Most bigger towns and cities have tourist buses or guided walking tours. Book one in for your family or find a brochure of walks from your local tourism office for a fun day out. You never know what you might uncover in a town you think you know well. When AJ and LJ get older and less prone to nightmares (we may have to wait until they are 20 or so!), Melbourne has a particularly spooky sounding evening ghost tour through the historic backstreets and buildings in our city… I can imagine lots of fun to be had especially if it was followed by a dessert or a stack of pancakes at a cafe.

Finding something to do can be as simple as typing the name of your town and then “tourism” into google and see what you can find.

Some other ghost tours in Australia.

Find something new to do in your city by “exploring the world” at Lonely Planet.

This is simple playdough activity with a theme – playing bakery!

You will need:
For the dough:
1 cups of flour
2 cups of oats
1 cup of water
A bowl and wooden spoon

For play:
Playdough tools (blunt knives, cookie cutters, rolling pin etc)
Paper patty pans
Cheap coloured cake decorations (sprinkles, hundreds ‘n’ thousands, etc)
Scraps of paper
Cardboard boxes of various sizes

You could also use paper plates, paper doilies, cake plates, tea sets and so on to add to the fun and chaos.

Firstly, this playdough recipe is simple and safe enough for even a preschooler to make, as it doesn’t need heating or contain any salt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep very long, and becomes wet and soggy after an afternoon, but it’s so much fun to use as an alternative to the smooth, super-coloured playdough that it’s quite worth it.

In a large bowl you child can add all the ingredients and mix them all together, just like a real baker. You may need to give it a good final mix and add either a little more water or flour at the end depending on the consistency. Turn it out on a table top or bench and you or your child can give it a good knead to bring it all together.

Once you have a nice lump of playdough (it won’t be smooth but shaggy and lumpy due to the oats) encourage the kids to make pretend cupcakes, bread, pastries or whatever takes their fancy. Cake decorations seem to be a big hit in all of this although quite a lot seem to get eaten. Use a largish cardboard box as a pretend oven for cooking batches of goods, and then display them on tea set plates, cake plates and doilies on shelves made of other boxes. The scraps of paper can be turned into price tags and money for great retail role-playing. I placed an order for 14 elaborately decorated cupcakes which kept AJ occupied for a good hour. After a while things (as usual) get more creative and more messy but it’s all part of the fun.

‘The Science Of…’ is preparing a new exhibition called Spymaker which will examine surveillance and counter-surveillance in the near future (20 years from now). They have launched a call for participation from the public; you can send in sketches and short descriptions of surveillance-related products that you can imagine in use in 20 years time. They are seeking a broad range of submissions; if your kids are into spies, gadgets, or science, this might be a fun project to work on with them.

Selected concepts will be developed for the exhibition by product designers, and model makers will then produce prototypes based on the designs. ‘The Science Of…’ will pay £250 for each concept sketch and idea that is selected for development.

The exhibition will be opening at the Science Museum, London in February 2007, and will tour internationally for 5 years. You can find out more on ‘The Science of…” website.

The simplest of ideas are often the best. Stephanie from Little Birds put together this gas station and car wash with her kids, inspired by a project from Martha Stewart Kids (Spring/Winter 2003) over their Summer vacation.

“A trip to the dollar store for some baby bottle brushes, toothpicks, and matchboxes, along with a quick rummage through the recycling bin and we were good to go with this project.” – Stephanie, Little Birds

* Images reproduced with Stephanie’s permission.

The Martha Stewart Kids article has quite an elaborate set up…

with a nice line diagram to show you how to put it all together:

The 15th and 16th of September (this weekend coming!) is Clean up the World Weekend.

“Clean Up the World is a community based environmental program that inspires and empowers individuals and communities from every corner of the globe to clean up, fix up and conserve their environment……Clean Up the World encourages Members to organise a Clean Up event on or around Clean Up the World Weekend and also to think about ways of engaging the community in other long-term environmental initiatives. The needs of each community are different and Members’ campaign activities will vary.”

The Clean up the World website has lots of ideas and information about how you can become a free member, get involved, find or start a project and help clean up. Apart from this, perhaps the simplest thing you can do with your family is start at home – put in a compost bin, a worm farm, a recycling bin or work out your eco-footprint and think about ways of reducing it.

Kiddley reader Aoife wrote in to let us know that she’s having a great time making some of the paper airplane designs found at paperairplanes.co.uk with her son. We checked it out along with a few other sites with paper plane designs and had a great time yesterday making and flying them. The wonderful thing about making paper airplanes is that they aren’t limited to a specific age bracket. Younger children can have a ball flying planes made by parents or older siblings, and older kids (and adults) can move on to more complex designs and learn about the mechanics of flights through experimentation. You can see by AJ’s plane design at the lower right that there is plenty of room for interpretation; it doesn’t get in the way of having fun.

Folding and flying the planes is also really only the start as far as activites are concerned; folded planes can be decorated with stickers and felt tip pens, and it’s also fun to use patterned paper for your planes or to decorate your planes before they’re folded.

If the patterns available on the web aren’t enough for you, Amazon also has a huge number of books available on paper planes; we can’t recommend any of them specifically, so let the reader reviews and ratings be your guide, or if you’ve found one that’s particularly good, let us know in the comments.

Baby, it’s cold outside (or very hot depending on where you live) and we are exploring indoor activities to stop us from going bonkers. Taking a lead from Amber’s week of pirates and the fact that Amelia is always a big fan of anything pirate related (favourite riddle: Q. “Why are Pirates Scary?” A. “Because they ARGHHHH!”), we decided to put together an impromptu treasure hunt. Amelia hid a handful of costume jewelry around the house and then drew up a pirate’s treasure map (including sea monsters) with x’s marked to show me where to find them.

