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CHILDREN'S PARTIES.
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list of venues/suppliers.
New Year's Eve
31 December
 I've
just come across a lovely idea for frazzled parents on New Year's
Eve, it's a Pyjama Party and sleepover which instantly solves the
problem of guests not being able to drink and drive. The
details are to be found at: http://home.ivillage.com/holiday/0,,8jmf72x5-2,00.html
The author of this article is not really thinking of
including kids, but if you got together with just a few families you
get on well with and adapted it a bit, it could be great fun! An
interesting activity for kids would be to give each of them a
smallish candle and ask them to push a pin through it.
Apparently the phrase "you could hear a pin drop"
comes from the tradition of pushing a pin through a candle,
which when burned down, dropped out at midnight. See
whose pin drops out closest to the time (and see if you can
hear it) - this might be one way of getting a quiet
moment! There were
some great ideas in an American magazine called "Family
Fun". These included getting the kids to make big
cardboard placards with each of the numbers 1-10 on them to
hold up one after the other at the countdown until midnight.
Just before the countdown, play Hunt the Clock (if
the clock has a nice loud tick it adds a whole new
dimension to the game). You can make your own New
Year's Balloons by filling balloons with homemade
confetti (colored paper cut out with a hole punch) before
blowing them up and tying them. These can then be burst
at midnight for a colourful explosion of confetti. The
last idea was a very clever one. Encourage the kids to
write a New Year's resolution on a piece of paper, then
put each of these into the appropriate Christmas stocking
before storing them. This way they will not be seen
again until almost 12 months have gone by, plus they will be
something else to enjoy in the run up to Christmas. Play
End of the Year Charades by compiling a list of
important events, songs, movies or books from 2008 and getting
your guests to act them out. Most of the newspapers have
already started printing such lists, so you shouldn't be short
of ideas. When
the time comes to all link hands and sing "Auld Lang Syne"
be prepared by printing off the lyrics from this website: http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_syne.htm
There is even an MP3 version of the song sung by
Kenneth McKellar - now there's a blast from the past!
After all the midnight
celebrations, make sure you have someone tall, dark and
handsome to "First Foot" your house (by going
out and coming in again!) According to Scottish Hogmanay
tradition, your first visitor of the year will determine how
lucky you will be. The most luck is brought by a tall,
dark handsome man bringing a gift of either a loaf of bread or
a lump of coal. (That way you can be sure of being warm
and well fed throughout the New Year).
Christmas
25 December
Places to play
Visit
Santa's Secret Village where you can write to Santa, listen to
stories read by an elf - then print out and colour them in, join in
with the karaoke, visit Mrs Claus' kitchen and look in her Christmas
recipe book, visit the elves' toy store and the reindeer barn or even create a personalised story.
A truly
magical website. http://www.northpole.com/
Watch a
penguin write your name or message in the snow - it's great
fun!
http://www.star28.net/snow.html Visit the
Santa Tracker website for a
Countdown to Christmas and to track Santa's progress on Christmas
Eve:
http://www.northpole.com/NoradSanta.asp
To make the most of this, print off the Good Deeds
Calendar, so that your children can show Santa how well-behaved
they've been this month!
http://www.northpole.com/Academy/GoodDeeds/December.pdf Take
a digital photo of your child's face and this site will turn it into
an animated elf.
Alternatively you can select a random
face instead.
You can then send it to a friend, for whom
the elf will do a little dance!
http://www.elfyourself.com/ Things
to do
For small children who would
like to learn the Nativity story, you'll find a simple version with
illustrations at: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/christianity/nativity/index.htm
 I've
found three lovely games for family get-togethers over
Christmas and everything you need can be found on this site:
http://wondertime.go.com/create-and-play/article/great-family-games.html You
can get about 100 Christmas song lyrics at Kididdles.com:
www.kididdles.com/lyrics/christmas.html Christmas
crafts and printables
The
NatureDetectives website has a host of wonderful things including
free printable templates for snowflakes and for snowmen chains:
http://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/seasons/winter
CBeebies have some easy Christmas decorations to cut out and
colour:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/make/christmasdecorations.shtml
CBeebies also have a whole page of Balamory
Christmas decorations here:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/balamory/make/activities/xmas_makes.shtml There
is some good quality free Christmas clipart for cards,
decorations or tags, available at:
http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/clipart/christmas/index.htm 
On
the same site there is a printable Christmas angel border
(either horizontal or vertical) which could be printed onto all
sorts of decorations, stationery or even home-made Christmas
wrapping paper.
http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/clipart/christmas/pages/angels-border.htm
 Create
a banner of gingerbread men:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/christmas/gingerbreadstring/
 There
is a cute Santas banner to print out at Canon printers
Creative Park:
http://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/3159/03505/index.html There
are lots of different printable snowmen to cut out and colour
at Makingfriends.com.
The parts are interchangeable, so the possibilities are endless!
www.makingfriends.com/winter/printable_snowman_craft.htm There are
some lovely Christmas car signs to colour in and cut out at:
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/Signs/BabyAboarduc.shtml
and:
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/Signs/snowmanuc.shtml There
is a lovely simple snowflake template on this printable page:
http://www.kaboose.com/parties/pdf/xmas_snowflake1.pdf Make
a cheery reindeer out of your own hand and footprints:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/christmas/handfoot/ There
are 24 free printable Christmas gift tags at
allthingschristmas.com:
www.allthingschristmas.com/northpole/npprintables/tags01.html
www.allthingschristmas.com/northpole/npprintables/tags02.html Plus
15 free printable Christmas colouring pages which would make
lovely decorations once they're colored in:
www.allthingschristmas.com/northpole/color/coloring.html Don't
forget you could also print out more of the cute gift tags we
mentioned below in the
Advent Calendar section. (Details and link below.)
