Thank you to all who uploaded photographs to the Kiddley Flickr group for last week’s Photo Theme! The theme was “Weather where we are”. Above you can see Ethan’s hot weather snap, and Ice-covered Cedar uploaded by Tabewhite.

This week’s theme is “Made it Myself” - which is all about kids taking photos of things they have made. Encourage them to take photos with the theme in mind and then upload them to the Kiddley Flickr group.

And there is always Phil’s post on Introducing your kids to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

Tags: Photo Theme, photography

By popular request, Photo Theme Friday is back for 2007! But today I am still getting organised so I am posting it on Saturday.

At the beginning of each weekend we will announce a new theme which becomes you child’s photo assignment for the week. Encourage theme to take photos with the theme in mind and then upload them to the Kiddley Flickr group.

Last year’s themes included things like “My Favourite Things”, “We are Family” and “Shiny”…

This week’s theme is “Weather where we are“. I am looking forward to seeing lots of clouds, snow, rain, blazing hot beach scenes or gentle sunsets.

And there is always Phil’s post on Introducing your kids to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

Happy snapping!

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

Isn’t it shiny?

AJ has started saving up for a very special doll and is slowly but surely filling her tiny little piggy-bank. She loves to open up the piggy-bank and spread the coins across the carpet and count them, time and time again. And it gives me the heebies because the coins are incredibly filthy. This evening, with a spare half an hour before dinner time, I suggested she get an old tooth brush out and some soapy water and scrub them clean. How easy is that? She was well occupied for the whole half hour and declares she will now clean them all again every time she gets a new one.

You will need:
A bowl of warm, mild soapy water
Coins
A toothbrush
A tea towel
A small bowl of vinegar (optional)

Scrub!

After she scrubbed the coins, some were still quite tarnished. Depending on what kind of metals your coins are made from, you could leave them in a small dish of white vinegar overnight for an extra shine. We tried this with our 1 and 2 dollar coins and it was a disaster, though all the silver is now dazzling.

Tags: 5 7yrs, 5 minute fix, preschoolers

Andrea from Hula Seventy kindly sent us this holiday idea

Hello, I’m Andrea from Hula Seventy and would like to thank Claire for allowing me to share some of our family fun with you today.

For those of you out there who find yourself playing a constant game of catch-up with advent activities, I offer The Christmas Fun Jar. Although we absolutely love the advent activity calendars here at our house, we have decided to shake things up a bit this holiday season. The Fun Jar is actually something we put together each summer– we write fun things we want to do (big and small) onto strips of paper, throw them into a recycled jar (which we then decorate) and pull from it when things get a little nutty around the house. A perfect fit for the season, yes? The great thing about The Jar is that you can pick from it at any time, as often as you like– once a week, once a day, once an hour. You can wait until the week right before Christmas to construct your own, if you like. Anything goes! But the best part is that The Fun Jar eventually becomes a lantern. When you have emptied it, place a candle inside and the art work glows– a lovely thing to do on Christmas Eve. And a little bit of magic, I say.

You will need:
A glass jar
Colored tissue paper
White paper
Kid-safe scissors
Glue sticks
Crayons, markers, colored pencils
Glitter (optional)
Votive candles

1. Decorate the jar. Cut up and/or tear pieces of tissue paper and glue them onto the jar, collage-style. Squares, rectangles, hearts, Christmas trees,stars– again, anything goes. We also chose to cover the entire jar (which you may or may not want to do). The idea behind using tissue paper (as opposed to regular and/or construction paper) is the transparency allows for beautiful glowing when the candle is placed inside. Also, this is something that almost everyone can do. My son Ezra (who is 2 1/2) had an absolute ball smearing the glue stick on larger pieces of tissue paper and sticking them onto the jar. My daughter Ava (age 6) really got into creating Christmas-themed shapes and scenarios.

2. Put the finishing touches on the collage with crayons, markers and glitter. We also added a ‘Christmas Fun Jar’ label with construction paper. A little glitter was sprinkled here and there. Just for fun.

