“We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.”

One of the most fabulous children’s books we have is Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury’s “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt“. I know many children who become slightly obsessed with this book and need to have it read to them every night. Next time you take your toddlers or preschoolers to the zoo read this book to them before hand and then take along a note pad and pen and have a bear hunt through the zoo, listing the different bears that you come across. For slightly older children, talk about where the bears have come from, what they eat and how they live in the wild compared to how they are displayed at the zoo.

You might need to explore your local zoo’s website before hand to find out what species of bear you will find, or speak to a zoo keeper when you get there before setting out on you bear hunt.

Some other bear resources include:
Bear content from the Animal Planet website.
Bears.org has a list of species, bear myths, and further links.

This chilled, blancmange-like dish is one that my Grandma used to make for us as a special treat when we would go to their house in the country for school holidays. We would wolf it down and come back for more, so while it’s full of sugar and cocoa, it comes highly recommended for when you need something a little special to feed the kids.

Ingredients:
500ml milk
2 level tablespoons of sugar
2 heaped tablespoons of corn flour (corn starch)
1.5 tablespoons of cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
Shredded coconut

Place sugar in saucepan with almost all the milk, leaving just a little in the jug to make into a paste.

To this remaining milk, mix in corn flour (corn starch) and cocoa and stir to make a thick paste. Set aside. This is a great step to involve kids in, even little ones.
Bring the milk and the sugar in the saucepan almost to a boil. It should look kind of ‘fluffy’.

Pour hot milk and sugar into the measuring jug and stir into the paste.

Return to the whole lot to the saucepan. Stir gently and bring to the boil.

Take off heat and and stir in the vanilla.

Wet a pretty bowl (grandma used a cut-glass desert dish) with a little water and then let it drain quickly. Pour in pudding mixture and sprinkle liberally with the shredded coconut.

Chill in the refrigerator for several hours (all day is good) until set.

Serve with cream, ice-cream, stewed fruit, wafer biscuits or just on it’s own.

Taking your kids for a walk in the forest, the bush, along the beach, your local park or even just around the block is usually enjoyable just as that. But if you want to add a little structured activity to your ramble which can stimulate learning and curiosity, try some of these ideas:

How to grow socks is a brilliant activity which involves finding a pair of wooly, or fuzzy old socks you are willing to sacrifice for the sake of science. After walking through some dense nature in your fuzzy socks, you take them off and check them for seeds. If you see some, wet your sock then put it in a baking dish. You will need to prop this up on one end so that it is on a slope and then fill the low part of the container with water. Place it in a warm spot and check every couple of days for your seeds to sprout.

A Nature Scavenger Hunt is likely to be lots of fun. For little children it really only needs to be as simple as writing up a list of items to be found before setting off on a walk and then helping them work through the list. Perhaps they could collect items in a bag and bring them home or just leave them in the wild. List objects such as a smooth stone, a red leaf, a yellow flower, a seed pod and so on – this will be challenging enough for them to enjoy. The older they are the more complicated you can set the tasks; counting objects, comparing species, finding animal tracks and so on. Even older children might be encouraged to look at humans’ impact on nature, geographical formations and possibilities for land care. You need to know the area you will be walking through beforehand to make this a great success, and you will also probably need to set out some rules such as leaving animals and insects in the natural habitat.

Find out before you leave what species of animals and birds you are likely to find in the area you are walking through and make up a chart with your kids which they can fill in and tick off as they see examples of the wildlife. This might require organising a walk at sunset and spending time quietly observing rather than walking through the bush at great speeds but can be really rewarding.

Another idea is to get kids to plot a map of their ramble, with little kids keeping it simple and free-form, perhaps marking in major points of interest (very big knobbly rock, waterfall etc) while older children could carry along a compass and plot directions either simply or more detailed according to their age and interest.

Getting the kids to take along a camera is also a great idea. Let them snap the things on their scavenger hunt list, or give them a new set of things to photograph thinking about texture (some rough bark) and colour (different shades of green) , movement (creek moving fast compared to creek moving slow) and so on. Perhaps even just let them explore and photograph things that appeal to them most. See Phil’s tips for Introducing your kids to digital photography.

More nature walk ideas:
Maximizing Nature Walks from HGTV

Magic Cabin has a lovely collection of outdoors exploration items such as the Terra Kids Adventure Tools which includes a wrist compass, collecting box and a magnifying glass and prism lens set – all good things to take along with you on your walks.

