This is a short and sweet idea great for little kids who are learning the basics of colour theory. It was inspired by a suggestion made months ago by Kiddley reader Suz.
Pour some water into an ice-cube tray and then add a couple of drops of food colouring to each cube.

Freeze the ice cubes until they are solid. You will notice that once you have done this the colour will freeze around the centre of the cube.

When your kids need a little distracting (we did this one night at the dinner table when dinner was a little slow in coming) place two of the cubes in a glass of warm water. Place the glass on a piece of white paper in the centre of the table.

Your kids will have fun theorising what colour will be made as the cubes melt and mix.

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

Pictured above is James’ great snap of a couple of Halloween jack-o-lanterns.

This week’s new theme is “My Favourite Things”.

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.

The very first week of November might seem a little early to start thinking about the holiday season (unless you are in retail, where it seems October is the month to start ramping up). But when it comes to crafting, establishing new traditions, fun family activities and starting homemade items it’s better to be prepared earlier than later. Three Christmases in a row now, I have said to myself “if only I had started planning earlier I might have had time to make x, y or z…”.

Now is the time to write a quick and loose list – just jot down 5 to 10 things you would like to make with your kids to help celebrate the holidays and then work out how and when you will need to start them to get them done on time. Things like Christmas cards need to be started soon to get them out to overseas friends and family where as crackers and tree decorations can be left until December.

Here is a list of suggestions for crafts you might like to do with your kids in the next couple of months:

Christmas cards
Presents for teachers
Garland
Paper chains
Paper snowflakes
Mantle scene
Christmas angels
Gift wrap
Simple stocking or santa sack
Cookies

Stay tuned to Kiddley for heaps of tips, ideas, links and advice for when it comes to fun things to do with your kids this season. To start with, next week we will be making a bunch of Christmas cards ready to send around the world.

It’s easy to fill a box full of props to encourage imaginative play. Imaginative, dramatic play is an essential part of early childhood education and development and a prop box is the perfect way to let kids explore roles and ideas around a theme.

Themes could include things such as bakery (see our Playing Bakery post for ideas), astronaut, doctor, vet and so on. Gather props for your chosen theme and store them in a big box, basket or plastic container and leave it where it is easily accessible. Find an exhaustive list of themes and ideas for relevant props at allthedaze.com.

Find old clothing for dressing up and where possible include real items that can be used safely rather than toys. Kids love playing with the real version of something far more than with a plastic imitation toy one. Try second hand stores and flea markets to stock your prop boxes but also ask family and friends if they have anything that might be worth including.

Get your kids involved by asking them what they think should be included, and with searching out appropriate items.

Get together with a group of families who also have kids and make a bunch of prop boxes between you which can be rotated from household to household.

Things like pens, paper, playdough, play money, pieces of fabric, paper bags, an old computer keyboard and so on are great open ended items which could be included as useful items in a lot of themed prop boxes.

Chat to your kids about the theme and what it might mean, what people might do in the relevant roles and their experiences of the topic and then leave them to it.

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.

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.

Thank you to those who uploaded photos for our first Kiddley Photo Theme!…

Pictured above is Annabel’s hulahoop photo which sparkles – nice colours, lines and composition.

You may notice that contributions were a little thin on the ground for our first week, but that never stopped us before! So without further ado, our theme for this week is “Dirt ‘n’ Mud”

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

Check out Phil’s Introducing your kids to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

During the school holidays AJ and I decided to hold a birthday party for her teddy bear. The intention was to make invitations for the other stuffed toys, make a cake and some fairy bread and set the table with her tea set. In the end, we never actually got around to having the party as AJ spent the entire day making strange and imaginative party decorations involving masses of drinking straws from the $2 store and a lot of sticky tape but even just the preparations took care of one of those empty days when we were all too coldy and coughy to go out and do anything else.

Over at Spatulatta they are having a teddy bear tea party – with lots of tea party recipes and ideas. (Eventually it will disappear from the “What’s New” page, after which time you should be able to find it here).

I also notice that they have added a new recipe box page listing all the vegetarian and vegan dishes they have made for easy finding.

With an enormous hat tip to Photo Friday, this week we are beginning a new group project for kids. 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.

This week’s theme is “Circles”.
Jack’s muddy bike wheel (above) is a great example.

Check out Phil’s Introducing your child to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

We are looking forward to seeing your contributions!

Blowing bubbles is fun regardless of your age. I wanted to test the theory that making huge bubbles is even more fun than making little ones. Using some water system tubing and connectors, I constructed a simple round frame for launching large bubbles.

This was really just an excuse to go to the hardware store. You could easily make a frame out of a wire coathanger or other material you have around the house. Here’s the finished frame; it has two handles and fits snuggly inside of a pizza tray.

The next step is to make up a batch of bubble mixture. We mixed one part dishwashing detergent with five parts water and added some glycerin because it’s meant to give the bubbles greater stability and longevity. Getting the bubble mixture right is actually the hardest part of the activity, so be prepared to experiment with different detergent brands and ratios. Leaving the bubble mixture to sit overnight can also make a difference.

The last step is to fill up a suitably large tray with the bubble mixture (we used one of our pizza trays) and have fun! Older kids can probably do this activity from scratch, making a frame and the mixture, while younger ones will have plenty of fun just making bubbles or watching.

Here’s some video of us testing it out!