Clay Pot Reindeers - super Christmas craft idea!

Here's a quick video to watch with a super group or family craft idea for Christmas this year:
Clay Pot Reindeers

Film Reviews

If you are planning to treat the kids to the cinema or a dvd this summer check out Commonsensemedia first. Commonsensemedia includes not only film reviews, but breakdowns of violence, sexual and language content aswell. Each reviewer also suggests the age classification that they would put on the film. Hopefully this should help you find films suitable for your children.
There are also TV programme, book and game reviews.
You can sign up to receive regular e-mails or just choose to browse the site.

It's good to be green

In today's world we are all keen to teach our children to protect the world around us. With this in mind the BBC have launched a program on their Cbeebies channel called Eco-beebies to spread the word to even the youngest of children that it is good to be green. While I'm not a huge fan of TV this one has been a hit with even my 2 year old.

Even if you can't catch the television programme be sure to check out the excellent website.

I'm currently printing the 'green star chart' for the children of our home school co-op and I'm sure we'll also be making our own mini garden at home.

If you need more ideas to help spread the 'green message' to your children, don't forget to check out our Recycling For Kids section.

Craft inspiration

I came across this website recently with the most wonderful art and craft projects. Some are quite involved and more suited to older children but there is plenty for younger children to have fun with too. All the projects are clearly explained with great photographs. I especially liked Project #12 Watercolour Flowers and Project #20 Monoprints and can't wait to try these out at home with my family.

Craft projects by Arounna Khounnoraj

Finger Knitting Fun

We have been having fun playing with wool recently. While my 10 year old can now knit quite well (thanks Grandma!), my other children still found it frustrating. However this frustration was solved when we discovered finger knitting. We started with single finger knitting which is very simple, all you need is yarn (thick yarn gives best results) and fingers! There is an excellent demonstration here:



From this we progressed on to four finger knitting - this is slightly more demanding but gives you a more versatile end product (think toy scarves instead of belts!). These two videos show different techniques for finger knitting - personally I prefer the second method but just love the presentation in both...





I now make sure that we have some yarn with us for long car journeys and have a simple way to keep children occupied. Why not give it a try?

NB: Please do not allow your children to browse video sharing sites unsupervised!

Paper-making fun

There is a wonderful step-by-step photo tutorial on making handmade paper shapes at The Artful Parent blog. Making paper by hand is a fun process and these shapes are a perfect introduction.

Handmade Paper Shapes Tutorial

They would look great as gift tags or as decorations on one of our printable cards: printables at Activity Village.

Hanukkah for Kids

If you are celebrating Hanukkah, or would like to learn something about this Jewish festival of lights which begins on 4th December this year, head over to our brand new Hanukkah For Kids pages, where you will find:

Hanukkah crafts - a brilliant collection of crafts from Sarah and Jack, including this fantastic Menorah banner

Hanukkah coloring pages

Hanukkah printables - writing paper for all ages and some printable crafts

Hanukkah cards to print and color

Hanukkah puzzles

Hanukkah links - other fun Hanukkah activities to enjoy with your children from around the web.

Online fun with this newspaper page generator

Your children will have fun with this online generator: simply type in your own date, heading and words and click "generate" to product a newspaper graphic like this one. The possibilities are endless! Perhaps you could use it for school projects, invitations, birth announcements, congratulatory messages, birthday cards...
Online newspaper generator

Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and some new craft ideas

Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, will be celebrated on 9th November this year, and we have updated our Diwali pages to include new Diwali recipes, crafts and links to some excellent pages elsewhere on the net. This is one of our newest crafts - a simple clay diya (lamp) which even the youngest children can enjoy.



Simple diya craft

The Potato Story - (educational) fun for kids!

The Potato Story is a fun, interactive initiative by McCain Foods to help children understand the origins of the food they eat, plant growth and nutrition. The website is based on the journey a potato takes from a farmer’s field to your fork to help engage school children in ICT, literacy and numeracy.



Targeted to Key Learning Stage 2 (7-11 years of age), The Potato story includes lesson plans, interactive games and quizzes and teachers’ notes offering guidance and suggestions for classroom activities based around each module’s theme. Along with recipes to try in the classroom or at home, children can learn through the characters Cheeky Ladybird, Bossy Butterfly, Lazy Caterpillar, Busy Bee and Jolly Hen.

In addition to the website, The Potato Story will also be accompanied by a re-designed London route master bus which will support the launch of the in-classroom teaching resource by visiting schools to add an experiential element to the programme.

The Potato Story supports the Year of Food and Farming (http://www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/), a government initiative aimed to get children interested in all aspects of the countryside, farming and food.

