I have a bit of a thing for Ladysmith Black Mamboza, and here is an MP3 of them singing from a-z, accompanying Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street. For preschoolers and fans of Ladysmith Black Mamboza. (via the wonderful, bookmark-worthy (sm)allages)

For some free downloads of simple yet beautiful pop-up cards, try Handmade Papercraft Club’s “Let’s Make a Pop-Up Card!“. While most of the patterns are for sale, there are free downloads in each of the categories (90° pop up cards, 180° pop-up cards and paper mobiles). The instructions on the site are in Japanese, but they are clearly illustrated and simple to follow. For older kids. (via Paper Forest)

And lastly, Emily pointed us to this great kid’s cooking site — Spatulatta, which recently won a prestigious James Beard Foundation award, in the new category of Cooking Webcast. Belle (10) and Olivia (7) and friends present delicious and simple recipes for kids based around various themes and nationalities — plus basic skills, outtakes and some tips for parents.

If you have a child who loves playdough, then it might be worth investing in some good playdough equipment.

Firstly, there’s Clay Play which includes four textured rolling pins, one smooth rolling pin, four patterned clay mallets, four double-ended wooden modeling tools, a rolling wheel cutter and six sticks of modeling clay - international shipping from the US is available over the phone. (via mighty goods)

And you could also indulge the junior cookie maker with a set of 100 plastic cookie cutters which includes numbers, letters, geometric forms, animals, plants, vehicles, seasonal shapes and other miscellaneous goodness

But of course, there is always the el-cheapo version which we go for around here — buttons and matchsticks!

which are incredibly versatile. Here, for example, they are being used to help make a dog:

Uh-huh. And here they are being used to make an army of martians in battle with an army of Venusians:

This game is brilliant for long car or plane trips; it only needs a few materials, and not a huge amount of concentration. I think my brother and I managed to consume an entire car journey from Adelaide to Wagga (a long way) with this game one holiday when we were about 6 and 8.

You will need:
Two or more players
Pens or pencils and A3 or Letter sized paper
You could use graph paper to save yourself from having to draw rows of dots, or you can download and print off some pdf files we prepared earlier:
short game (least amount of dots): A4 : US letter
medium game: A4 : US letter
long game: A4 : US letter

Each player takes it in turn to draw one horizontal or vertical line between two dots (no diagonals) anywhere on the grid. When a player draws the line that closes off a one unit square, it gets marked with their initial and it becomes their square:

They will then get another turn.

If the line completes two squares both become theirs, but they don’t receive another turn.

When all the squares are fenced off, the initials of each player are counted up and the winner of the game is the person with the most squares.

The last time we had a family vacation, AJ, who was just 3 at the time, asked if she could take some photos with our digital camera. After exchanging some concerned looks, Claire and I decided to let her take some photos under close supervision.

Our camera is a Sony Cybershot, which is perfect for this kind of experimentation because it’s just got a point-and-shoot operation with automatic focus and a good-sized digital display. There’s also little or no cost associated with it. If your camera is an expensive digital SLR, you might want to consider holding off until your child is older, or you might want to opt for a cheapo digital camera just for them instead. Alternatively, if your kids are a bit older and don’t need the instant gratification of seeing their photos on the preview display, all of these ideas can be applied to traditional film cameras or cheap disposables.

And yes, the thought of letting a 3 or 4 year old commandeer the camera that you paid a lot of money for can be nerve-wracking! We ended up making sure that the camera’s wrist strap was securely looped around her wrist while she was using it; we also made sure that she understood that she should not touch the lens. After a little while we were confident enough with the way she was using the camera to let her wander around and take photos on her own.

One of the amazing things about the photographs that little people will produce is that they are unencumbered by the kind of critical thinking that often inhibits adults. They have a genuine “beginner’s mind” approach to photography. The flip-side of this is that they will take plenty of photos that you won’t want to keep (definitely an advantage of digital cameras over traditional film cameras).

