When the summer heat and humidity finally breaks it always signals the arrival of one of my favorite seasons, autumn. Just like every change of season I immediately think of all the great family traditions we have to look forward to with the upcoming months. This time around I am paying a bit more attention to these traditions rather than just going through the motions.
A recent read
One of my goals this year has been to read more. Read more for fun, read more for growing my mind, just read more. I recently finished reading Bruce Feiler’s “The Secrets of Happy Families”. I promised myself I wouldn’t keep a scorecard while reading the book, like a one point to the Verhoosel family for doing that right kind of mindset. Instead I dove into it as a buffet of ideas I could borrow and use in our home. And I found some good ones! Here’s one I want to share … family traditions are important!
Why do kids love family traditions?
Traditions give kids something to look forward to throughout the year. Sometimes it’s something you do each week (we always have pancakes on Sundays in our house) or something that happens around a holiday. These traditions create happy memories for families. Kids look forward to these days and they create special memories shared between your family.
Let’s make some memories!
Each summer my family makes a bucket list and we work our way through activities that we want to do together that summer. So I thought…traditions help build happy families? Let’s make a fall bucket list. Before you roll your eyes at me, hear me out. This is not a list of insane new things to do in an already busy fall. This is all the things you do together anyway!
Do you always go to the farm and pick pumpkins?
Add it to the list!
Do you carve the pumpkins together?
Go somewhere to pick apples?
Hand out candy together?
Add it to the list!
Go bold and add a few new ones, but don’t overwhelm yourself. This is more about a fun way for kids to track all the traditions your family does every fall. Don’t know where to start, check out our list of fall favorites on MTT Education Station for a starting point.
Want to create your own? There is an outlined list there for you to get started!
Most of all have fun creating your own family traditions and building memories with your family.
Tiffany Verhoosel is currently a Computer Science teacher in the Baltimore City School District. Coming from a background of business she joined the Baltimore City Teaching Residency over ten years ago to make the career change into education and has never looked back. Her degree from Johns Hopkins, a Master of Science in Digital Age Learning and Educational Technology, helped propel her from Special Educator to her current teaching position where she teaches Kindergarten to eighth grade students how to code.
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