Having a hobby is important for people of all ages, giving us the opportunity to spend our time in a way that we love. For children, however, having a hobby isn’t only fun but also has a big impact on learning and development, helping to build confidence and widening knowledge and experience. If you’re looking for a new hobby to introduce to your little one, take a look at these five IDEAL children’s hobbies that both girls and boys will love!

Arts and crafts

Art and crafts is a popular choice of activity for children, and it’s easy to see why. Aside from encouraging creativity, arts and crafts allow your child to practice fine motor skills, develops problem solving abilities, and engages all of the senses. It’s easy to do, too. Many supplies can be found or made within the home, while wholesale suppliers offer discounts if you need to buy a lot of materials in bulk for one or more children.

Kinesthetic learners will thrive with arts and crafts, helping them build confidence and self-esteem for later life. Children who enjoy creating art may also continue to do so into as they grow up, giving them a brilliant hobby, and one that can be turned into a profession, to cherish throughout their life.

Dancing

Dancing can be one of the best activities for your child to do in their spare time. The obvious benefits of dance include reduced risk of childhood obesity, healthy blood pressure and lower likelihood of developing health issues. Dancing can also develop your child’s strength and endurance, and help to build teamwork skills from dancing in a group. Best of all, you’ll love picking out the adorable dance clothing and ballet costumes for your child’s new hobby!

Gardening

If you or someone else in the family is prone to a spot of gardening, it’s more than likely you’ve enlisted your little one for a bit of assistance in the past. Getting kids involved in gardening makes for the perfect hobby, engaging the senses while teaching responsibility and patience. Having your child plant and nourish their own fruit and vegetables also encourages healthy eating and a respect for nature due to a sense of pride they feel from monitoring the process from seed to plate.

Sports

Any activity that keeps your child active is beneficial, making sports the perfect hobby for little girls and boys. Along with fitness and health benefits, participating in sports such as football, netball and tennis improves children’s coordination, self-esteem and social skills. Sport also encourages children to spend more time outdoors, having a huge impact on their overall well being – and prying them away from the TV screen!

Reading

Think back to your childhood, and there’s bound to be a story or two that you just couldn’t get enough of! Reading is such a simple yet amazing hobby for children to participate in, improving concentration, imagination, language skills and educating your child on the world around them. If possible, dedicate a space in your home by creating a reading den for your child, giving them their very own space in which to sit back and relax with their favourite book.

It’s a common held belief that if you want to build a successful career, you need to be willing to commit to one location and one company. Far from it. Although building a career as you globe trot won’t be easy, and that’s a fact, it isn’t impossible either. By harnessing the power of the internet and social media then life sat in an office, typing away on a computer, staring at the clock, could be a thing of the past.

There is an alternative to spending each hour at work sat in a small confined office – you can travel the world and move up the career ladder at the same time, enriching your cultural horizons as well as your job prospects. Read on for 5 IDEAL ways to build a career while you travel the world.

Select a career that’s a good fit for traveling

The fact is if you want to build a career while traveling the world, you need to be realistic about your career path. There are some careers that are a fantastic fit for travelers, and others that being on the move is just not fit for. While a career as a journalist, a medical professional, or a chef tends to pair well with a life on the road, a career in hair and beauty, accounting, or childcare, does not. Serious about making a go of things on the road? Then you need to be selective about the type of career that you choose to undertake. Don’t just think about your passions – though these are the best place to start – but also think about the job that will pair well with a life spent exploring every corner of the globe.

Study on-the-go

Don’t fancy spending years at college getting a degree? Consider learning on the road. Thanks to the internet, learning remotely has never been easier. From courses about digital marketing and business management to degrees in nursing, you can learn almost anything remotely and getting a qualification at the end of it. You can learn a new skill from scratch, or you can expand your knowledge in a certain area. For instance, say you are in nursing and want to improve your skills, you can. Want to Do Something Unique with a BSN? Check out your choices by having a browse online. You can learn almost anything over the web, which means that you can travel and learn as you go. Ideally, if you are going to do an online degree or course while traveling, it’s best to choose one with recorded lectures and seminars, so that you can fit studying around your lifestyle.