 You
can also print out and colour in these pictures:
http://www.kaboose.com/parties/pdf/xmas_xmastree.pdf
http://www.kaboose.com/parties/pdf/xmas_santaclause.pdf
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/xmas/color/carol9.gif
First Sunday of
Advent
Sunday 30 November
Advent is the period between 30 November and
Christmas Eve.
This is when families prepare for Christmas Day, when they can
celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.
Now is the time to start writing Christmas cards, decorating the
house, singing carols, buying and wrapping presents.
A wreath is the traditional symbol for
Advent.
The circular shape represents God who has no beginning or end.
A wreath is green, which symbolises the new life that we are looking
forward to in the Springtime. Not many plants are green in the
Winter, so the green wreath makes a house look cheerful.
Some people hang their wreath on the front door to welcome their
guests.
Others lay the wreath flat and place four candles around
it.
Christians light the candles one at a time on each of the four
Sundays before Christmas.
The first candle is for Hope, the second for Peace, the third for
Love and the fourth for Joy.
These are all things we like to think about at Christmas
time.
On Christmas Day a final special candle can be lit and placed in the
centre of the wreath to celebrate Jesus' birthday and that he is the
light of the world.
If you don't have a real holly or fir wreath, you
can make your own wreath out of handprints.
Simply take a paper plate and draw around a saucer placed in the
middle.
Cut out the circle and you'll have a wreath shape.
Then find some green paper and draw around your hand as many times
as you can.
Cut out all the little hand shapes and glue them all around the
paper plate ring (arrange them at different angles so that they
stick out nicely just like a real wreath.)
You can then decorate your wreath in any way you like. You
could cut out little circles of coloured paper to stick onto it, or
add bits of tinsel or glitter.
Last of all you can add a lovely red ribbon tied in a bow, so that
it looks something like this:
If mum looks after your wreath, and brings it out
every year, one day you'll be surprised by how tiny your hands were
when you made it! Make your own
Advent Calendar There is a very simple
Advent Calendar to print out and make at thetoymaker.com.
Just print off these two pages:
http://www.thetoymaker.com/Holidays/Christmas/advent1.pdf
http://www.thetoymaker.com/Holidays/Christmas/advent2.pdf
Then all you need to do is cut out the three sides of each door
and glue the two pieces of paper together around the outside
only. (So that when you open the doors the little pictures
will be visible.) ActivityVillage.co.uk have
cute little Christmas Gift Tags to print out.
As there are 24 in a similar style, you could use these for a homemade
advent calendar.
Start by printing off the pages of pictures here: www.activityvillage.co.uk/Christmas_memory_game_3.pdf
www.activityvillage.co.uk/Christmas_memory_game_2.pdf Now
cut out each of the circles and keep them in a box. Then get a
big piece of green card (or coloured-in white card) and draw the
basic outline of a Christmas tree onto it.
Something like this:  Cut
out your tree and pin it to the wall. Then every morning the
children can attach one of the circles to the tree as if it were a
bauble. It should look very festive. If you like, you
could also cut and colour a big star shape that could be stuck at
the top of the tree on Christmas Day. If you're
feeling very ambitious and have a day free, you can build your
own Advent village from the instructions and printables at: www.santaspostbag.co.uk/advent-town-advent-calendar
 Copyright
www.santaspostbag.co.uk It's quite
straightforward because all the templates can be printed from the
website straight onto card for cutting and glueing. There is a
house for each day of Advent up to the 24th, which is the village
church. Once you have made all the buildings, a little treat
can be hidden inside, to be found on the appropriate day. It
could be a nice project for the whole of December, as you could
build up the village as the month progresses - you would only need
to be a few houses ahead at a time. There is also a
truly inspired Advent Reward Chart at www.activityvillage.co.uk  Children
can write down the good deeds they do each day and will have proof
of their goodness to leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve. You
never know, the habit of trying to do something good each day may
even last into the New Year!
There is an alternative chart, for those who need
prompting about what to do, here:
www.northpole.com/Academy/GoodDeeds
Stir Up Sunday
23 November
This is the day when families traditionally gather
together to prepare their Christmas pudding, with each member of the
family taking a turn with the stirring. (Christmas puddings
were probably introduced to Britain from Germany by Queen Victoria's
husband, Prince Albert.) The pudding is made a long way in
advance because it takes a few weeks for all the dried fruit to
become nice and moist inside and for all the flavours to mingle.
On their way home from church, children used to chant :
Stir up, we beseech thee,
The pudding in the pot,
And when we get home,
We'll eat the lot! There are lots of rituals to
be observed when making a Christmas pudding:
The pudding should have 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and each
of his disciples.
Everyone in the family should stir the pudding and make a wish while
they stir.
You should always stir from East to West, which was the direction
the Three Kings took on their journey to bring gifts to baby Jesus.
A (very clean) lucky coin can be mixed into the pudding.