The idea for The Potato Story came from research commissioned by the British Heart Foundation which found that one in three children didn’t know that chips were made from potatoes! There will be no excuse for that now!

The Potato Story - (educational) fun for kids!

The Potato Story is a fun, interactive initiative by McCain Foods to help children understand the origins of the food they eat, plant growth and nutrition. The website is based on the journey a potato takes from a farmer’s field to your fork to help engage school children in ICT, literacy and numeracy.

Targeted to Key Learning Stage 2 (7-11 years of age), The Potato story includes lesson plans, interactive games and quizzes and teachers’ notes offering guidance and suggestions for classroom activities based around each module’s theme. Along with recipes to try in the classroom or at home, children can learn through the characters Cheeky Ladybird, Bossy Butterfly, Lazy Caterpillar, Busy Bee and Jolly Hen.

In addition to the website, The Potato Story will also be accompanied by a re-designed London route master bus which will support the launch of the in-classroom teaching resource by visiting schools to add an experiential element to the programme.

The Potato Story supports the Year of Food and Farming, a government initiative aimed to get children interested in all aspects of the countryside, farming and food.

The idea for The Potato Story came from research commissioned by the British Heart Foundation which found that one in three children didn’t know that chips were made from potatoes! There will be no excuse for that now!

The Potato Story

Littlest Pet Shop - games, printables and ecard fun

We think the Littlest Pet Shop characters are really cute, and enjoyed playing the online games and doing some sweet coloring pages at the official site, here.

If you want still more Littlest Pet Shop coloring pages, have a look at our Coloring Page Database listing.

Littlest Pet Shop coloring pages

Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning..

Kids asked to physically gesture at math problems are nearly three times more likely than non-gesturers to remember what they've learned.

In today's issue of the journal Cognition, a University of Rochester scientist suggests it's possible to help children learn difficult concepts by providing gestures as an additional and potent avenue for taking in information.

"We've known for a while that we use gestures to add information to a conversation even when we're not entirely clear how that information relates to what we're saying," says Susan Wagner Cook, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at the University. "We asked if the reverse could be true; if actively employing gestures when learning helps retain new information."

It turned out to have a more dramatic effect than Cook expected.

Read more

Monarch Butterflies, Migration, Mexico and More!

This fascinating website offers an insight into the amazing annual migration of the monarch butterfly from the US to Mexico - and a lot more besides! Written specially for kids, there is a wealth of information to discover and some beautiful pictures too. We particularly enjoyed the slideshows and booklets looking at the life of various Mexican children.

Journey North for Kids

And if you feel like spending some more time looking at butterflies, you will find a collection of butterfly coloring pages and a butterfly mobile craft at Activity Village.

Bible Stories for Kids - fantastic new web resource!

We have just spent an hour exploring this fantastic new website, Friends and Heroes, based on animated Bible stories for children. There are a number of episodes online - of which you can watch snippets - but within many of the episodes you will also find charming animated videos of some of the best-known Bible Stories, such as Daniel in the Lion's Den, Samson and Delilah etc.

We were fascinated by the "Time Travellers" section of the website, which gives plenty of historical background information on the period. There are also numerous printable puzzles and quizzes, coloring pages, posters, calendars and an excellent collection of worksheets to accompany each episode. Highly recommended.

Friends and Heroes

Polar Bears - very cute printables, new from Jan Brett

Jan Brett has just published a new book, The Three Snow Bears, and has launched some new activities on her website, including these very cute printable pages of illustrated facts on polar bears and in Inuit people - well worth printing out. You will find a lovely coloring page too.

Polar bears information printable

Movie reviews

If you are ever unsure whether you should let your children watch the latest film at the cinema or on rental, then check out this website:

Kids-In-Mind: Movie Ratings That Actually Work

It includes amazingly detailed reviews of many films, rating them for sex and nudity, violence and gore and profanity. (Check out the Ratings FAQ for detailed explanations of how these are assessed.) This can then help you determine whether the film is suitable for your children to watch. A very useful resource.

On-line drawing lessons

We just came across these wonderful on-line drawing videos by the well-known author and artist, Jan Brett. They are very detailed and may provide great inspiration for an older child. My 9 year old especially loved the Dolphin video.

Jan Brett's videos

And more stories!

This site features a super collection of stories, read aloud by assorted actors. Watch and listen to the story, and then print out the related downloadable activity book to keep the children happily occupied and entertained.

Storyline online

Stories, stories, stories!

This page from CBeebies pulls together all sorts of stories which you can enjoy with your kids - whether you are watching and listening online or printing out and colouring. This is a brilliant page to have up your sleeve from the long summer holidays!

Stories and Rhymes