Tag: kids
My favourite one is Just So Festival, Barnswood, Nr Leek, Staffordshire on August 20-22. The Just So Festival is a family arts festival, which has been dreamt up by two Macclesfield couples who’ve spent years visiting traditional festivals with their children and finding much of the entertainment to be off-limits. They’ve set up a camping weekend in 65 acres of unspoilt Staffordshire woodland where everything – from traditional fairground to artificial beach, from gypsy bands to top name authors – is aimed at giving children and their parents a magical experience.
Highlights from the programme will include music workshops from Manchester Camerata, Parkour training sessions from some of the UK’s top free-runners, following the Fairy Queen trail with the Fairyland Trust, and one of the organisers’ favourites, a party with the Moomins. Families will be able to go on this amazing journey of the imagination, participating in a medley of art, craft, music and theatre within a beautiful natural landscape. The experience of families going along to the Just So Festival will be a far cry from your average festival. Camping is in small woodland glades. There will be a bedtime noise curfew (though the local rabbits and hedgehogs may not comply), and a large and comfy nappy changing area with changing mats and wipes laid on. The loos will, of course, be lovely.
Here are some other family-friendly festivals:
JULY 14-18 Larmer Tree Festival, Wiltshire/Dorset Turning 20 in 2010, this small festival has won both “Best Family Festival”, giving families an opportunity to choose from fantastic programmes for Comedy, Film, Street Theatre, Adults, YouthZone, Kids, Spoken Word, or Everything together!
JULY 15-18 Latitude, Suffolk. Cute festival with mini-glasto overtones. With just two weeks to go, Latitude still pulls more names out of the bag. Unlike any other festival, Latitude has built its sterling reputation as a brave and pioneering event with a line-up like no other. Four arenas are dedicated to an exciting selection of musical talent from emerging bands, international stars and homegrown heroes, whilst the arts onsite command no less than thirteen arenas providing something for everybody.
JULY 22-25 The Secret Garden Party, East Anglia A weird and wonderful selection of artists will fill the Great Stage, Where the Wild Things Are stage and various other amusingly named venues. They provide the Garden and plant the seeds, but you nurture its life and allow it to blossom. It is your party – your creative participation allows the festival to rejuvenate & regenerate. The Secret Garden Party brings people together by removing all barriers – you will do things you never thought you had the nerve or bombast to do.
JULY 23-25 Womad, Wiltshire This festival offers a world of music with performers from as far afield as Ethiopia, India and New Zealand. Meanwhile, the World of Kids and the Children’s Parade will be one of the festival highlights. Enjoy children’s craft workshops, global market villages, an old-fashioned steam fair and food from around the world. Take WOMAD at a comfortable pace and spend a night camping in one of the ready-pitched tents that sleep up to 8 people and include airbeds and sleeping bags.
JULY 24-26 Camp Bestival, Dorset Winner of the Best Family Festival in the UK Festival Awards 2009, this baby sibling to the Isle of Wight’s Bestival takes place at the idyllic Lulworth Castle in Dorset. With 53 sleeps before Camp Bestival throws open its gates it’s not long until we can enjoy three full days of partying with Madness, Friendly Fires, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, The Human League, Calvin Harris, Stornoway and many ugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage Cafe, enlightened and erudite entertainment at the East Lulworth Literary Institute, Fairy Tale fancy dress, Zippos Circus, The House of Fairy Tales and much, much more.
AUGUST 6-7 Belladrum, Inverness-shire The Editors will headline the event, which takes place on Friday and Saturday. Other acts include Toploader, Peatbog Faeries and Ocean Colour Scene. A new one-man play, tackling the life of occultist Aleister Crowley, and Mr Methane “king of farts” have also been lined-up.
AUGUST 20-22 The Green Man, Brecon Beacons There’s a film tent, a campfire more musical pleasures. Plus there will be literally 100s of free things for kids to do, amazing food from the likes of Hfield, a science tent as well as Joanna Newsom, Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons. This year there’s a boutique babysitting service. If you need a well-earned break from the kids you can always use our new ground breaking Boutique Babysitting service, offering a bespoke and friendly babysitting run by fully qualified childcare professionals. For anyone who’s ever considered taking children to a festival – or for those that already do – The Boutique Babysitters are a new childcare company that has entered the festival scene to provide a bespoke, festival-friendly babysitting service. For the first time, parents can enjoy a care-free festival experience; content in the knowledge that their children are safe and professionally cared for, whilst the kids enjoy a fun-packed “mini festival” of their own at the Boutique Babysitting kids club.
