Category Archives: bristol

bristol, children, days out, netmums, outdoor play, parenting, play

Free or Low Cost Summer Activities for Children

July 21, 2011 rightfromthestart 1 Comment

I was recently asked by Netmums to suggest some of my favourite free or low-cost ideas for keeping children entertained in the summer holidays. Below are a small selection.

Things for Keeping Active

We particularly like woodland walks where the kids like to disappear into the woods to explore and find things, play hide and seek , build dens or run away from monsters. Blaise castle woods are a big favourite because we can hide in the caves or follow the trail to the castle. My eldest called our local woods the hundred acre wood and spent hours role playing various Winnie the Pooh scenarios. The Woodland Trust have some great free downloadable resources with ideas for playing in the woods, Summer activities and free things to do with kids.

My kids favourite active pursuit is jumping on the trampoline.
Play traditional playground games

Creative Fun

Give children a large piece of clay, for the younger children the bigger the better. Make it wet and squidgy and enjoy feeling the texture. Give them things to put in it, we use cocktail sticks, bottle tops, seeds, feathers, pebbles and shells. Older children can be taught to model clay around wire or make a flat tile with a picture on it.

The best summer activity I had as a child was with an empty large cardboard box, we slid on it and built things with it and spent the whole 6 weeks playing with nothing else.

The best creative play comes from being outdoors with natural materials, in the woods, park, beach or even in the street. If your kids aren’t old enough or you’re not happy about them playing outside without adult supervision, take a group of children to an open space and sit at a distance from them so that they can develop their own play but you can still see them. My kids love digging, building dens, pretending to fish, making pretend dinner and many other scenarios.

Our local town has a flower show and the children love to enter the competitions, it gives them a sense of achievement and pride.

Give your kids pieces of material, old sheets, netting or even bin bags and get them to make clothes and have a fashion show – this was my favourite summer holiday game.

When its sunny it great to get a big roll of paper, spread it across the garden and let the kids paint , they can use hands, feet or whole bodies – great for babies too.

Make a simple potion station

Inspiring children

Children’s Festivals often give a number of inspirational ideas many are free or low cost.

We have been to some brilliant museum exhibitions and as museum entry is usually free it is a great day out. Our local museum has lots of activities for children of all ages to accompany the exhibits.

Go blackberry picking , picking your own fruit always leaves us inspired to come back and cook lots of yummy treats. In the US we pick huckleberries at the local park – they make delicious muffins.

Keep them Laughing

Local councils often provide fun/play days in local parks, ours involve entertainment, games, activities and crafts – the children have lots of laughs.

Get Wet – be it in a water park, paddling pool, swimming, with a hose pipe, playing with water bombs or splashing in puddles in the rain – have a water fight and you can’t help but laugh. Weston Super Mare has a fantastic water park opposite the sea front and splash parks are really common in the US. Check out these Seattle Splash Parks.

I think sometimes we plan too much for kids, give them some freedom to make their own play, give them the chance to be with their friends and they will come up with some great ideas of their own.

bristol, review

Bristol Zoo 175th Birthday – Big Village Fete

July 17, 2011 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

What a fantastic day we had today at Bristol Zoo. To celebrate their 175th birthday Bristol Zoo organised a Big Village Fete, hosting a multitude of local talent, stalls and crafts. It could have been a washout looking at the torrential rain first thing this morning but by lunchtime the sun was shining and the children were dancing to the music. My 2 year old although taken aback when she first saw a gorilla dancing around the lawn, soon became obsessed with following it everywhere.

On the dance stage there was an amazing group of young street dancers and my 2 year old couldn’t wait to get on stage when the Egyptian dancers asked for volunteers to join them.

There were some fun activities and stalls in the family area and the girls loved making masks.

My personal choice of the day, had I have been on my own would have been to sit in the beautiful flower garden listening to the acoustic music sipping a glass or 2 of wine – oh well, maybe in another life.

As members of Bristol Zoo we go there a lot and today made a refreshing change not to see the animals (though we did check out the new meerkat house which is a vast improvement on the small space they had previously). There are a number of new sculptures dotted around too – we spotted a kangaroo (you can sit in its pocket) 2 new gorillas and a lion but I’m sure there are more. There are also a number of historical photographs dotted about and film footage of the zoo in past decades.

To mark the 175th Anniversary of the Zoo life-sized gorilla sculptures are dotted all around the city of Bristol. A map is available to download from the zoo’s website. That’s another few days to kill during the school holidays.

active learning, bristol, days out, early education & play, play, pre schoolers, review, science, toddlers

Toddler Takeover @At-Bristol

May 6, 2011 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

I’ve had a really fabulous day out with my 2 year old and her friend at the bi-monthly Toddler Takeover at At-Bristol. At-Bristol is an interactive science centre with over 300 hands on exhibits. The Toddler Takeover is a themed day targeted at the under 5’s. The theme for today was ‘Come Rain or Come Shine ‘. I’ve been impressed by the amount of exhibits that my 2 year old can enjoy when visiting with her older sister in the past. There are 2 under 8’s areas that are always available . A role play airport including a cockpit where the children can fly a plane, passport control, luggage and an x-ray machine and a hostess trolley. When my eldest was 4 we spent most of the session playing here. The other has an animal theme and includes a tunnel, dressing up, storytelling and a sticky spider’s web game where the aim is to throw bugs at it to try to make them stick in the web.

I once saw a superb storyteller in this area so was disappointed to have missed the storytelling session today.

As our children were under 3 we only had to pay for the adults therefore the day was good value for money. In addition to the usual exhibits, there were a number of theme based activities designed with the under 5’s in mind. These activities were on the whole well thought out and there was a mixture of child directed hands on activities and more structured adult directed activities. Some of the activities involved making an end product – a windmill or weather wheel and some were more exploratory such as musical instruments that made weather sounds, pretend snow and water play. These were suitable for even the youngest children and each of the exhibits included a list of suggested questions and discussion points .

There were a lot of staff helping the children to make the most of the exhibits including a number of volunteers. Some staff were better at engaging the children that others but in all I felt that the level of supervision was excellent.

For an extra 50p the children could watch a show in the planetarium. This was very interactive and visual and at about 15 minutes short enough to keep the children’s attention. It may have been better presented by someone with experience of working with large groups of under 5’s but he managed to keep the interest of most children.

My little one enjoyed running through the lights best of all and is looking forward to returning with her sister so that they can do it together.

We had a lost child incident whilst we were there and would just like to commend the staff for the efficient way that this was dealt with. The child had wandered from the cafe to the main exhibit area. When staff observed that he was without an adult, 4 members of staff kept in close contact without approaching him directly, so as not to alarm him. When reporting the lost child the reception staff immediately alerted all the other staff and the child was found .

On a practical level there are a number of baby change areas and buggy parks throughout and a picnic area where you can sit and eat your own food. The cafe has its own small play area so the children can play whilst you have a coffee break. Parking is on the expensive side but park and ride or public transport are an option.

As an added bonus to the day out, outside At-Bristol there are a number of water features that on sunny days become a great place for children to splash about in.

My only real suggestion for improvement is that there could have been better signage from outside that the event was going on . I’ll definitely be recommending this to my friends and am looking forward to the next one.

At-Bristol is also a great place to visit with older children too, my 7 year old wants to go tomorrow and is disappointed that she couldn’t come with us today. ‘I want to play with the fake snow’ she said when she found that it was only available for the toddler session.

http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/