Whoever finds it on Christmas Day will have a wealthy and
happy future. In the past, people used to use a sixpence but a
10p piece will do - as long as all your guests are warned to look
out for it!
You can also add a ring, whose finder will be getting married soon,
and a thimble which is meant to predict a lucky life for those who
find it.
(To avoid anyone choking on these, they can be wrapped in
greaseproof paper before being added. Children should have
their slice of pudding cut up small for them before they eat it, so
that any trinkets can be found.)
Some recipes tell you to soak the dried fruit overnight, so be
prepared to start on Saturday.
According to Delia Smith, it's not wise to cook or store Christmas
puddings in tin foil, as it makes them taste funny. So wrap
them in greaseproof paper instead. There is a
straightforward Katie Stewart recipe at Easy Living's site:
www.easylivingmagazine.com/Food/Recipes/KatieStewartChristmasPudding/ Delia's
recipe can be found at:
www.deliaonline.com/recipes/traditional-christmas-pudding The
BBC has three different recipes at:
www.bbc.co.uk/food/news_and_events
Thanksgiving
27 November
"Thanksgiving"
The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest is all gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.
Orchards
have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain.
So open wide the doorway-
Thanksgiving comes again!
What is Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is an American national holiday when
families get together to share a big meal and celebrate all the good
things in their lives. It is a time when all the fruits and
vegetables that grew over the summer have been safely gathered
in. Everyone is pleased that they will have plenty to eat over
the long, cold winter months.
In America, it is traditional to eat a meal of roast
turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and pumpkin
pie for pudding. This is because these were the foods that the
first British settlers in America would have eaten. People
like to remember this because when the settlers came to America they
had to start with very little and so found it really hard to keep
themselves safe and fed. One autumn, when the settlers had
hardly anything to eat, the local native American Indians brought
them lots of their own food and shared it with them. This was
such a kind thing to do, people celebrate it every year.
The First Thanksgiving
Hold
your own Thanksgiving Dinner
Why not have a Thanksgiving Dinner of your own? It doesn't
need to be on the Thursday, you could have it three days later
instead of your usual Sunday lunch. All the recipes you will
need can be found at the links given below. Don't forget to
prepare lots of decorations in advance, with pictures you've
coloured in and place cards for the table. Most importantly,
you need to think about what you are most thankful for this
year. To help with this, print off these Thankful Cards
from FamilyFun:
http://familyfun.go.com/printables/season
and place one on the table for each of your guests.
Ask everyone to fill it in and, at the end of the meal, read them
out to each other. You're bound to feel very happy when
you realise just how lucky you are! Mum
can find a recipe for Classic Roast Turkey from BBC Good Food
here:
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/
(and get some practise in for Christmas!) Activity
TV has two recipes that are so easy you could help mum make
them.
The printable recipe sheets are here for:
Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallow Topping (yum!)
www.activitytv.com/printables/
and Easy Pumpkin Pie
http://www.activitytv.com/printables
You can even watch videos of how to make these recipes here:
http://www.activitytv.com/search.aspx?term=thanksgiving
Help to decorate
your Thanksgiving table with place cards for all your guests.
You can find a free printable for pumpkin place cards at
Family Fun:
http://familyfun.go.com/printables/season and
the people who make lovely ice cream at Ben & Jerry's also have
a fun cartoon Thanksgiving turkey place card for you to cut
out and colour in:
www.benjerry.com/assets/images/fun_stuff
Thanksgiving
printables and activities. Find out
how to make a turkey out of your own handprints and footprints at
Kaboose:
http://crafts.kaboose.com/hands-and-feet-turkey.html
There is a really cool Thanksgiving Activity Page at
FamilyFun:
http://familyfun.go.com/printables/season/printable/thanksgiving
 There's
also a lovely cartoony Thanksgiving picture to colour in,
again at Family Fun:
http://familyfun.go.com/printables/coloring-pages/
There are more cartoon colouring pages on a Thanksgiving
theme at Lil Fingers:
www.lil-fingers.com/games/coloring/thankgiving
www.Childfun.com
has a fun song to sing to the tune of "The Wheels on the
Bus". You can sing the song and make up actions to go
with the words:
Thanksgiving
song -
Turkey
on the Farm
The turkey on the farm says, "Gobble, gobble, gobble.
Gobble, gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble, gobble."
The turkey on the farm says, "Gobble, gobble, gobble."
Thanksgiving Day is near.
The farmer on the farm goes chop, chop, chop.
Chop, chop, chop. Chop, chop, chop.
The farmer on the farm goes chop, chop, chop.
Thanksgiving Day is here.
The turkey on the farm says, "Please help me!
Please help me! Please help me!"
The turkey on the farm says, "Please help me!"
Thanksgiving Day is here.
The children on the farm say, "Come and hide.
Come and hide. Come and hide."
The children on the farm say, "Come and hide."
Thanksgiving Day is here.
The wife on the farm looks all around.
Looks all around. Looks all around.
The wife on the farm looks all around.
Thanksgiving Day is here.
The people on the farm eat Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Kentucky
Fried Chicken.
Kentucky
Fried Chicken.
The people on the farm eat Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Thanksgiving Day is here.
The turkey on the farm says, "Gobble, gobble, gobble.
Gobble, gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble, gobble."
The turkey on the farm says, "Gobble, gobble, gobble."
Thanksgiving Day has passed.