3. Put together the contents of the jar. Find a comfortable place to sit and generate ideas as a family. Everyone gets to contribute! It’s not a bad idea to have a list of ideas on hand to get the ball rolling (there are plenty of suggestions here at Kiddley, see this previous post). Write what you’d like to do on small sheets of paper, fold them up and throw them in the jar. When finished, place your magnificently decorated Christmas Fun Jar in a special location (mantles are nice) and let the fun begin!

4. Finally, it helps to be prepared for all that spontaneity. After we finished making our jar, I went back through and made a list of all the supplies we would need to have on hand. Also, as mama and chief Christmas Fun Jar maker, I reserve the right to pull a couple of the slips of paper from the jar (those with the more special activities written on them) and return them when I feel the time is right (a couple of days before Christmas, perhaps?)– feel free to do the same. There’s no shame in that.

And now, The Christmas Fun Jar is calling you. I hear it calling, I really do. And I’m hoping you’ll return with some lovely stories to tell.

Tags: Christmas, jar, lantern

Jo From Artsy Fartsy Mama kindly sent us this craft idea.

My daughter goes to a Steiner school and last festive season in an effort to avoid the commercialism of Christmas and find meaning in it, there was a lot of discussion and sharing of ideas. Much of the inspiration came from Denise McDonough who spent some time at a Steiner school in Scotland. Between us we came up with this ‘Advent Stick’.

As the child opens up a little package each day they move through the earthly natural kingdoms – earth, plant, animal and human until they discover something more ‘heavenly’ on Christmas Day (the tiny felt & bead baby in walnut shell pictured below). So rather than a chocolate each day – they find a little natural treasure – 6 items in each category.

For example:

Earth – stone, crystal, pebble, sand, charcoal, glass bead, ochre

Plant – lavender pillow, dried flowers, seeds, gumnuts, pods, bark, paper craft such as origami or a tiny notebook

Animal – shell, bone, feather, felt animal, walnut turtle, beeswax candle, goat hair (collected at the farm!), knitted chick

Human – tiny gingerbread men, wool angel, felt doll, peg doll, little letters, a sweet (if you choose)

These are just some suggestions and many of them make beautiful decorations for the tree. Last I wrapped them all in white tissue paper but this year I have different colours to differentiate between the 4 realms. You can then use some cotton string or raffia to tie off each parcel and tie it on to your stick (which could be collected from a special place/tree and kept from year to year). Alternating sides of the stick means as your child rips off a bundle there is still a tail of tissue paper to keep the stick looking attractive. I do this as a surprise for my children, but you could involve an older sibling in the process.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, advent, Christmas, preschoolers, Steiner, toddlers

Thank you to those who uploaded photos for last week’s Kiddley Photo Theme “We are Family”.

Pictured above is Ethan’s wonderful family portrait.

This week’s new theme is “Yummy“.

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 10yr, Photo Theme, photography, preschoolers

Amanda From SouleMama kindly sent us this craft idea.

Hello, I’m Amanda, from SouleMama, here to share one of our favorite family holiday traditions – the advent stockings. I made these smaller-size stockings out of corduroy, and embellished individually, attached a ribbon for them to hang by, and then strung on a thick rope to be hung above a window. If sewing isn’t your thing, try making the stockings with paper and glue! However you make your stocking, it can be a great way to celebrate the holidays and spread out the joy for your little ones over the whole month. To avoid the repetition of putting candy in each one (though certainly a few of those are a nice treat), following are some ideas to get you thinking about what other little treats you can fill a month of stockings with:

Poetry, written by you or others
A love letter to your little ones
Craft items – glue, glue sticks, markers, pencils, crayons, chalk
Finger puppets
A ‘treasure map” to an item too large for the stocking
Harmonicas
Kazoos
Beads for stringing
Bubbles
Marbles
Seeds for planting
Stickers
Disposable camera
Instructions for a magic trick
Instructions for a secret handshake
Wee journals for drawing or writing in
Holiday cookie cutter (with the promise to make cookies that day!)
A beautiful rock
A collection of pine cones or acorns
Small ornament for the tree
Materials to make their own small ornament
A knock knock joke
Origami animals
“coupons’ for a special movie date, or staying up late, or a mid-day tea party