If you have the patience to let them experiment though, you’ll find that their perspective will produce some unique and interesting images. AJ went through stages of taking closeups (including some alarming foreshortening of her sleeping grandfather):

and images of things she really liked:

(this also yielded numerous photos of the cover of the Cinderella dvd). Then she shifted to taking photos of herself:

She even took a great portrait of me, in spite of my refusal to close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.

The key to making this fun and successful is to relax and let them explore photography while at the same time providing adequate supervision to ensure that nothing goes awry. It’s also fun to spend some time with them afterwards, reviewing the photos they’ve taken, and finding out which are their favorites and why.

Finally, we’ve created a photo group at flickr for Kiddley readers. If you decide to try this with your kids, please add your favorites to the group pool!

One of my favourite crafty-mama blogs is Soule Mama — Amanda pours her love for her children and her crafts into every post and yesterday she showed us the simple yet fabulously handy idea of making bedtime bags for her kids. With a lack of dresser space she needed somewhere to put all the kids pajamas and came up with this:

The front pocket holds the kids’ current bedtime chapter book. Here are some basic step-by-step instructions for making a very similar bag - all you need to do is to add a pocket and an iron-on or stitched on initial, and hang it on a peg.

We had some green potatoes in the cupboard so before throwing them away we thought we would turn them into potato people.

You will need:
A parent or carer to supervise little ones
Washed potatoes
Buttons
Facial features cut from magazines
Tissue paper or wool for hair
Tooth picks or matchsticks
Pins (sewing pins with round heads are best, but if your littlies are too little just use glue or tape)
Then it’s just a matter of using the pins to attach the buttons and bits of paper and poking in the matchsticks for limbs. Suprisingly entertaining for a very simple activity.

Blabla products make me happy. The colours, the characters, the sense of whimsy and the beautiful hand-knit quality have me entranced when I happen across these lovelies in a children’s boutique.

Florence Wetterwald is the French-born designer now living in America, and the products are knitted in natural fibres by Peruvian artisans. After much deliberation, I think my favourite is the big jungle mobile, but even after a quick browse through the collection you are sure to come across the perfect gift for a special kid, or simply loads of joyful inspiration for your day.

Right now we are being woken nightly by a little person who cries out after having a nightmare. On our next available day I am off to find a night light for her room which may or may not help. Another thing that might help is to build into our evening ritual the idea of slipping a good Dream Bag under her pillow.

A small fabric bag can be made or bought from a craft shop (a bag which would usually hold a bar of soap or some other small gift) and inside place a “magical” object. This could be a brand new shiny coin, a small polished rock or a beautiful shell. Each evening we can examine this magical object, slip it into the bag and place it under her pillow.

Another idea is to find some Guatemalan Worry Dolls which often come in their own soft bag… or make your own.

Related links:
Nightmares and Children
Beautiful night lights from Happy Owl Glassworks

You Grow Girl has a set of simple and clear instructions for how to grow a pineapple plant from the discarded top of a pineapple. While we may not all be lucky enough to live in a warm climate, the article assures us that “…as long as you have a sunny window and a moderate indoor climate you can grow your own.” Print the article here.

The Independant online has published the “The Ten Best: Books to read aloud” compiled by children’s author Jacqueline Wilson. This is a list based on her personal childhood favourites and the books which she enjoyed reading most to her own daughter - which might explain why almost all ten books have female protagonists and related themes. Perhaps I should have titled this post: “a good, girly read.” as Wilson describes one of her selection. However, it’s a good list, but one which I think lacks a little in gender balance and might not suit every family.

For our family it’s a list I will print off and keep - Several of my all-time favourites have made the list including Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban and Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit. Where The Wild Things Are is an obvious choice and one we relish reading when AJ chooses it for story time (and looky! A boy!). I also want to make sure we get a copy of Nancy and Plum by B Macdonald which sounds exciting for 6 years plus - “It’s a story about two sisters who run away from an orphanage and for young girls, it has everything going for it. There are wonderful descriptions of clothes, dolls and girls’ friendships and an adventure.”
(via Read Alert)