There
are lots more games, songs and activities under Holidays /
Thanksgiving at www.childfun.com
When
you are all finally relaxing after your big dinner, you can have fun
making up Native American Indian names for all the members of your
family. They should be names relating to nature that suggest
something about how the person looks or what they are
like.
Some ideas are: Star Dancer, Pale Horse, Sitting Bull, Running
Deer. Or, it you want to be silly, how about Running Nose or
Big Chief Sleepy Bear?
"Walk
tall like the trees, live your life as strong as the mountains, be
as soft as the spring breezes, keep the warmth of the sun in your
heart and the Great Spirit will always be with you."
(Wisdom of the Navajo)
Bonfire
Night
5 November
 Guy
Fawkes Tinies are a bit small to learn
about Guy Fawkes, but they may enjoy learning the famous
rhyme: Remember, remember the fifth of
November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot. Games
and printables You can
enjoy a lovely colourful animated rhyme on the CBeebies site:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/razzledazzle There
are free printable pages of Bonfire Night pictures to
colour here:
www.activityvillage.co.uk
and more Bonfire Night colouring pages here:
www.underfives.co.uk1
www.underfives.co.uk2 You can find some
lovely colourful interactive games including Virtual
Sparkler, an Interactive Poster and a Pets Game, plus the Fireworks
Safety Code at the DTI site:
www.dti.gov.uk/fireworks/games.htm You
can make easy Chocolate Sparklers by dipping chocolate finger biscuits
into warm water for a second and then into a dish of and hundreds and
thousands. Anyone could make them! You
can build your own very colourful Crayola Fireworks Spectacular at:
www.crayola.com/kids/games/ You
can even create your own musical fireworks display at:
www.pbs.org/capitolfourth/fireworks.html
You can print off and talk about this lovely "Bonfire
Night" poem by Irene Yates. Perhaps your child would
like to draw pictures of the images the poet describes? www.fireworksafety.co.uk Just to be on the safe side, you may wish to download a copy
of the Fireworks Safety Code:
www.berr.gov.uk/fireworks
*Halloween*
31 October
Halloween cards and party invitations.
I've put together some images for these which you can use by
clicking below.
It's always difficult to print straight onto
card, so I suggest you print off the page you want, cut out the
relevant picture and glue it to an A5 card folded in half. You
can then write your own message inside.
Halloween
page 1
Halloween page 2
Halloween page 3
Halloween page 4
Halloween Decorations
Print off the pages from this Familyfun
website for pictures of cats,
pumpkins, ghosts and spiders to stick on walls or windows for
Halloween night.
Familyfun
also has colourful cartoon type banner to print off and
cut out.
Pumpkin Carving
There is a very good tutorial to be found at Halloween
Pumpkins
They have also generously included a number of
free
templates like the one below. 
Copyright
www.halloweenpumpkins.be
Halloween Recipes
As usual the BBC has come up with the best recipes, this
time from their Good Food magazine website. You'll find spooky
spider cakes and that essential pumpkin pie recipe:
www.bbcgoodfood.com There
are also some good recipes, including a very simple Gingerbread
Skeletons & Ghosts one at the baking goods company
Supercook's website: www.supercook.co.uk/find-recipe-ideas/
The Pond Water Jelly recipe on the same site is so impressive
it's almost too good for kids!
www.supercook.co.uk/find-recipe-ideas/pond-water-jelly-recipe
Wanda's
Halloween Cookbook doesn't take itself too seriously
and it has some really lovely recipes for
Pumpkin Pie and easy Marshmallow Ghosts.
Copyright Halloweenkitchen.com
Halloween Party Games / Activities
There are lots of lovely party game ideas at partygameideas.com
I've put a couple of our favourite party games on the Tikes
and Mums Celebrate pages.
I'm not sure if they are suitable
for under 5s, so you can decide for yourself!
The American chocolate company Hersheys
has instructions and printables for games such as Pin the Wart on
the Witch and an easy Ghost Pinata to make.
Copyright www.hersheys.com
Visit the all new Winnie
the Witch website for all sorts of witch related
activities.
There is a free printable Winnie the Witch
colouring in sheet at: www.galaxy.bedfordshire.gov.uk and
a free dot-to-dot printable of Winnie's cat Wilbur at: www2.scholastic.co.uk and
a whole page of Winnie the Witch jokes at: www.oup.com/uk/minisites/
You can also find a lovely witch and cat poem
with a picture to colour in at:
www.scholastic.co.uk
There are instructions for an easy- to- make egg carton spider at
http://crafts.kaboose.com
Halloween Fancy Dress Ideas
Again the best site seems to be Familyfun,
with more Halloween Fancy Dress
ideas than you could ever imagine. Some are complicated
and require a bit of time, but some are very straightforward.
Kids Craft Weekly has lovely instructions for how to make a
pirate hat, parrot and a treasure chest. So if
your kids are pirate mad after watching
Johnny Depp strut his stuff, this should keep them
entertained.
How could you get through Halloween without a sneaky peek at the
Harry Potter official website?:
http://www.jkrowling.com/
Diwali - Festival
of Lights.
28 October
Diwali
celebrates the Hindu New Year. In preparation for this, people
spring clean their homes and open windows to let in Lakshmi, the
goddess of wealth. To light the goddess' way, little lamps are
lit all over the house. This is a real family party time, as
delicious food is prepared and fireworks are set off to ward off
evil spirits - a bit like our Halloween. On the last day of
Diwali, sisters cook for their brothers, who give them presents in
return.