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, advent, Christmas, preschoolers, toddlers

Last year we decided to follow Stephanie’s lead and come up with 24 short and simple activities for the family to take part in each evening during the Advent - from the first of December through to Christmas Eve. While I have to admit there were some evenings when the activities fell by the wayside, it was mostly a great success and something AJ has been looking forward to doing it again all year, so I am guessing it has now become a family tradition. The key to this is keeping the activities simple otherwise it can be quite demanding to find the time to do them every day. Some of ours included “Make hot chocolate with all the fixings” and “Give everyone crazy hairstyles”… all very manageable.

You will need:
24 activity ideas appropriate for the interests and the ages of your family members.
24 boxes, envelopes, socks, packages etc. to put them in.
Your calendar or diary or a notepad.

Write a list of your ideas and then pick your 24 favourites. Check your calendar for December and work out how each of the activities will fit in with your schedule. Plan the more complex activities for weekend afternoons or other big blocks of time and save the simple ones for evenings when you guess you might be exhausted. Keep an extra special family activity for Christmas Eve.

I put our advent calendar together in a hurry. In the end I simply folded 24 pieces of origami paper into envelopes with the activity written inside, sealed it with a sticker with the number scribbled on in biro:

and then put them all in a box which sat at our bedside for AJ to open each morning.

Not terribly glamorous but it did the trick and each envelope was opened with great excitement.

Here is another idea which I scanned in from an old Notebook magazine - this is originally what I wanted to do but we didn’t have enough old matchboxes lying around.

Rosa’s beautiful wall hanging is also a wonderful way of holding all the activities.

After writing up all the cards, I kept a list of all the activities and the corresponding dates so I could prepare ahead for each evening. Sometimes that meant something as simple as booking a table at a cheap sushi restaurant, and other times it meant getting together craft supplies, or recipe ingredients and so on.

And what kind of activities do we recommend?

Here are ours from last year (Some you will see we gleaned from Stephanie and her readers which are all definitely worth checking out):

1. Paint everyone’s toenails
2. Have hot chocolate with all the fixings (we might do milkshakes if it’s too hot)
3. Star gazing
4. Give everyone crazy hairstyles
5. Backyard cricket
6. Go out for sushi
7. Have an indoor picnic
8. Write letters to Father Christmas
9. Use puppets to tell bedtime story
10. Have breakfast for dinner (I am thinking pancakes)
11. Make decorations for the tree
12. Have a camp out around the christmas tree
13. Pack a picnic dinner and have it at a park (or Botanical Gardens)
14. Fancy dress for dinner time
15. Wrap a toy and take it to a charity christmas tree
16. Make handmade gift tags for relatives
17. Fish and Chips for dinner down at the beach
18. Fold origami for the christmas tree
19. Dance like crazy to music
20. Watch a christmas movie with popcorn
21. Go out for gelati
22. Take Grandparents out to see the Christmas lights
23. Have a bubble bath
24. Special christmas Eve treat TBA

Some more ideas especially for Summery Advent folk are over at Mundane Superhero, and here are her Christmas ones from last year.

Have you any more? It would be great to share them.

Tags: 11yrs+, 5 7yrs, 8 10yrs, advent, Christmas, preschoolers, toddlers

Hello shiny, happy people - thank you to those who uploaded photos for last week’s Kiddley Photo Theme “Shiny”.

Pictured above is Becca’s fab photo of a reflective sticker.

This week’s new theme is “We are Family“.

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

Once again, thank you to those who uploaded photos for last week’s Kiddley Photo Theme “My Favourite Things”.

Pictured above is Mari’s beautiful photo of some of her plastic animals; “I put a chair behind the camera (on tripod), plonked her box of animals on the table and left her to it.”.

This week’s new theme is “Shiny“.

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