AUGUST 27-29 Solfest, Cumbria There are only 5,000 tickets for this three-day festival that has a line up including James and the Magic Numbers. There are also plenty of children’s activities and the festival takes pride that tiny babies and many generations of the same family come back every year. Solfest is enjoyed by babies under and hundreds of toddlers, older children and teenagers – so it’s an experience for the whole family! Forget the music; this is the stuff that memories are made of!
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August 2, 2010
Through play, children learn the skills and knowledge needed for life; imaginative play encourages the toddler to use their mind and creative potential. Children can be taught to have the skills and knowledge to deal with life’s challenges and to solve problems creatively through being encouraged to be active in play that involves creativity, learning, investigation and discovery. There’s a saying “Give a person a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime.”
Imaginative Play
Play that is imaginative and creative will help the toddler to use their mind to find solutions to problems. One of the most important parts of imaginative play is for the child to pretend to be someone else or in different situations.
This type of play helps promote a toddler’s learning through using role play to develop their imagination. They will also be developing their emotional and social skills, sharing skills, manipulative skills, language and communication skills through this type of play. Not only this but it helps a child build on his or her self confidence and feelings of security.
Kids Play and Imagination
Through imaginative play, a child might run around, pretending he or she is a horse or a dog, an aeroplane or a train. At 3-4 years, they often do this on their own. At other times, an adult could encourage imaginative play so the child might explore new situations and fantasy worlds. This will help the child to explore their feelings and the world around them in a safe, supervised environment.
Children at this age are at Piaget’s preoperational stage. During the years from 2 to 6 Piaget saw the evidence of symbol use in many aspects of child’s behaviour. Children this age beginning to pretend in their play for example at age 2 or 3 or 4 a broom may become a horse, or a block may become a train.
Imaginative play, through building towers out of bocks, talking to and feeding their dolls, making tea with the tea set and dressing in grown-up clothes is important and should never be classed as trivial… Neither should soft toys or dolls be rejected as inappropriate for any age of either sex.
Examples of Imaginative Play Activities
Ask the children to make a pirate ship out of large cardboard boxes. They might make telescopes or binoculars out of kitchen tubes and a flag for their boat out of newspaper. Hats could be made and painted for them to wear while they’re at sea in their imaginary boat. How does this kind of play help in a child’s learning? As the children play with each other, they will be using their communication and language skills.
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July 24, 2010
100g summer sunshine
200g smiles on my kid’s face
2 tbsp Sunday chaos extract
50g adventure spirit
125g self-raising good mood
10 drops of fun
a handful of crayons
a pinch of travel wind
a pinch of “have-a-great-day” spell
secret ingredient
- Preheat your family “get-together on Sunday” mood to max (mark 6).
- Place the Sunday chaos on the bottom, draw the curtains and spread the summer sunshine evenly
- In a happy family car add the /secret ingredient/, tight well to the back seat, mix with a handful of crayons and 10 drops of fun, then whisk it, shake it, beat it… until stiff.
- Add the self-raising mood and the adventure spirit, a little at a time, whisking to incorporate, and then beat in the pinch of travel wind until well combined.
- Spoon into your day and bake for a few hours – until golden on top and overflowing with happiness. Sprinkle with the “have-a-great-day” spell and enjoy!
Have you guessed what the secret ingredient is? – Please share your suggestions below and stay tuned – something very exciting will follow soon!
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June 27, 2010
To celebrate the Child Safety Week 21st- 27th June GreenKiddie has teamed up with Graco Baby to hold a #kidstravelsafe Twitter party on Sunday, 27th June between 9pm – 10pm!
We’ll be tweeting about our challenges when travelling with kids, how to make the travel even more exciting for the children, so it can be enjoyable and less stressful for the parents. Most importantly, let’s talk about how to make our trips safe for the kids and the whole family!
Join us to share your travel stories, to get some great road safety tips, or just to have fun, chat to other parents and WIN great prizes from Graco!
How to join our #kidstravelsafe party?
- Log-in to your Twitter account (or create one if you don’t have an account yet)
- Type#kidstravelsafe in the “Search” field on “Home” tab. Click on “Save this search” so it’s easy for you to find it
- Click on your #kidstravelsafe saved search on 27th June, Sunday, at 9pm GMT and join the party!
- Follow us on Twitter: @greenkiddie and @GracoBaby_UK
When I ask a question, tweet the answer to me and make sure you always include the hash-tag #kidstravelsafe.
We’ll be giving away three beautiful and comfy Graco changing bags. The Graco Sporty Bag comes complete with changing mat and messy bag. It features – handy pockets, includes plastic changing mat, nappy wipes box and leak proof bag, insulated pockets and is machine washable.