After I hunted around and found all the bits and pieces it was my turn.

The complexity of this game can be matched to your child’s age – the older the child, the more sophisticated the map and the hiding places could be. Perhaps things could even be mapped out according to how many paces it will take your child to reach the object – this could be fun to try at the beach.

When we were kids we spent hours making our treasure maps. A lot of time was invested in distressing the paper before we even began mapping out our treasure hunts with our specially purchased calligraphy pens. It was important to dye the paper with tea or instant coffee, rumple them up and rub dirt into it to make them look aged. Then, of course, there was the all important step where we would burn the edges with a candle (parental guidance recommended here). The ultimate destination was always marked in invisible ink (lemon juice). You can see that ours are pretty basic in comparison but still much fun was had.

Recently I found a brochure in my Maternal, Child Health centre which was advertising classes to teach you and your baby how to use sign language to communicate before it can speak (as young as 6 months). I was quite intrigued. I did wonder if teaching babies to sign might have adverse effects on normal speech development, but the things I can find on the web all say that there shouldn’t be any problem with this at all (though perhaps they all have a baby sign language video to sell so who knows…)

So if you feel a strong desire to find out what your baby is thinking or needing then perhaps the two of you learning a few signs won’t go astray.

Here’s a photo dictionary of signs you could try (candy?? you’re asking for trouble if you teach them this one in my opinion!) or you could make up your own. The recommended dose is to start with between three to twelve signs and see how you go from there. When you are doing each activity make sure you show your baby the sign and eventually your baby will understand and make the sign themselves. Consistency is the key – use the same sign each time you do the same activity. It might take weeks or even months but eventually they should cotton on.

Some resources:

Signing with your baby has some great tips, how-tos and the afore mentioned excellent photo dictionary – ultimately trying to sell products and classes (FYI) but a really imformative site.

An ABC (US) news health report on baby signing.

Comments on Blogging Baby from parents and carers who have tried it. Definitely worth reading through.

Baby Signs website (via Blogging Baby)

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.

With the holidays either on us, or coming up fast, many families will no doubt be planning some kind of travel, whether it be by air or road. How to entertain kids on a long trip has always been a topic for much consideration. I know that the obvious answer these days is to invest in a in a cheap portable DVD player, but if you are looking for some other bits and pieces we have some suggestions for you.

It’s best if you can do a little preparation ahead of time by finding a bag or backpack and filling it with goodies which your kids can absorb themselves in during the trip. Even each activity only manages to entertain them for a few minutes (this is especially the case with little kids) it should at least break a boredom patch and stop that awful accompanying whining, fighting and grizzling.

Kiddley reader Aoiffe wrote in with her suggestions which she packs for her three year old:

“bubble wrap, manilla folders cut down to half size to stick stickers on (he’s not old enough to stick them in the “right” places in the sticker book by himself), etch-a-sketch, bath toys (minus the water) useful for games and smaller ones to chew on, and a towel per child (useful for blanket, cleaning up and generally annoying other backseat travelers with, and of course Playschool CDs and storytapes.”

You will need:
A fabric bag, strong plastic bag (for older kids only) or backpack per child
(a backpack is especially good if you are rushing through airports)
A Bottle of drinking water
Snacks
Wipes (for hands and faces and spills)
A favourite soft toy

And some of the following from each age group:

Infants:
(hopefully they will sleep a fair bit)
Finger puppet or hand puppet (for you to do the entertaining)
Rattle
Board books (especially ones featuring babies faces)
Rusks

Unbreakable Mirror
Cellophane scrunched up and tied inside an orange net
Music CDs for car trips

Toddlers:
Several small inexpensive new toys for novelty value such as plastic dinosaurs, small car, Small plastic or wooden dollhouse family etc
Finger puppets or hand puppets
Unbreakable Mirror
Magnifying glass
Notebook and crayons (thick unbreakable ones)
Stickers
Audio books or tapes (libraries usually have a good selection)
Sing along music CDs
Magnetic play sets

Preschoolers:
Notebooks and crayons or washable markers
Picture books to look at alone
Audio books or tapes (either home made ones with accompanying books or bought or borrowed)

Threading cards (we have the Chicken Socks Amazing Lacing activity book and it’s great for travel — but you could easily make some of your own with some old greeting cards, glue, a hole punch and some shoe laces)
Magnifying glass
Magna-doodle
Sticker books and stickers
Sing along music CDs
Toy phone (one that can record and playback a little segment is especially great)

5-7:
Activity books with puzzles and games

Magna doodle (great for playing games such as tic tac toe and so on)
Notebook and markers
Road diary for recording adventures or scrapbook
Stickers and tape to go along with the scrapbook
New paperbacks
A book of jokes
Binoculars
Print outs of grids for games of fences

8-10:
Stamps and ink-pad
Road diary for recording adventures
New paperback
Mixed music tapes or CDs
Portable music player
Activity books
Address books and postcards or note paper

Maybe a copy of Kids Travel: A Backseat Survival Guide which gets good reviews on Amazon.
Bird book
Travel games (including print outs of grids for games of fences)

11+:
Magic Tricks
Nail Tattoos
Road diary
Mixed music CDs or tapes
Portable music player
New paperback
Address books and postcards or note paper
Disposable camera or sticker camera
Travel games (dig out your old rubiks cube!)

I got a little stuck on ideas for 5-7 year olds… so if you have any suggestions for this age group or any of the other groups please leave them in comments — I will compile an extended list at a later date for our resources section (which does not exist as yet!) so your help will be greatly appreciated.