos to show the order of activities for the day. This way your child will still know what to expect, but he or she won’t be overwhelmed by a huge amount of information.
If your child needs to know farther ahead of time what to expect the next day, just go over the next day’s schedule each night before bed or whenever works best for your family.
7. Try to get together with friends–especially a close friend or two–now and then over the summer.
If you’re part of a co-op or club that won’t be meeting over the summer, try to plan times for your child to get together with a close friend or two from the co-op or club over the summer. Your child may not understand why the co-op or club isn’t meeting for a while, and knowing they’ll still get together sometimes may help lessen the anxiety of thinking about not having these regular meetings.
Be sure your child understands that co-ops and clubs don’t usually meet over the summer because many families go on vacations or do other things that cause them to be away from home sometimes over the summer but that, once summer break is over, things will get back to a familiar routine.
8. Create (or let your child help create) a back-to-school countdown chart or calendar.
You might choose something easy like a calendar on which you mark off the days. Or you could do something fun like popsicle sticks in a jar. (Start with one stick for each day of summer break and remove one stick each day.) Maybe you could make a paper chain with one link for each day of summer and simply cut off one link each day. If the countdown is something your child can participate in, it will be more fun and meaningful.
While making the transition from the school year to summer may still be a bit difficult for your special needs child, I’ve found these ideas to be very helpful for my family. Some of the ideas take a small amount of preparation, but all of them can be done easily and without spending a lot of money. And your children can help with most of these ideas, which helps make the transition more real and more fun!
Do you have suggestions for helping your special needs child (or typical children) transition from the school year to summer? If so, please share your ideas in the comments!
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