Don’t miss it and tell your friends to join in, too!Let’s prove we care about our kids’ safety!
Child Safety Week is the Child Accident Prevention Trust’s flagship community education campaign. It aims to raise awareness of the number of accidents that seriously injure or kill children and how to prevent them.
Get Ready for the Road Ahead with Graco! Make your smart car-seat selection and learn how to make your trip better for the whole family!
Child Safety Week is the Child Accident Prevention Trust’s flagship community education campaign. It aims to raise awareness of the number of accidents that seriously injure or kill children and how to prevent them.
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June 19, 2010
GreenKiddie launches an online eco-store powered by Amazon. The brand new section will recommend carefully selected natural, organic and eco-friendly products for babies & children as well as for the whole family. The products are split by categories from nursing and feeding equipment to “green” cribs and highchairs.
Promoting the eco-friendly and toxic-free products we love is a great way to continue being helpful source of information for parents who consider natural living and the best care for their children. We believe that providing a “green”, natural care for your baby or toddler is best for your child, and it’s also great for the environment.
The “green” eStore will mainly promote products which are oxic-free, completely safe for babies and children, and have already proved their eco-friendly efforts. There will be a special space for mums and mums-to-be, where everything as pregnancy music for relaxation, books on natural and stress-free birth, organic clothing and fabulous organic cosmetics and beauty products will be featured.
GreenKiddie’s online store is a one-stop space for green products, where parents could find everything they need to raise their children naturally and eco-friendly. The same way GreenKiddie is a trustful online media for parenting advice, the hope is for the eStore to become a number one choice for parents to purchase “green” and toxic-free products for their families.
The payment process is trustful and secure and it’s powered by Amazon.
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June 17, 2010
At GreenKiddie we are starting a Green Mama Blog Carnival. Each month we will ask you to dig out your best “green” blog post on a specific topic. The idea of the Green Mums’ Blog Carnival is to share your tips, creative ideas and expertise around the mums’ community, but also to create traffic, links and comments for our blogs.
We would love to hear from you if your posts are 1/ relevant to the topic, 2/ published on your blog during the current month, and 3/ inspiring, informative or provocative.
The topic for our first carnival in July is: “Eco-friendly Summer Holiday with kids” – write about your tips and advice or about your funny stories. If you want to get involved in the July carnival, all you have to do is email a link to your post to info (at) greenkiddie (dot) co (dot) uk by 27th June and the carnival will be posted on the 7th July. Get immersed into the “green summer” theme and share your inspiration with us!
And don’t forget to read other people’s posts and comments when the carnival is published. I promise it will be interesting, helpful and fun!
If you are a brand-representative and would like your product story to be included in the Blog Carnival, please contact us on advertising (at) greenkiddie (dot) co (dot) uk.
We are also looking for interested mums bloggers to host the next edition of the Green Mama Blog Carnival. The August topic will be “Green (Handmade) Accessories”.
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June 8, 2010
I don’t have a favourite snack on the go – they are either yummy but too many calories, or healthy but not that tasty. 
Well, until now. Discovering the delicious Bear nibbles, I am amazed by the flavours and still 100% great-for-you ingredients in their products! There is nothing that I don’t like about Bear nibbles – strating from their website – easy to find what you need with funny grrraphics. I was then won by the packaging – so natural look and feel, clear design, and comfy size. Finally the magic of the taste: no other nibbles are like these!
I tried their delicious blend of whole grains and fruit baked into crunchy granola nibbles. The crispy granola Apple Crumble and Tropical Crunch were both so yummy! I can leave myself to the coconut flavour giving you a sense of exotic summer holiday – just what I needed! Digging into the pack, I found whole grain oats & maize, pineapple pieces, coconut (mmm), apple, grape (also cinnamon in the Apple Crumble one to warm up my senses) and absolutely nothing else! – No added sugar, no preservatives, no nonsense. As they say, 100 naked nature – huh, like that! Always in a hurry and always on the go, the Bear granola nibbles are my favourite
I need to be honest here – I know they are made to be eaten plain, but I also tried them with milk for breakfast and with yogurt as a desert – it was so yummy! I am happy because it’s healthy, so no guilt, and it’s also one of your 3 a day of wholegrains!
