There's no denying it - St Albans is one of those places that people move to to have a family. It means that the local parents Facebook groups and online forums are absolutely full of questions about local schools. Things about how big the intake is, where the catchment area stretches to and where they can find the latest Ofsted report. Information about all these things is out there somewhere on the internet, but the relaunched School Reviewer website brings it all together beautifully. As a parent, your child's education is one of the most important things you can plan for and parents are ... read more
Growing brains with Education Quizzes
Before becoming a parent I have to admit that I'd not really thought about education for my kids much. That kind of happened at school and I didn't need to think about it much. Now that I am a parent though I realise that education is much more of a life long thing and what you do at home works so much along side what your children do and learn at school. The two really need to work in harmony and that's where a site like Education Quizzes works so well. Designed for all children, the primary aim of Education Quizzes is to help children be successful at school. The quizzes are all written ... read more
The Children’s Garden – Matthew Appleby
It may be freezing cold whilst I sit here writing this, but looking out at our back garden there is no doubt that there are lots of signs of spring out there. A very early spring when you consider how many daffodils are already brighting up the flower beds. I have so many good intentions about how we're going to use our back garden going forwards. Every year I say that and so far I've been foiled every year by the kids not quite being old enough to join in enough for me to make actual progress. 2016 WILL be different though. I'm sure of it. Master C is now very nearly three and a half, and ... read more
Review: Learning Outdoors with the Meek Family
Wow! What. A. Summer. I'm sat here surrounded by bits of Little Miss C's school uniform that I've been busy sewing name tapes on to all evening. She's back to school in the morning and incredibly excited about it. It seems hard to believe that I was worried about 6 weeks of summer holidays stretching ahead of me as I just had no idea how to fill all that time. As it happens though I've had no real problems at all (although I won't deny that there have been some afternoons that have felt like forever!) and we've had a really busy summer with lots of days out, a planned holiday to Wales and ... read more
Review: Tiggly Toys – expanding the digital world into the real one
I recently attended a course that our local school held all about parenting, and in particular parenting boys. It wasn't the first parenting course that I'd been on, but as I'd found before I learn something new with each course and this time what I learnt was all around the role of play, and in particular play involving screen time. Some parents hear the words "screen time" and just assume that it's all bad and something that needs to be limited for children, but I'm actually a little bit more relaxed than that. I agree that leaving your children alone to play mindless computer games or ... read more
Inspiring a future generation of women #IWantToBe
It's not so long ago that I wrote about Little Miss C's varied aspirations for when she gets older. I love that fact that she thinks somewhat outside the box when it comes to this sort of thing. Just before the end of term her school had a day where children were encouraged to come to school dressed up as (or just with a suitable prop) what they want to be when they grow up. That morning the playground was full of nurses, doctors, racing drivers, builders and police officers. Stood in the middle of them was one little girl with a pair of binoculars and a RSPB bird identification book under her ... read more
Learning and Playing with the Bigjigs Lacing Animals
I don't think I've ever been sent anything to review by Bigjigs Toys that I haven't liked, but when I unwrapped our latest Play Patrol parcel I have to admit that I gave out a little squeal of excitement when I saw the Lacing Animals that they had sent. As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I love to craft - especially sewing and knitting. Without wanting to wish away time I'm already looking forward to being able to teach Little Miss C how to sew and knit, although I'm also being careful not to try too early so I don't put her off by it being too ... read more
Science Filled Sunday
Little Miss C is still very much in love with her science kit and we get regular requests to do "speriments" with her, or she'll look through the experiment cards and decide which one she wants to do next. Easter Sunday was very much the same and she pulled on one particular card where the experiment was to look at the fact that oil and water do not mix and that water is also more dense than oil, meaning that the oil will float on the surface of the water. A bit of blue food colouring in the water made the difference between the two liquids a bit more obvious and she ... read more
Tuff Spot Play Ideas – Rice and Diggers
Inspired by Jennie from Edspire I started off the other day by taking the children to Wickes. Now as it went this might not seem that exciting an outing for a toddler and a baby, but I was there on a mission. I've been reading about the messy place adventures that Jennie has with her twins in their tuff spot and realised that this would be perfect for Little Miss C. If you're not familiar with them a tuff spot is simply a large octagonal plastic tray that you can put on the floor to provide a playing surface for small children. They were originally sold as mixing trays for ... read more
Learning letters
Just over a month ago I wrote about how Little Miss C has started to show a real interest in letters and numbers and how we're trying to encourage her and help her to learn what the individual letters are. In this last month she's come on in leaps and bounds and now recognises several letters and can also say what letters certain words start with. Whilst at nursery they use Jolly Phonics to teach children to read, but at home we're currently trying to do things much more organically - whilst also trying to keep track of what works and captures her interest and what doesn't. We ... read more