It is also traditional to make beautiful Rangoli
patterns on the ground using coloured powders. You can see
some images of these here.
If you'd like to make some yourself dltk-kids.com
has easy printable templates for Rangoli
patterns.
There are instructions for making an Indian elephant,
a decorated slipper and a Diwali lamp pot
at Big
Eyed Owl There is a nice printable picture of the
goddess Lakshmi for the kids to colour here:
http://www.balagokulam.org/images/la-lakshmi.jpg
There is a really yummy Diwali pudding recipe at this BBC webpage:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/bananaandsemolinashe_73018.shtml
National Children's Book
Week
From 6 October
Kids' under 4 and their parents can go along to their local
library and sign up for
the Bookstart Book Crawl. You can download your
collector's card and recommended
babies books list here.
Then, just join the local library and children will
receive stickers for
every visit. Once you have 4 stickers these can be exchanged
for a lovely colourful book
crawl certificate.
Tesco will be distributing free copies of The Rough Guide to
Picture Books throughout
October. This highlights 35 of the very best titles for small
children.
To really celebrate the power of picture books you might want to
note that the British Library
(St Pancras, Euston Road, London) is hosting The Big Picture
Party from 11am - 4.30pm
on Monday 27 October (during half term). You're invited to
join authors and performers for
a FREE event including drawing, storytelling and workshops in the
Library's courtyard. Visit
the British
Library website for full details.
These books have been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny
Prize, in the age 6 and under
category. Why not visit your library and try them all?
Stick Man by Julia Donaldson
Elephant Wellyphant by Nick Sharratt
The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers
The Witch's Children Go To School by Ursula Jones
There's An Ouch In My Pouch! by Jeanne Willis
Manfred the Baddie by John Fardell
World Animal Day
Saturday 4 October
Your first port of call needs to be the World
Animal Day website
where you can access the Kids Zone for animal jokes
and loads of ideas. You can do
something kind things for your animals, such as making a toy mouse
for your cat, decorating
a new bowl for your dog, make a cake for garden birds or even a toy
aquarium for your bedroom.
If you click on this link Who
Came To Our Bird Table? you can download a chart for
recording all the birds who came to your garden in the week.
If you are unable to
identify all the birds, there is a wonderful children's guide to
garden birds at the Campaign
for Learning website. You can just print it off here
and keep it by the window for reference.
(After you've coloured in all the lovely pictures).
For an easy fun craft activity, you can visit the BBC's
Little Animals Activity Centre
and print off pages to cut out and make tiny finger
puppets of a mole, an owl, a hedgehog,
a mouse or a fox.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Friday 19 September.
Just to make sure everyone knows it is a special day, you can download
this poster and
put it up in your front window: www.talklikeapirate.com/partykit
There is a pirate hat and eye patch to cut out here:
http://www.leehansen.com/printables
and there's a whole page of free pirate clip art to use as
you wish, on the same site:
http://www.leehansen.com/clipart/
There are lots of lovely pirate crafts including a
spyglass, a parrot and a pirate ship at dltk-kids:
www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/pirates
The Disney website FamilyFun has some great ideas for pirate
games or a pirate party:
http://familyfun.go.com/parties
The Family Fun site is especially useful as it has a section on "How
to talk like a pirate".
Roald Dahl Day
13 September
To celebrate Roald Dahl Day properly you must first visit the
official website: www.roalddahlday.info
Here you'll find an A4 party poster, stickers and bookplates to
download. The poster has lovely
suggestions for how to celebrate e.g. wear something yellow (this
was Dahl's favourite colour),
write a revolting rhyme, make up an Oopma Loompa Dance with your
friends or give someone
a treat (Dahl loved to give treats).
You can download party printables from the Treats section of the
website. These include:
birthday bunting, a characters quiz and enormous BFG ears.
Then get recipes for Mrs Twit's
Eyeball Cakes and a Hot Choc Sludge Drink. If you have any
energy left, you can also get printables
for making an enormous concertina crocodile or a roly-poly bird,
amongst others.
What a celebration!
The Olympics
From 8 August
Mini Olympic
Games
Here are some printable pages for you to use as resources for your
own mini Olympic Games.
Olympic Torch
Click below for a torch image for you to print and cut
out.
Print the two pages of the image. In the second the image is
reversed (so that you can put the two
images back-to-back and have it on both sides).
If you print onto card, you can simply stick the two sides together
and it should be strong enough.
If you print onto paper, you might want to stick the two sides
together then slot the torch inside
an empty loo roll or kitchen roll tube.
Olympic
Torch 1
Olympic
Torch 2
Now you can put on some rousing music and race around holding
your torch aloft, to signal the
start of your Games!
Flags
To hold a proper Olympic Games, you would need to have lots of
different countries involved.
If you print out the following page and cut out all the little
flags, you can then either sellotape
them to the ends of pencils or slot them into a specially snipped
cut in the top of a drinking straw.
Then you could each choose a country and its flag for the
Games. If you like, you could print
out extra flags for friends, teddies and dolls to hold, so they can
wave them when you win.
Flags
of the world printable
Olympic Medals
It would be no fun to hold a mini Olympics without any
medals. Just print out the page below,
cut out each of the medals as neatly as you can, then colour them
in. The gold medal can be
yellow, the silver can be grey and the bronze can be brown.