My little one was a bit jealous though – “Mummy, what are you eating? Why are you closing your eyes – is that that yummy? – I want to try, too!” So tried them as well as despite being a bit crunchy for her teeth (she is only two), she just loved it! But then I gave her something more suitable for her age to try (thank you, Bear, you have been so thoughtful to have snacks for kids, too). The oh-so-yummy yo yos in strawberry or peach flavour went just like this! As promised on the packaging, each yo-yo is one of kids’ 5 a day, so she had all her 5 at one go (there are two rolls in a pack)! I was wondering what’s inside the pack to make her that happy – apparently juicy peaches in a form of fruit pure with some mango, papaya, apple, pear for even healthier snacking…and sunny days! Hurray – healthy-tasty snacks for my little girl, too!
Why don’t you see for yourself? – It’s grrreat!
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April 29, 2010
GreenKiddie is holding a Twitter party on Sunday, 11th April between 9pm – 10pm!
We’ll be tweeting about what colic is, what causes colic in babies and how to treat it naturally.
Join us to share your thoughts, to seek advice, or just to have fun and chat to other mums. GreenKiddie will be giving away 3 prizes from BornFree, so don’t miss it!
How to join our #colic-free party?
- Log-in to your Twitter account (or create one if you don’t have an account yet)
- Type #colic-free in the “Search” field on “Home” tab. Click on “Save this search” so it’s easy for you to find it
- Click on your #colic-free saved search on 11th April, Sunday, at 9pm GMT and join the party!
- Follow me on Twitter @greenkiddie
- When I ask a question, tweet the answer to me and include the hashtag #colic-free
WHAT PRIZE YOU COULD WIN?
Twister brush set
The Twister Bottle & Teat Brush has an easy twist handle with a soft sponge to make cleaning faster and to eliminate the risk of scratching.
BPA-Free 9oz Baby Bottle twin pack
Twin-Pack 9oz. (260ml) BornFree™ Bisphenol-A Free plastic bottles, complete with the new innovative venting system that helps eliminate colic symptoms. Each bottle comes with a level 1 teat, sealing disk, and a cover. 
Breast pump adaptor
The Breast Pump Adaptor adapt most standard breast pumpts to fit BornFree™ wide-neck bottles. The Aadaptor is easy to clean and made of a safe Bisphenol-A Free plastic.
Twitter Party Tips:
- Download a viewing application for Twitter such as Tweetdeck for convenience.
- Follow new people, join the conversation and interact.
- Have Fun!
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April 9, 2010
I am always pro home-made food and freshly squeezed juices. But it’s spring now and spending more time outside is part of my toddler’s daily routine. I had no idea how to make it work – being out and about and still giving my precious organic-fan girl… organic juice… until I found the new range from Organix – Goodies Organic Squeezies! It’s an organic blend of natural fruit purées in three delicious flavours, a tasty and fun way for toddlers from 12+ months and young children to eat fruit, and get one of their recommended five a day portions.
There are the three delicious flavours – Organic Mango, Pear & Orange; Organic Strawberry, Banana and Pear; and Organic Kiwi, Pear & Banana – all of them are made with 100% pure organic fruit – just what I’ve been looking for! The moment my girl tasted them, she loved them! (A bit jealous though, now she prefers those to mine).
Each comes with the Organix No Junk Promise, guaranteeing mums only the best quality ingredients are used and no unnecessary, artificial ingredients are added to the Squeezies. That’s no added sugar, no additives, no artificial colours or flavours, and no thickeners – just 100% organic fruit for a tasty, healthy snack or a delicious dessert.
In a convenient, re-sealable pouch, Goodies Organic Squeezy is a fun and guilt-free way to feed your toddlers a variety of fruit and give them one of their recommended daily portions of fruit whilst out and about… or at home when I’m feeling a bit lazy.
The prize is not bad, too – they cost 89p each for a 100g pouch.
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March 20, 2010
Lovely Manda from FlyingStart Magazine sent me a book. The moment I opened the pack and got the book out if it, my first though was “recycled paper” – nice to touch, somehow rough and natural. And there it is – my attention was rived on the headline – “Recycle!” – How genius, I thought! My 2-year old daughter grabbed the book from my hands, intrigued by the brilliant illustrations and the five push-up tabs inside. She sat next to me, waiting impatiently to read the story together. There are two little kids in the book, taking us through the “secrets of recycling” and eco-friendly life in an engaging and fun way! The book educates little toddlers how to help the planet by taking materials to the recycling bins, showing which ones can be recycled and how, using reusable bags in the shop, and more! A few minutes later my little girl was pushing the sturdy tabs, sorting the recycling, finding out how to save water or how to make toys out of old boxes, rather than throwing them away. It is now her favourite book, learning and having fun at the same time, which I find brilliant start for her to join our eco-friendly efforts at home!
The book is published by Campbell Books and it is due to be released on 7 May 2010.
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March 7, 2010
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