There are two versions of this great game. The first is a drawing game which is suitable for kids 5+ although little kids may want to play as part of a team with an older child or adult. The second is a written game suitable for older kids. For both you will need 2 or more players.

Thank you to Kiddley reader Julie for reminding us! Her game with her daughter is reproduced above and her instructions are abridged for game 1 below.

You will need (for both games):
A piece of paper
Pens

Game 1
All players sit in a circle and start with a pen and a piece of paper which is folded it across into quarters. Flatten it out again and each player privately draws a head of some kind (human, animal or fantastical) in the first quarter, leaving a little bit of neck sticking down into the next quarter.

Players fold over this first quarter so the drawing is covered but the neck is left showing.

The pieces of paper are all passed on to the next player who then adds a torso and arms (or wings or whatever) in the second quarter and then draws the tops of the legs down into the next quarter. Fold the paper so the rest of the drawing is hidden.

Pass the pieces of paper on again and this time legs (but not feet) are drawn in. Fold and pass it on again and finish with the feet in the last quarter.

Fold the whole thing up one last time and pass it along and then each player can unfold one to discover the most amazing, zany creature.

Game 2
All players sit in a circle and start with a piece of paper and pen.

Each player writes part of the story on the piece of paper in front of them and then folds the paper so it’s hidden and hands it on with each turn.The structure of the story which each player needs to follow is as follows:

1) A description, such as “The frightful..” or “The challenging yet delightful…” or “The incredibly handsome…” etc.

2) A man’s name

3) Another description as above

4) A woman’s name

5) Where they met

6) What he gave her

7) What she said

8) What he said

9) What the consequence was

10) What the world said about it.

Much hilarity ensues! Here are ours (click for larger version):

and my favourite:

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, pen and paper

Thank you to those who uploaded photos for last week’s Kiddley Photo Theme “Make like a tree and leave”.

Pictured above is Aiden’s favourite autumn trees (top) and a photo of a ginko tree by Ethan.

What with halloween a-coming this week’s theme is “Spooktacular!”.

Encourage your kids to take photos with the theme in mind and then upload them to the Kiddley Flickr group.

Don’t forget to check out Phil’s Introducing your kids to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, Photo Theme, photography, preschoolers

Hosting a pizza party is a great way to entertain a group of kids who are coming over for a meal, especially if you get them involved in adding their own toppings or even making their own pizza bases.

Here’s a recipe for basic pizza dough. It’s very easy and takes about 2 hours, most of which is spent waiting for the dough to rise; this recipe will make enough dough for 3 pizza bases.

You will need:
One dessert spoon of dry instant yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
A dash of sugar
Plain flour
A dash of salt

Put the water into a largish bowl; stir in the sugar and then sprinkle the yeast on top. Let this sit for about 5 minutes while the yeast gets frothy. Then add the salt and add portions of flour gradually, stirring in half cups until the mixture is combined enough to turn out onto a flat surface. I like to use a mixture of wholemeal and plain flour to give the bases a nice texture. Once you’ve turned the dough out onto a floured surface, knead it for about 5 minutes, adding extra flour as required when the dough gets sticky. Then you can put the dough into a bowl, drizzling a little bit of olive oil on top, and cover it with a damp cloth. Let it sit for at least 45 minutes.

When the dough has risen, punch it down and then turn it out onto a floured surface again. Divide it up into the number of pizzas you’ll be making and knead each one briefly before rolling it out into a pizza shape. Add sauce and your favorite pizza toppings and cook each pizza in a 220°c oven for 15-20 minutes. They’re done when the cheese is bubbly and the base is starting to firm up.

If the kids are making their own pizza dough, it can be fun for them to make their create interesting shapes. You can see AJ’s “butterfly” above.

You don’t need to make the pizza dough yourself either if you’re short on time. You can buy pizza bases and use them instead, or you can even just put the toppings on pita bread and heat them up under the griller.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, cooking, party, pizza

We had some little friends over on Tuesday to help make some simple decorations for AJ’s upcoming Halloween party. I came up with a few ideas for some decorations which smaller kids with limited scissor skills and limited attention spans might enjoy making.

Egg carton spiders (inspired by Kiddley reader House & Baby) were the biggest hit while the papier mache pumpkins (inspired by an old copy of Martha Stewart and Not Martha) were a tad fiddly for little fingers.

But back to the egg carton spiders.

You will need:
An egg carton
Scissors
Kids’ scissors
Black paint and brushes
Black cardboard or black pipe-cleaners
Googly eyes or white round stickers

First you will need to cut up the egg carton into segments for your kids. The egg cartons we get here in Australia are pretty sturdy so need a bit of determination to cut apart.

Now the kids can turn them upside down and paint the outside black. There is much fun and mess to be had at this stage.

These need to be left to dry for a while. In the mean time cut up strips of black cardboard for legs (unless you are using pipe-cleaners). When the egg carton pieces are dry attach the legs with glue or sticky tape to the inside of the cups.

On the outside glue on the googly eyes or stick on the white stickers and draw in a pupil.

Easy!

If you want to hang them, you will need a sturdy needle and some thread to push up through the centre of the spider.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, decoration, halloween, insects, preschoolers, spiders

If you are a regular visitor to Kiddley, you might remember that a couple of weeks ago I carved some heads out of apples and put them in the cupboard under the sink to let them shrink. And here they are - looking terrifying in a pot plant ready for Halloween.