Hearthsong has a couple of items worth noting too – a Young Naturalist’s Notebook : “Observe and record the birds, butterflies, animals, insects, reptiles, and other creatures that visit; draw a map; preserve the leaves and flowers; find out which way the wind blows; figure out who the tracks belong to; and more.” and an explorer pack for slightly older kids which includes binoculars, an orienteering compass, a signal whistle with thermometer and flashlight.

20 Fun and Easy Things to Do With Your Children in the Outdoors from Nature Net.

Make a mobile or critter from the things found on a nature walk.

Kiddley reader Kathy submitted this wonderful and simple craft activity a while ago now, and the same day she did I saw it being done on Play School… we tried it this afternoon and it’s incredibly easy with great results.

“One craft idea that we have found really popular with toddlers is Stained-Glass Windows. They are easy as pie and look beautiful when made. Alia has made several and Elizabeth, my 1-year-old, can now do them too, which makes her very happy! The two girls and I sometimes make cards with stained-glass front panels and it’s a lovely family activity.”

You will need:
Heavy cardboard
Cutting knife
Scissors
Clear sticky plastic contact
Multi-coloured cellophane
Glitter
Coloured markers

Before your toddler or preschooler gets involved with this activity, you will need to cut a frame out of your heavy card. Measure a smaller rectangle within the frame and then cut it out. The easiest way to do this is to this is to use a sharp cutting knife and cut through onto another heavy piece of card or use a cutting mat to protect your table top.

Before your toddler or preschooler gets involved with this activity, you will need to cut a frame out of your heavy card. Measure a smaller rectangle within the frame and then cut it out. The easiest way to do this is to this is to use a sharp cutting knife and cut through onto another heavy piece of card or use a cutting mat to protect your table top.

Now your child can decorate the frame using markers or whatever you have on hand. AJ decorated the frame first with markers and then added buttons and sequins.

Cut a piece of clear contact paper the same size as the frame and stick it carefully across the front of the frame. This protects the front of the frame’s artwork as well as creating a sticky backing.

Next cut a bunch of shapes out of the coloured cellophane. We discovered that the toddler scissors we have a hard time cutting through cellophane so an adult may have to do this stage also, but maybe we just need some new toddler scissors.

Turn the frame over so that the sticky side is up and let your child stick on the coloured cellophane and then add glitter.

If there is a lot of sticky contact still revealed when your child has finished, you may need to place another piece of matching contact over the cellophane artwork, sticky side down, creating a smooth (or in our case very uneven and bubbly), non-sticky seal which will keep off the dust and fluff.

Stick it in a window and admire the sun shining through! As Kathy suggested, you can also use this as a front of a greeting card. The Play School website suggests using these stained glass windows in a cardboard box play house.

On Sunday evening the Kiddley crew got a new arrival, a beautiful 7 pound 4 ounce baby girl named Lillian Jan. LJ’s Kiddley activities will be drool-related for quite a while, but eventually she’ll become an associate activity tester.

Thanks to everyone for the best wishes you’ve sent along, both here and on Claire’s site. Kiddley’s normal programming will resume today.

As I move towards being 42 weeks pregnant, things will be slowing down here just little bit on Kiddley.com. Since launching we have endeavoured to post something every day – which I am proud to say we have managed to do with the exception of yesterday! With the arrival of child number two the Kiddley staff will no doubt be preoccupied with feeding, sleeping, burping, bathing and so on for a bit, so while we will still be here and still posting, it may not be with quite so much regularity. Hopefully this will only be for a relatively short time. AJ is still crafting and playing and getting used to being photographed in her guinea pig role. We are still plotting and planning great ideas for you to share with your kids and readers with small babies may be pleased to find an explosion of baby ideas coming up in the next few months!

As always, if you have any bright ideas or fun activities please feel welcome to send them in to us. We have had such a great response so far and we thank you!

Kiddley reader Alexandra wrote in with this marvelous suggestion:

“The pineapple post reminded me of something that I did for the birth of my niece. I gave my sister an avocado in a shot glass with water on the day that Rachelle was born and it has been growing steadily ever since. It’s particularly easy and will let the little ones watch the tree grow, plus eventually – yummy guacamole! (Though probably not for the impatient folks)…it can sprout any time from 2-6 weeks, depending on the seed. I recommend trying a few just in case one is a dud, which can happen. Once it grows to about 12 inches, you should transfer it to potted soil and then you can plant it in the ground in the spring. Oh and be sure to keep it in the sun. They will grow in the shade, but they thrive in the sunlight.”