Then ask mum if she has any safety
pins you can use to pin them on to the winners' t-shirts.
Olympic
Medals Printable
Mini Olympics Games events and Score Sheet
Now that you have all the accessories, you will need ideas about
events. It's easy to stage
lots of the events that are in the real Olympics, you just need a
tiny bit of preparation
and lots of imagination!
You can print off a score sheet for each athlete here:
Olympic Score Sheet
Here are some suggestions for how to stage each of the events:
Long Jump
- stand on a line or marker and, with both feet together jump
as far as you can. Ask someone
to measure (with a tape measure or ruler) how far you've jumped.
High Jump
- ask mum and dad or two friends to hold a skipping rope or piece of
string off the ground while
you jump over it. See how high they can lift it before you
have to stop. (If you're having trouble
jumping over it they can always drop it, so you don't get caught in
it).
Hop, Skip and Jump
- do just what it says! Hop once, skip once, then jump as far
as you can
Shot Put
- hold a bean bag, wet sponge (!), or ball up to the side of your
face then throw it as far as you can.
The wet sponge works best because it won't roll away (and it makes a
nice splat) but that's best done
outdoors.
Discus
- ask mum for some paper or plastic plates and spin them as far away
as you can. Measure how
far they away they land.
Javelin
- roll up some double pages of old newspaper very tightly diagonally
and then throw them like spears.
See how far you can make them go. You might need lots of
"javelins" because they only work once
before they get too bent.
Short and Long Running Races
- decide on two distances to run then time yourself and your friends
to see who can run the fastest.
If you have smaller brothers and sisters you might like to give them
shorter distances to run.
Relay
- this is just a race where teams take it in turns to run a certain
distance, one person at a time, and the
team that finishes first wins. You can run, then
"tag" the next person to show it's their turn to
run. If
you are in the garden, though, it's good fun to run with a bucket of
water, which you empty into a bigger
bucket when you get to your destination. You then bring the
bucket back for the next person to do the
same. The winning team is the one with the most water in their
big bucket at the end of a certain amount
of time.
Rowing
- this is a bit nutty, but it is possible to pull yourself forward
with your feet on the ground whilst sitting
on your bottom and pretending to row. Don't make the race a
very long one though because it's hard work!
Swimming
- this a bit like the rowing but you can cheat by saying you are
doing front crawl and crawl as fast as you can
to the winning post.
Basketball
- use a nice bouncy sort of ball and see how many times you can
bounce it with the palm of your hand
before it gets away.
Football
- set up a few obstacles, then take it in turns to dribble a ball
around them, timing each other to see who
is fastest.
Beatrix Potter's Birthday
28 July
Copyright
www.hop-skip-jump.com
To celebrate Beatrix Potter's birthday, fans of Peter Rabbit, Mrs
Tittlemouse and Jemima
Puddle-duck should visit the beautifully illustrated http://www.peterrabbit.co.uk/
On the home page,
just press "play" to access lots of Peter Rabbit fun and
games.
You can meet all your favourite characters and watch video clips
from the Peter Rabbit
and Friends DVD; play three gentle interactive games; then visit the
Make and Do
section for instructions on how to make a pom-pom mouse, edible
bonnets and baskets,
plus character colouring pages and a wordsearch. There's
almost enough to keep Tinies
busy all day.
St Swithin's Day
15 July
People used to say that if it rains on St Swithin's Day
it will rain for 40 days (that's almost
until the end of August). This legend has lasted for a
thousand years, ever since the bones
of St Swithins were moved to Winchester Cathedral in 971.
There was a huge storm then
and it lasted for 40 days. Let's hope it's a lovely day!
Just in case, you might want to paint
a smiley sun picture or colour a paper plate yellow and give it a
smiley face - to encourage the
sun to chase away the clouds.
Summer Solstice
20 June
The Summer Solstice (20 June) is the day when the sun is
at it's highest in the sky and it is
also the longest day of the year. We have 13 hours and 1
minute of sunlight on this day!
The word "solstice" comes from Latin and means "sun
stands still".
Every year, on this day, hundreds of people visit Stonehenge in
Wiltshire to see the sunrise
there. In prehistoric times men built a huge circle of stones
through which the sun casts a
mysterious beam. You can see how this works on this BBC
website:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire
You can also download lots of archaeology
pages to learn from, colour in and play with from
the people who investigate the stones at Stonehenge:
www.wessexarch.co.uk/learning/resources
Midsummer's Day
24 June
In Britain people have always celebrated the summer sunshine on
Midsummer's Day, which
is 24 June. People would build bonfires and dance in a circle
around them, to celebrate
the wonderful light and warmth that the sun brings.
This was also believed to be a magical time when all the fairies
and pixies came out to play.
Shakespeare wrote a very famous play about this called "A
Midsummer Night's Dream".
CBeebies have a short animated version of the story here:
cbeebies/stories/dream.shtml
Even the early morning dew on Midsummer's Day was believed to be
magical. Young girls
would wash their faces with it to make themselves beautiful and old
people would wash with
it to make themselves look young.
If you would like to celebrate Midsummer, you could have a picnic
of traditional summer foods,
such as gooseberry fool, strawberries and raspberries. You
could even bake some little round
biscuits or cakes and decorate them with smiley sun faces.