Tags: apples, halloween

From Kiddley reader Anne Margaret (the woman who brought us the now web-famous crayon cookies) comes Lookie Loos! This is such a great project. The idea is to fill an empty drink bottle full of rice and trinkets with a list of the contents stuck on the outside. As the child turns the bottle from side to side and shakes it up, the trinkets reveal themselves and your child can mark off what they find on the list.

You will need:
An empty, dry drink bottle
A bunch of little trinkets and odds and ands (such as you see below)
Rice or sand
Food colouring, a couple of tablespoons of alcohol and a plastic bag (optional)
Super glue and/or packing tape
Paper
Pens or computer
Funnel

Anne Margaret’s instructions are fabulously straight forward. In a nutshell:

Make a list of your trinkets before you put them in the bottle.

If you want to colour your rice (as Anne Margaret has done) you will need to put it in a plastic bag along with the alcohol and food colouring. Seal the bag, and squish the colour and rice around. Let it sit for an hour or so and then spread it out (on a tray or the like) and let it dry outside.

Add your trinkets to the bottle and then the rice, using the funnel. Leave some space at the top so the rice can swish around when shaken.

Stick on the lid with super glue and also wrap some packing tape around it if you have littlies. Stick on a label with a list of the contents. You may want to do this on the computer and use different fonts or colours or even pictures of the items for the pre-readers.

Now it’s time to play! Shake up the bottle and as different trinkets are found cross them off the list.

We think that you could use this as a party game, stocking stuffer, toy for the car on long trips or for a small baby who will just enjoy shaking it and looking at the contents.

Thanks Anne Margaret! You are a gem.

Tags: stocking stuffer, trinkets

Thank you to those who uploaded photos for the Kiddley Photo Theme for this week. Pictured above is 6 year old Princess’ muddy photos.

This week’s theme is “Make Like a Tree and Leave”!

Encourage your kids to take photos with the theme in mind and then upload them to the Kiddley Flickr group.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, Photo Theme, photography, preschoolers

Did you know that if you live in the US, October is National Popcorn Poppin’ Month? We don’t have any such month here in Australia but any excuse to make some popcorn is a good excuse.

Last night it occurred to me that I had no idea why popcorn pops. So after a little research I found out; A corn kernel pops because it stores a tiny amount of water in a soft centre of starch inside the hard outside casing. When the kernel is heated (to around 235°c or 450°f) the water turns to steam and creates enough pressure inside to break the outside casing and escape, causing the kernel to turn itself inside out. Huh!

I also had a quick look for some things to do with popcorn:

Here are some instructions on how to make a box of popcorn costume for Halloween.

And here’s a recipe for truly delicious sounding caramel popcorn (above). Some of the reviews suggest cutting the amount of butter used in half - which seems to make very little difference to the taste.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, preschoolers

Celestia is an amazing free software package for exploring space. Budding astronauts will love being able to zip around the solar system, jumping between planets by typing their names, and throttling off to see the milky way from out in deep space. Older kids will get much more out of Celestia than littlies, but with some parental help, even young kids will get a kick out of seeing the earth from space.

There is a huge collection of add-ons for Celestia that make it easy to add new objects to the program, so that you can populate space with real-life satellites or even spacecraft from Star Wars or your kids’ favorite sci-fi show.

Celestia may require newer computer hardware in order to use all of the features. It’s available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, downloads, planets, software, space

We have been playing many games of Memory around here recently. It’s a good game to spread out and play quickly while waiting for the pasta to cook and it’s quite entertaining for most ages. For those who are unfamiliar with the game, you need a pack of cards (a deck of 52 playing cards is fine if you don’t have a deck of cards specially designed for memory) which you spread out face down in a grid. Each player takes it in turn to flip two over, with the object of finding two that match. When a match is found, the player takes those cards and puts them aside. When all the cards have been claimed, the player with the most pairs is the winner.

We are using a pack which comes with a Charlie and Lola book but it occurred to me that it would be such an easy thing to make.

Some ideas we have had:

1) Buy a box of blank visiting cards, index cards or a cut out twenty cards from a sheet of cardboard all exactly the same size. Let the kids decorate the cards with pictures of objects - making sure they make a match for each card.

2) Alternatively, take Charlie and Lola’s cue and make a game of “Flip Flop”. Instead of making exact duplicates for the cards (which might get a little tedious especially for smaller kids), think up an associated object and draw that instead. That way if you turn up a tube of toothpaste you need to find the tooth brush, the monkey matches with the banana and so on.

3) If drawing doesn’t appeal, cut images out of magazines and then cut them in half. Stick each half on to a separate card to make pairs.

4) For a more high-tech, money spending option, use Moo MiniCards! We recently had a couple of sets of these cute little cards made up with photos from Flickr and we love them. You need to order 100 cards so upload 50 images which they will print twice so that you have matching pairs and you instantly have an enormous game of memory. This way your game will be made up of photos of the kids, pets and holiday snaps. To make the game of Memory more manageable and more memorable, I would suggest splitting up the stack of cards into smaller amounts (maybe sets of 10 or 25 pairs) and perhaps you could give the other sets away as gifts. These cards would also be a great way to make a game of Snap.

5) The last idea we have it to use photographs. Get a roll of film printed out with duplicates and you have an instant game of Memory. If you have a polaroid camera sitting around this would be a great way to create a memory game quickly.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, card games, memory, preschoolers