3 Kids and Us

3 Major Benefits of Educational Vacations with Kids

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Planning where to go on a family vacation is always a major undertaking. While you want to go somewhere the kids won’t be bored silly, you also want to take a much-needed break that you so deserve after all the hard work you’ve put in this year. Actually, you can accomplish all that and so much more if you plan an educational vacation with the kids. There are at least three major benefits of educational vacations, but when you stop to think about it, you’ll find many more as well!

1. Real Quality Time Spent Together

One of the great things about educational vacations is that you really need to spend time with the kids. Instead of going to a beach where the kids will play in the sand and wade on the shore while you sip tropical drinks and get that tan you’ve been looking forward to all year, you will have to actually talk to your kids. Don’t think that just because you are visiting Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, or the Space Needle in Seattle that your kids will not be entertained.

These historic sites have been thrilling students, not just Norwich University master in history grad students, but kids of all ages, for many years. Even if you follow a tour guide around, you will find that your kids have plenty of questions and will babble your ears off in the process. What better way to spend quality time with your kids than looking at our heritage together and talking about how it impacts our lives today?

2. An Up-Close Look at History

In fact, just imagine that someday your kids might look back on this vacation as the inspiration for earning that advanced degree in history at Norwich University. It is one thing to study history and world events in a textbook, but it is something else altogether when you get an up-close look at the places where history was made. Sometimes it feels like we are letting our own history pass us by in this digital age, but a family vacation to some of the most important historic destinations can ground us for just a few moments in time.

3. Learning to Appreciate the Diversity of Other Cultures

Another way in which an educational vacation can benefit our children is to show them the cultural diversity of the peoples living on this small (and getting smaller!) planet upon which we live. Sometimes it only takes a trip to San Francisco’s Chinatown or a day in Little Havana (Miami) to see that our nation is comprised of people of all cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Instead of learning to fear and hate other people who differ culturally from our way of life, we can learn to appreciate the beauty and diversity each culture adds to this nation.

There are just so many educational places to visit and lessons to be learned that you will probably want to do this very same thing again next year, and the year after that. You can always take a weekend trip to the beach or an extended weekend camping, but how often do you actually get to go on vacation that demands you spend quality time talking together? This is that chance, so use it wisely – a vacation your kids will remember for many, many years to come.

Three Types of Music Teaching You May Want to Pursue

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If you love music, or play in a band at home or just with your friends and want to take your talents one step further, why not get into music teaching? If you are passionate about music, teaching it will pass on your passion to the next generation of music lovers and help them get the best out of music they can. Below are three different types of music teaching you may want to sink your teeth into, depending what you play and what your musical interests and experience are like.

Instrumental Music Teacher

If you play an instrument, you may want to help others with learning and perfecting their chosen instrument too. If you’ve played any instrument for a long time, you will know the ins and outs, and you’ll be getting paid to do something you love. You need a certain amount of patience with this job as new students can take time to learn; remember how hard it was for you and you will find empathy with them. All students need are encouragement and lessons, and scores to take home to practice every week. You can do this in schools such as Kent State, privately at your own home or travelling to learners homes, therefore it is a very flexible career you could even enjoy alongside your regular job.

General Music Teacher

If you are passionate about all kinds of performers and styles of music, you could inspire the same to your students. You can teach any age range depending on what suits you best and what age you’d like to work with. Not only will you help students create their own and learn to appreciate music more, but the appreciation you have for music will also deepen. Kent State University offers an online master’s in music education to get you started and understand how to teach music; all you need is the passion.

Choral Director

If you have an ear for vocal talent and you know what singer should be harmonizing with whom and what song suits an individual best, becoming a choral director could be your calling. If you know about tone, pitch and breath control whilst singing and can teach it to your choir, you can pass on your talents and skills and make something amazing. Whether you are teaching an individual or a whole choir how to be their best, you will be inspiring and helping singers achieve their goals and perform at their greatest. You can also see how your hard work has paid off during school concerts, and watch the proud parents marvel at their talented children and the confidence you have given them.

However you wish to pursue your teaching career in music, remember if you have the love for music, playing an instrument or singing, the rest will come naturally. Who knows, you could inspire and teach the next Adele or Ed Sheeran! The best part, you will be getting paid for doing something you love and teaching it to others.

Awesome Reasons to Study Gerontology

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Although no longer the largest segment of society, having been overtaken by Millennials, Boomers began reaching retirement age in 2011. When you consider that 26% of the total population of the United States is comprised of people born between 1946 and 1964, a total of 76 million people, you are looking at a huge segment of the population requiring senior services in every aspect of life. Gerontology, the study of all aspects of aging, offers a wide range of career opportunities. If you are considering pursuing an advanced degree, here are five awesome reasons to study gerontology.

1) Amazing Career Opportunities

Recognized as the leaders who are setting the standard in gerontology education, the University of Southern California is preparing graduate students to specialize in the study of aging in all aspects of life. From mental health counseling, nursing, and senior assisted living administrators, and even advisors on senior legislation, the number of career opportunities is almost limitless.

2) A Growing Demand for Experts on Aging

Consider for a moment the fact that there were 76 million people born in a 19-year time span. Simple statistics show that more than 10,000 people a day, each and every day of the year will reach retirement age. How many fields of study necessitate experts who can serve more than four million new consumers each year? You can continue working in your field while pursuing a master’s degree in gerontology at the University of Southern California online and be a part of the solution to such a great need.

3) Better than Average Growth Potential

Since there is such a great need and so few experts in the field to date, the growth potential is tremendous. You can look forward to a career with better than average growth potential which can see you working in administration to service the growing needs of an aging population. Again, from administrating a senior assisted living facility to overseeing a staff of geriatric home healthcare nurses to serving as advisors on aging to government bodies, this field will experience tremendous growth in the coming decades.

