Become a Junior Ranger Online

The National Parks Service in the United States has a cool program called the Junior Rangers, where kids can complete activities and learn about the parks they visit and earn a patch or a passport stamp.

While kids are at home, the service has collected all the Junior Ranger activities that can be completed remotely. Kids can become Junior Suffragists by exploring the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality Monument online, or learn about protecting the Great Lakes to become a Junior Ranger of the Great Lakes (perfect for Earth Day!) among many other opportunities.

There are even some experiences that are not tied to specific sites, like this one for Junior Rangers in space. These will be fun for kids to explore on their own or learn along with you. Being a Junior Ranger has no age limit!

[Photo: National Parks Service.]

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Celebrate Earth Day with Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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