How to Find a Babysitter in the Neighborhood

Holiday season is coming and it can be difficult to find a good babysitter. It is even harder if you have moved into a new neighborhood and don't know anyone. Here are some tips on how to find that person you need.

Many parents would rather hire an individual who is a 'known quantity' and familiar to other people in their neighborhood just simply because that familiarity breeds trust. If they know your babysitter than he or she has a bit of a support team at his or her disposal should something go wrong?

Finding a babysitter in your neighborhood is generally quite easy if you live in a suburb or smaller town that is friendly to families. However it can be a little more difficult if you live in a big urban area where teens and young people are known to have a rough time or in an area where there are not a lot of families. It can also be difficult to find someone if you are quite new to town and don't have enough acquaintances to find a babysitter via personal recommendations or 'word of mouth.'

Here are some simple ways to find the person you need as fast as possible.
• Place ads in your local classified, local gym, grocery store, church and YMCA.
• Take an ad to your local employment agent or youth employment agent.
• Call your high school and see if there is a babysitting club.
• Introduce yourself to the neighbours and see who they recommend and be very sure to ask many questions about his or her honesty, reliability and trustworthiness .
• Talk to your co-workers and see if they can refer someone to you.
• Keep your eye on the light posts, local bulletin boards and the bulletin board Laundromat. Babysitters often leave paper flyers with number tabs on them for you to call.

You can also find a sitter by going onto the Internet. One way to find a sitter in your area is to simply go to a popular search engine like Google or Yahoo and type in 'babysitter' followed by the name of your town. For instance if you live in Springville, you would type 'Babysitter Springville.'

You can also find a babysitter on Craigslist. This is one of the largest lists that exists that offers specific postings from specific neighborhoods all over North America.

Another option is to use your local social networking platform like Facebook or Twitter. Very often just putting up a status update such as 'Does anyone know where I can find a good babysitter?' will often get you immediate results!

Parenting Tips
, , , , , , , ,

Online Art Lessons for Free

Have you got a kid that is into art? Jerry's Artarama is a real store that been around since 1968 that is now online. It offers every single art supply you can imagine including brushes, canvas, colored pencils, easels, fabric paints, gold leafing supplies, gouache, inks, pens, markers, scratchboard, pastels, oils – you name it Jerry's Arterama has what you need to satisfy artistic kids.

Although Jerry's Artarama has everything that you could possibly imagine for sale it is also well known for it's online art lessons. Why pay for art school when you can just go to Jerry's Aratrama and watch videos on how to make art for absolutely free. At the time of writing there were approximately 550 free art video lessons on the site e. I have an artistic teenager who just sits and learns from these videos for hours. They are step-by-step in nature and you can freeze a video so you can work on your own project right along side of it while the video is running. Every art teacher who teaches kids should know about this site too!

You can find out on to do some really practical things like stretch canvas, prime canvas, make your own stretchers and so on. There is also lots of theory in with that practice. A glimpse at the most watched videos on the site reveals topics such as 'Blocking In', 'Sight Sizing a Car', How to Make a Pinch Pot', 'How to Use Cover Liquid Watercolor', 'An Introduction to Negative Space', 'Brush and Ink Gesture' and so on. Not only are you taught the technique but also the concept behind it. This site is addictive. I have spent hours on it.

These video lessons are taught by real artists who are art experts in their field. The lessons can also be searched on site according to the medium you want to research (watercolor, oil, pastel etc.), the skill level (advanced, all ages, beginner, intermediate or kids) and the subject area (as in cartooning, collage, color theory, underpainting, printmaking etc,)

The other great thing is that you can order these DVDs online. This is great for teachers of professional and amateur art classes who want to explain a certain artistic technique to a class. If you like making crafts and are thinking of making some for the holidays then take a peek at these videos! They are very educational.

Parenting Tips
, , , ,