Some other avocado growing resources:

Start Avocado Seeds

Growing Avocados from Seed – the French Alternative

Stay tuned to further updates to see our avocado seed project bloom.

Natascha Rosenberg recently published photographs of her beautiful “world in a box” – a scene from Little Red Riding Hood depicted in 3d collage using fabric scraps, hand painted fabric and illustrations on card.

Cat Morley (who incidentally has an extensive collection of DIY projects on her site) has used a similar (if not the very same window box frame from IKEA) and came up with this:

She includes step-by-step photos and instructions for recreating this little scene, which is a great way of setting up a small, one room doll house.

Way back in 2004 when AJ was 18 months old, she and I made our own world in a box — which is a little different to the ones above but it took care of a rainy afternoon and we had a lot of fun.

All you need is an old cardboard box, scissors, some magazines, loads of sticky tape, glue, felt tip pens and some heavy parental guidance.

There is no time like the present to start thinking about your family’s safety in the horrific event of a home fire.

First things first. Go and test your smoke detectors now. We just did and discovered that while the battery test seems to work, the fire detector itself is not sensitive to smoke! Yikes. As we have no idea when these detectors were installed, Phil went out and bought two new ones to replace them with this afternoon. If you don’t have any smoke detectors, install some on each floor of your house especially in sleeping zones. Make sure you test your alarms once a month, and replace the batteries once a year (a good way to remember to do this is to change them when you change your clocks around for daylight savings).

Because the Kiddley editors are not trained safety officers, we are going to defer to the real experts and send you to some places with fire drill and home safety instructions and we highly encourage you to check them out:

The National Fire Prevention Association (who recommend having a family fire drill twice a year) website has some great resources:

Some key tips for kids when it comes to cooking, safety and fire prevention. Highly recommended reading.

Home escape planning – including basic escape planning, tips for people living in apartments and clearing escape routes.

Download and use the NFPA Home Escape Plan .pdf to help you plan your emergency plan.

I was a huge fan of Ed Emberley’s drawing books when I was about 6 or 7. I would borrow them out from the library time and again and spend hours copying out the details of his step-by-step instructions. I recently rediscovered his books at a big chain store – 4 books compiled into one big compendium (a special printing for the store it seems as I can’t find them this way anywhere online) and I let AJ have a look. While they were probably slightly beyond her years she was entranced and produced a couple of liberal interpretations of her own.

Another fond childhood book memory I have is of a title called “Fingerprint Owls and Other Fantasies ” by Marjorie P. Katz published in 1972 which now seems to be well and truly out of print. It was a kind of grungy old black and white book with handwritten pages and a sloppy layout (extract below) but it was so inspiring when it came to creating images with fingerprints when we were small.

When I discovered that Ed Emberley had released his own version of a drawing with fingerprints book I couldn’t think of anything more engaging so I ordered it straight away.

Fingerprint Drawing Book is quite charming, far more sophisticated in it’s production than Marjorie P Katz’s, and has very easy to follow step-by-step instructions which Emberley does so well. We had a little experiment with finger printing last week which turned out to be pretty much disastrous due to our materials. Emberley suggests finding some non-toxic, water based ink-pads which we really should have heeded before heading into the deep end with waterproof inks. Yesterday I went out and invested in some slightly more expensive craft ink pads which not only come in beautiful colours in loads of shades, but seemed to have washed off after 24 hours. Emberley also has suggestions for experimenting with making your own inks using food colouring, poster paint or watercolour and cloth or paper towel.

While the book will be great fun for an older child (5+) for a 3.5 year old I would say it has limited appeal. She made one frog (above) and then spun off into freeform fingerprint expression. This was perfectly ok with me, as I do sometimes worry that the Emberley books are way too prescriptive for kids, limiting their own creative expression etc. etc., but as a springboard for building confidence, skills and ideas you couldn’t ask for anything more. If a child can take away the lasting impression that it’s actually very easy to create an expressive face or a funny camel or a complicated transit system with a few simple techniques then these books are totally invaluable. Hopefully they will go forth and create even more amazing things, or if not they are sure to have loads of fun and find great satisfaction in the meantime. The last message in Emberley’s book is about creating “something very special” and unique. He encourages his readers not to worry if the images they produce is not exactly as they appear in the book – “Much has been left to explore and discover”.