4) Seniors Deserve Specialized Care

As the second largest generation alive on earth today, you are looking at mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers who raised successive generations. They helped to build America into the superpower it is today and have cared for us through some of the darkest moments in modern history. Now, they deserve specialized care to serve their needs, don’t they? A master’s degree in gerontology will put you in a position to give back to a generation that gave so much to us.

5) You Can Make an Impact on Quality of Life for Seniors

Finally, and most importantly, as a graduate with a master’s degree in gerontology, you can make a difference in the quality of life seniors live. Not only will many need specialized healthcare but they will need emotional counseling, therapy, better living conditions and even economic support. As an expert in the field, you can help our seniors live a better quality of life.

Give our seniors back the dignity they deserve by learning advanced techniques in gerontology. These are only five of the awesome reasons to study for gerontology, but if you needed yet another, perhaps you should look at your own family.

Make Your Own Bacon in Three Easy Steps

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Bacon is one of the best food items to have at home, especially when you have kids. Bacon is easy to mix with other food items and work well in various recipes. You can serve bacon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still have the kids really excited about meals.

Even better, you can now make your own bacon at home, especially with electric smokers and the ingredients you need all very easy to find. We’re going to take a look at how you can make your own bacon in this article.

The Preparations

The only thing you need to make your own bacon is a good smoker. There are a lot of options on the market, from the more traditional charcoal smokers to electric smokers with advanced features. If you’re looking for a good one for home use and you are relatively new to smoking meat, read Brinkmann electric smoker reviews and pick one that suits your specific needs best.

You also need a few ingredients. Pork belly – with the skin removed – and some ingredients for the cure. The main ingredients are salt and sugar, but you can add pepper and curing salt too if you like. You can then add maple sugar, ground black pepper flakes, and even berries to add different flavors to your bacon.

Step 1: Curing

Mix the curing ingredients and apply the cure to your sliced pork belly. Use a rimmed baking sheet to make it easier. You want to cure the pork belly for five days to get the best flavor, but make sure you turn each slice once a day to get a more even flavor with every slice.

After five days, rinse and clean the pork belly. It now contains all the right flavors you want from a slice of bacon, so be extra careful when rinsing. You only want to remove excess cure or salt, not do a deep rinse.

Step 2: Smoking

Smoking cured pork belly is easier than you think. First, you need to choose the right type of wood chips to compliment the flavors of your bacon. I personally love apple or cherry wood chips for their sweet, smoky flavor.

Set the smoker to 175 degrees and smoke the pork belly slices for around 2 to 3 hours. Once you’re done, you have your homemade bacon ready for use.

Step 3: Cooking

Make sure you let the smoked pork belly rest for a while, and then refrigerate it for 4 hours before you cook the bacon. Slice thinner slices and fry the homemade bacon to a crisp. You will be surprised by the softness of it and how it is filled with flavors.

Homemade bacon also tastes fresher than frozen bacon. Since you can cure a set of pork belly slices for a whole week – bacon can be stored for five days without freezing it, and even longer when frozen – you can also make larger batches and have more than enough for different meals throughout the week. Once you make your own bacon, you’ll never want to buy frozen again.

How to Be a Superstar in the Field of Social Work

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Donating to a cause isn’t the only way you can contribute to the community. Here at Walk San Francisco, we also value those who volunteer and take action. There are a lot of programs you can help too, plus you can make a bigger impact by getting involved in helping the community.

You can contribute your time, your expertise, and your energy to helping a great cause. To help you get started with becoming a superstar when volunteering for a cause, here are some of the things you need to know.

Pick a Passion

One of the best ways to get involved in community movements and social work is by finding a cause that matches your passion. When you are passionate about something, you are more likely to do great things helping that cause.

Social work can be challenging; it is often more challenging than working in a corporate environment. Picking a cause that matches your passion is also a great way to overcome the challenges and remain motivated throughout.

As mentioned earlier, there is no shortage of movements and causes you can support. If walking, saving the sidewalks, and helping younger students keep their safe routes to school is what you love, be sure to check out our Volunteer page.

Work on Your Skills

A lot of our volunteers – and volunteers for other social movements – are people with an incredible education. Top universities such as Rutgers Online are now making masters in social work online programs more accessible too, which is why there is a growing number of students and professionals entering this field.

These online MSW programs are designed to equip future social workers with the skills they need to thrive in any environment. You will learn to be more empathetic, study how you can listen to others and understand them better, and master other things such as project management and personal development.

These are skills that can be trained. There are also a lot of short courses and programs by non-profit organizations that will help you improve these skills. To be a superb social worker, you must maintain that drive to learn new things and be better.

Go Digital

We can’t separate social work from digital communities these days. Digital marketing – and the internet in general – is one of the best ways to raise awareness and capture the attention of stakeholders. Having the ability to promote movements, advertise activities, and get people involved beyond the boundaries of social media will make you a fantastic social worker in many ways.

More movements need to go digital and take advantage of internet marketing. More importantly, digital marketing is much more measurable – and cost-effective – than any other form of promoting the cause. Will you be that final piece of the puzzle that helps your cause go digital? We’re certain that you will.

The things you achieve as a social worker are things that affect the lives of thousands around you. Work towards becoming a fantastic social worker and you will have that ability to create a bigger impact in the society.

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We left our home in Sydney, Australia many moons ago in May 2012 and, other than a brief stint back in Perth for Christmas and a wedding in early 2014, we have been travelling the world nomadically ever since, running a business from our laptops and we’re here to show you how to do it!