Then you might like to either dress
up as fairies and pixies or hunt in your garden to see if you can
find any hiding there on this
special day. In the evening you could have a bonfire to dance
around, just like our ancestors did.
Father's Day
15 June
Here are some fun things to make (or even just print out)
to let dad know how much
you love him. Don't forget to be extra kind and well-behaved
on the day!
There's a really special Father's Day card to make on this
Canon
printers
website.
You simply need to print out all the instructions and components
first.
Little girls (and boys!) can print out a Best Dad Certificate from
agirlsworld.com
daniellesplace.com
and kaboose.com
have loads of craft activities and cards to make
for Father's Day. There is something here for everyone, from
really creative cards, to
pebble paperweights, a photo frame and pencil holder.
St George's Day
23 April
We've had Burn's Night and St Patrick's Day, so now it's time to
celebrate England!
England's patron saint is St George (he's the knight in shining
armour who killed the
wicked dragon). You can find out everything you need to know
about him at the
incredible Woodlands
Junior School site.
Although there should be celebrations all around the country on this
day, there are
actually only a few. One of the very best takes place in
Salisbury, Wiltshire, where a
truly massive inflatable dragon is slayed by St George in the city's
market square.
(The celebrations this year will be on Sunday 20 April - just in
case you are in the
vicinity!)
Copyright Salisbury District Council
If you don't want to stray too far from home Battle Abbey will be
staging a St George's Day
Children's Challenge on the weekend 26 & 27 April. See
the diary
for full details.
Springtime
For those of you who can't
wait until the May Bank Holiday Weekend to celebrate the
arrival
of Spring, I've found a whole page of inspirational ideas at Amazing
Moms. The lady who
wrote the article lives in America, but as she mentions the fact
that the snow has just cleared
and the sun is shining - she might as well be talking about
Eastbourne! There are ideas for
a proper Spring Party with friends or just a fun time in the garden
with your own kids.
Easter
21-24 March
Easter Egg Treasure Hunt Challenge.
To give the children a more challenging Easter Egg Hunt this year,
I've made up some printable pages
that form the basis of a simple Treasure Hunt.
The Easter Bunny has set your children a challenge. They must
find all the pieces of a jigsaw that he has
hidden about the house and when they have put them all together you
can tell them where the Easter
Bunny's has hidden their eggs. You will give your children
picture clues to help them find the pieces.
Click the link below for the picture of the Easter Bunny, divided
into 9 squares.
Print out the picture (preferably onto card) and cut it into 9
pieces, to form a simple jigsaw.
Put this to one side for the moment.
Bunny
Jigsaw
Now print out these pages of images of household objects. They
are divided into 4 squares each.
Print out each of these sheets and cut each into 4 pieces. You
now keep these to hand out as clues.
Easter
Clues 1
Easter Clues 2
Easter Clues 3
You will only need to hide the pieces of the bunny jigsaw in 9 of
the places shown on the Easter Clue
pictures, so choose the 9 pictures that best suit your home.
You can discard the other 3.
Now hide the jigsaw pieces in the places shown on your chosen clue
cards.
Now all you do is give your children the clues one and at time
and get them to bring back each of the
jigsaw pieces as they find them. Once they have all 9 pieces
and have put together the jigsaw -
they have completed the challenge! You can either tell the
children where the eggs or hidden,
or you could produce a note from the Easter Bunny himself, giving
their secret location.
External Easter web links.
My favourite website at the moment is Meddybemps.com and they
have lovely colourful games,
short stories, printable Easter colouring sheets, quizzes and an
interactive Easter Egg Hunt. There is also
an illustrated short story to read on your computer about Frogwart
the naughty witch.
http://www.meddybemps.com/funandgames.html
Sing along to the Easter Egg Hunt song at:
http://genkienglish.net/eastersong.htm
This is really a website designed to teach Japanese
children to speak English, but the song and the colourful
pictures that go with it will certainly appeal to english-speaking
under 5s! (You are meant to register and
pay for the resources that go with this little song, but the song,
at least is freely available.)
There are some wonderful free Easter printables
for your kids at the American Family Fun magazine website.
Choose from:
A caterpillar to make with lots of ideas for things to do in the
Springtime attached to his body:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Activity_Bughead_Template.pdf
A lovely Easter picture to colour in before hunting for all the
hidden eggs:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Egghunt_Template.pdf
A cute Easter basket to make and keep all your tiny chocolate
eggs in:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Easter_Basket_Template.pdf
Some Easter themed colour pictures to use when making your own
cards or just as decorations:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Spring-stickers.pdf
There is an almost endless supply of Easter crafts,
activities, colouring pages and Easter printables to be found
here:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/easter/index.html
Tinies can create an Easter card using their own hand prints with
instructions from this site:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/easter-chick-card.html
Find lots of creative ways to make Easter Eggs at
http://www.kidscraftweekly.com/eggs
St Patrick's Day
17 March
 St
Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and the 17 March is
his national day. St Patrick was captured by pirates when he
was a boy and spend six years as a slave before he was able to
escape. He trained as a missionary and went to Ireland to
convert the Irish to Christianity. Ireland is famous for not
having any snakes on the island and the Irish believe that it was St
Patrick who drove them all away.