Speak a second (and third) language

Can you speak a second or even a third language? If the answer is yes, you will find building a career as you travel much easier. The fact is that getting hired abroad is much, much easier if you speak the local language. Of course, you can’t learn every language in the world, but one or two additions to your mother tongue stand you in good stead across the globe. According to research, the three best languages to learn are Spanish, French, and Arabic. If you can master even one of these, you will find that working abroad and building a career becomes that little bit easier. For anyone that wants to work abroad, being able to speak a second language can be a vital skill and one that can propel their progress.

Build a global network

What does having a global network mean? It means having contacts all over the world in a range of industries. The fact is that you never know you may need to call on, which is why it’s so vital to build a global network, made up of all manner of contacts. What you want to do is find a contact for every possibility. So that should you want to move into commercial banking in Dubai, you have a contact for that. Or, imagine you want to break into the photography industry in Paris, you have a contact for that. Say you want to work in medicine in India, you want to have a contact for that. The more hooked up you are in terms of the contacts you have, the better. Once you begin traveling regularly, you will need a global network, so it pays to take the time both building bonds and cultivating new ones.

Create a blog

Building a blog isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great option if you have the skills to write about and photograph your travel. Not only can a blog showcase what you are getting up to in each area of the world, but it can also be a great second income source. Build your blog up, including its concurrent social media channels, and you can earn money from your blog and its social pages. Yes, really – you can earn a good amount of money from blogging, some people even live (and travel) purely off of their blogging income.

So, it is possible to build a fantastic career while you are traveling, it’s just a case of knowing the steps that you need to take to do so. It won’t always be easy, of course, but being able to work and travel at the same time, doing something that you love, makes all the time, effort, and hard work that goes into building this kind of career worth it.

Living in a home while you are undergoing major renovations is never much fun. Some projects can take months to complete and in the meantime, your home is upside down and back to front. You will have to deal with endless contractors traipsing in and out of your home, dirt, dust, and debris. Of course, the easiest thing would be to move out and wait until the job is done before you take up residence again, but if you have a beady eye on your budget, this won’t be an option.

Unless the property is being rebuilt from the ground up, or the plumbing and power are disconnected, there is no reason why you can’t continue living at home with major work going on. So long as you have at least one room to live, eat, and sleep in, you can cope.

The biggest problem will be excessive noise and dirt. For a house-proud individual, this is never easy to live with, but there are ways and means to protect your living space from the chaos of a major renovation project.

Mark Your Space

Be very clear from the beginning about which areas of the house are off-limits to contractors and workmen. Most contractors are respectful of their client’s homes, but there will always be some who think it’s OK to wander through your living room in search of a kettle. Stick a sign on the door that clearly says: “Off Limits” to avoid confusion.

Screen the Entrance

Keeping doors closed will help to eliminate the worst of the mess, but it may not be enough if there is a ton of dust. Use dust containment screens and plastic sheeting to prevent dust traveling into your living space. Temporary poles, dust sheeting, and double-sided tape will help keep your living, sleeping, and eating areas clean.

Protect Flooring

Put plastic sheeting down in areas where contractors walk through. Most contractors will do this as a matter of course, but it is worth asking in advance of the start date to ensure your carpets and wooden floors are protected. It may be worth lifting carpets and storing them out of the way if you have a particularly expensive carpet. Expensive carpets can be re-laid relatively cheaply, but they are a lot dearer to replace.

Have a Decontamination Zone

Create a decontamination zone where you have a space to remove dirty shoes, outerwear, and hats before you enter the main living quarters. This is especially important if your renovation project is taking place in bad weather. The last thing you want is to have to clean mud that’s been tracked everywhere.

Have Separate Contractor Areas

Provide a kitchen area for workmen to make hot drinks and eat their food and if you don’t want them using your family bathroom, rent a portable restroom for the duration of the project.

It’s not easy living through a major renovation project, but it can be done if you follow the above tips. The alternative is to rent a mobile home and park it on-site so you have somewhere separate to go, away from the mess.