Welcome to Kiddley for 2007!

It’s our first day back but I still feel as though I am in holiday mode. AJ doesn’t go back to Kinder for another three weeks so there are plenty of holiday activities happening over here… now I just need to get organised enough to photograph them and write them up as Kiddley articles.

While we were away…

Babble (which launched mid December) has been busy and is already brimming with goodness.

10 Tips for a Successful 2007 (via Parent Hacks)

The top 10 Parent Hacks of 2006

So, today? Where you are it might be incredibly cold but here it’s going to be 39°c so I am washing teddy bears and making ice cream.

** the above photo was taken by the incredibly talented Bella Blue from Lost in Transition. Reproduced with her permission. Her kids are decorating some print outs of Kiddley paper doll templates **

If you have kids who love to colour there are an abundance of printable colouring pages to be found on the web. I just came across this nifty little Halloween themed colouring page creator on FamilyFun.com. Your kids can pick a character, a background, type in a message and then print it off ready to attack with their crayons. You will need a Flash Player to use the creator.

Kids Craft Weekly is the best new thing out of the Blue Mountains. Amber takes a fun theme every week and explores a whole bunch of fun craft ideas to keep your toddlers and preschoolers fully entertained. She will send it to you all bundled up in a super cute email newsletter which arrives in your inbox at the start of every week. This week it’s all about pirates but explore the archives to discover a world of bees, mice and the night sky. Some great resources she has also collected together include tips for crafting with kids, the essential useful box, 12 simple, no fuss craft ideas and simple and absorbing activities for young children. We are big fans and are sure you will be too.

If you are looking for a gift for a new baby a personalised spoon from Beaded Things might be just the thing. “Hand sculpted wire transforms this spoon into a one of a kind gift… this 5.5 inch stainless steel spoon is both functional and a true keepsake… Your choice of any 8 letters.”

Fun things to do with your little kid in the supermarket – take his photo over and again and then make a flickr set! These photos of a little boy named Vincent are wonderful. (via Swissmiss)

Healthykids.com (home of multiple pop-up ads — just to warn you) has a slide show which will give you some tips for ways to get your kids into the garden and involved and enthused about gardening.

It’s moving into a chilly winter here and we are fighting off colds and ear infections and all sort of other nasties. I am craving comfort food — Momready.com has a page of Comfort Banquet recipes which I have just printed out ready to stick in my recipe book. Columnist Joe LoCicero includes Creamy Southern Style Mac & Cheese (above) and Green Bean Casserole – the Chocolate River Pie also looks pretty delicious. Yesterday I made this delicious Recuperation Soup from Esurientes which was easy and really delicious.

A great flickr group to join if you are looking for printable vintage collage images for scrap-booking or kids projects is Collage Images — with almost 18,000 copyright free images including old ads, photos, greeting cards and scientific drawings. You need to join the group to view the images but it’s a very useful resource. (via artsymama)

Babble, Scribble, Read! is a Denver Library web project which looks at ways you can encourage your baby, toddler and preschooler to begin to appreciate the experience of reading way before they are actually ready to read and write themselves. The activities and tips are great.

Make presents a video podcast from the recent Maker Faire of young people making new stuff out of recycled materials.
“If you are a teacher or work with small children, you could follow the Make Magazine lead here and call up your local recycling center and get a load of old technology and then let students take it all apart and put it back together in new ways.”

Download and print off the free pattern to make this simple, super-cute Mini-Moopy soft toy rabbit for your kids by Australian artist and craftswoman Carly Schwerdt.

Dorling Kindersley, publishers of fine educational children’s books, have an amazing online bank of free clip art for kids to download and use in school projects (or just for fun). There are 50 great categories including history, maps, various holidays, dinosaurs, sharks, pirates, skeletons, medieval life and insects. Each category is loaded with wonderful, high quality photos from their range of publications.

We love Choice Magazine, the official publication of The Australian Consumers’ Association. Very rarely do we make a large purchase without consulting our back catalogue of print copies… this month’s print issue has a great guide to layback strollers which has saved us a lot of heartache as we go to buy our fourth stroller (all our others are just plain annoying or dangerous for various reasons). This report is available online for a fee but there are oodles of other reviews, ratings and recommendations for baby and children’s products available for free (marked with a friendly F graphic ). This is an Australian focused publication but will have some products and reviews which will be just as relevant to overseas shoppers.

I have a bit of a thing for Ladysmith Black Mamboza, and here is an MP3 of them singing from a-z, accompanying Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street. For preschoolers and fans of Ladysmith Black Mamboza. (via the wonderful, bookmark-worthy (sm)allages)

For some free downloads of simple yet beautiful pop-up cards, try Handmade Papercraft Club’s “Let’s Make a Pop-Up Card!“. While most of the patterns are for sale, there are free downloads in each of the categories (90° pop up cards, 180° pop-up cards and paper mobiles). The instructions on the site are in Japanese, but they are clearly illustrated and simple to follow. For older kids. (via Paper Forest)

And lastly, Emily pointed us to this great kid’s cooking site — Spatulatta, which recently won a prestigious James Beard Foundation award, in the new category of Cooking Webcast. Belle (10) and Olivia (7) and friends present delicious and simple recipes for kids based around various themes and nationalities — plus basic skills, outtakes and some tips for parents.