Irish
fairy stories are full of leprechauns who are mischievous little
green men who make shoes for the fairies, but who also love gold and bury pots of it at the end of
rainbows. You can try to trick a leprechaun into telling you
where he has buried his gold. But if he offers to lead you
there, you must never let him out of your sight or he will vanish
into thin air! If you could ever find the end of the right rainbow you
could dig a hole there and find a pot of gold - so the story goes.
There are numerous crafts involving rainbows and pots of gold
at:
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/st_patricks_day_crafts.htm You can print out all you need (apart from the inside of
a toilet roll) to
make your own leprechaun at:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.dltk-holidays.com/patrick/images/clep.gif The BBC Northern
Ireland has a fun Snake Game that you can play at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/spring/patricks/game.shtml If
you'd like to Grow Your Own Leprechaun or build a
leprechaun trap visit:
http://familycrafts.about.com/od/leprechauns/
There are lots of different activities: crafts,
colouring, games and recipes at the excellent dltk site:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/patrick/index.html This
excellent site: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/printables/holidays/stpatricksday.htm
has colouring pages, leprechaun printables and
activities for pre-schoolers. It's fun and educational. If
you'd like to find out how all the colours of the rainbow can
be made, take a look at the Colour Wheel at:
http://www.kidzone.ws/science/colorwheel.htm
It explains very simply how colours can all be mixed from
the three primary colours.
You can print out the sheet in
colour or black and white - then colour it in yourself! Those
who are truly inspired by all the St Patrick's Day paraphernalia
might want to consider throwing
a St Patrick's Day Party (there isn't much else to celebrate
in March, to be honest.) Everything you need
to know to get you started, including invitations, crafts and games,
can be found at:
http://party.kaboose.com
You never know, you might have so much fun it becomes
an annual tradition. If you're having a party, a
simple activity would be to hide chocolate gold coins around the
house
and let your guests hunt for them. You could call it a Leprechaun's
Treasure Hunt and perhaps
tell a little story about the leprechaun who lost it.
Mother's Day
2 March 2
March. This
is your chance to show your mum how much you appreciate everything
she does for you. You don't need to spend money to get a
present for her, you could do something kind for her today, pick her
some flowers, or make something special for her to keep. There
are some nice ideas at a website called Kids Domain.
This link tells you how to make lovely photo frames:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/momphotographs.html
This link has instructions for making Mother's Day
Cards with your own fingerprints:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/momcards.html
You can find out how to make Painted Flower Pot
gift at:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/thankyougifts/flowerpot/ You
can print off some coupons for your mum, with promises that
you'll do things for her at:
http://www.kidsturncentral.com/holidays/mothers/nmcoupons.htm
Make sure you only give her the ones that you are
able and prepared to do! You may need to ask dad or
older brothers or sisters for some help ... and don't forget to
clear up all your mess afterwards, to keep mum happy!
Valentine's Day
14 February
Valentine's day is on February
14.
People send a card or present to someone they love on this
day.
You must not sign the card, though, it's meant to be a secret!
There are lovely Valentine's cards to print and colour in at:
http://www.crayola.com/cardcreator/index.cfm?action=holidays&id=29
There are more cards to make, recipes and crafts at
this Kids Domain page:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/val/
There are even more original ideas for Valentine's
Day crafts at:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/valentines/crafts-animals.htm
You'll be amazed how many animals you can make with
heart shapes at this site with
printable pages:
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/crafts/heart-shape.htm
Chinese New Year
7 February
This
is a big celebration in China and this year it falls on 7 February.
It is a time to get together with your family and wish everyone good
luck in the coming months.
The Chinese calendar is a bit like our zodiac and is made up of a
cycle of 12 years.
Each year is represented by a different animal and (like a
horoscope) the Chinese believe that when you are born you will be a
bit like the animal of your birth year.
This year is the Year of the Rat.
Chinese customs for New Year include hanging red and gold paper down
the doors to keep in good luck.
New Year's Eve is celebrated with a family feast,
after which the family plays cards, with all the lights turned on,
until midnight. At midnight fireworks and crackers are set off
to ward off evil spirits.
On New Year's Day children are given lucky red envelopes containing
money or sweets and everyone says "Kung Hei Fat Choy!"
If you'd like to celebrate Chinese New Year, there are lots of links
to crafts and activities below:
Make a Chinese dragon out of an egg box from instructions at:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/dragon.html
Find an easy recipe for traditional chinese moon
cakes at:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/recipesdb/view.asp?rid=52 You
can print out all you need to make a whole chinese zodiac wreath at:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/china/mcalendarwreath.html
Shrove Tuesday
5 February
Shrove Tuesday (5 February) in the Christian calendar is the
last day before Lent.
(Lent is the 40 days before Easter). As Lent was a time of
fasting, Shrove Tuesday became the day when all the fats, cream and
sugar needed to be used up.
(In France and other countries, Shrove Tuesday is called Mardi Gras
or Fat Tuesday). This is why we traditionally eat pancakes on
this day.
In Scarborough they celebrate Shrove Tuesday by skipping (with
skipping ropes) for a mile along the seafront - maybe we should
introduce this custom to Eastbourne!
There are all sorts of facts, rhymes and recipes to be found at:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~derek.berger/holidays/pancakeday.html
There is a classic Delia Smith recipe for pancakes at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/basilpancakswithsuga_66226.shtml
You can make wonderful Mardi Gras masks at:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/mardigras/mmasks.htm
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