Join in National Science and Engineering Week with Great Gizmos

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Darren

What better way to celebrate National Science and Engineering Week than with Great Gizmos’ 4M science kits that promote by green energy and recycling! 81Kdi7+7QiL._AA1500_

The latest collection from Great Gizmos allows scientific experiments to be conducted right at home enabling young boffins the opportunity to carry out tests and trials using everyday materials.

Environmental issues are tackled head on with Great Gizmos’ range of recycling projects such as Trash Robot; this simple but fun kit contains cool stickers and wobbly eyes to be added to recycled bottles right from your home. Why not add some bendy arms with concertinaed newspaper or magazines to complete the look?

Other great eco-friendly kits include the Grow-A-Maze kit and the ultra-cool Salt Water Power Robot which lets kids create their own miniature robot that will whizz around with the simple aid of salt water. Whilst the Weather Station will let kids keep track of weather changes, learn facts about the weather and once they have finished exploring the bottle can be recycled into their very own green house.

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For other mechanical fun teens can really lift off with the Electric Plane Launcher by discovering how spinning motors and plastic disks are perfect tools to launch a paper plane up to 50 km/h – this exciting speed machine will be hard to catch!

With so much more to offer from the Great Gizmos Science Museum range, children will be spoilt for choice when choosing their next science project.

National Science and Engineering Week, is a ten day celebration of science, engineering and technology which runs from the 15^th – 24^th March 2013 across the UK and is coordinated by the British Science Association.

Learning about School

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Darren

A has now been at Primary School for almost a month now and what have we learnt? Erm well nothing really.

A is one of those children that doesn’t really say a lot about what she’s been up to. All we normally get was ‘it was fun’, ‘we had lunch’ and we seemed to get more out of her friends than her.

In the last week she’s actually told us her teachers name (even though we knew this it was the first time she said it).

While we was out walking the other day she let slip a little secret that her teacher used a whiteboard and bingo the cogs started turning. I knew her chalkboard had a whiteboard on the other side so when we got home I got it out.

The plan was that A would be the teacher and we gathered up her soft toys to be the children and so the role play began. A described exactly what the teacher done each morning from taking the register and each day two children have to take it to the office. Then each child had to take it in turns to pick which room they wanted to go into from the ‘Red Room’, ‘Green Room’, ‘Blue Room’ and outside and she told us what happens in each room.

From playing this game for the morning it was a brilliant way for A to open up to us about her days at school.

NICK JR. LAUNCHES HELP DORA HELP 2012

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Darren

NICK JR. LAUNCHES HELP DORA HELP 2012
Second Year of Campaign is set to Award £20,000

London, 17th May, 2012 – Nick Jr., the award-winning pre-school channel from the Nickelodeon network, today announces the 2012 launch Help Dora Help, the campaign that brings exploration to life in nurseries and pre-schools across the UK.

The campaign, supported by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts consists of a free activity pack, giving nurseries and pre-schools educational activity resources. Nurseries will also have the opportunity to apply for an award of £20,000. The pack follows the Early Years Foundation Stage development goals and contains six activity session plans that provide stimulating learning opportunities with the theme of Dora the Explorer’s adventures. The themes for this year’s pack are: Cooking, Sports Day, Fairy Tales, Animals, Seaside and Music.

Registration is now open at nickjr.co.uk/helpdorahelp for nurseries to apply for a pack. They have until 22nd July to work through the activities with their pre-schoolers and put together their application for the £20,000 award.

Once this year’s applications have been submitted, an expert panel led by Nick Jr.’s Wake Up World Helena Dowling, alongside Nick Jr. representatives and partners including The Prince’s Foundation, Dora Magazine and Chad Valley will choose five finalists. The public will then be able to vote for their favourite application and decide who is awarded the £20,000.

Each of the five finalists will be awarded discovery and learning equipment from Chad Valley as well as a classroom visit from Dora the Explorer and all five finalists’ award bids will be filmed and aired on Nick. Jr.

In 2011, Hope Nursery School in Belfast was selected. With the award the Nursery selected to build a play area featuring numerous play structures, a puppet theatre, garden, sand and water area.

Tina McCann, MD Nickelodeon UK, said: “The quality of applications in 2011’s Help Dora Help campaign were incredible. We’re delighted with the way the award has been used at Hope Nursery and equally excited to engage with pre-schoolers and practitioners across the country once more throughout 2012.”

Nurseries and pre-schools can apply for the free Help Dora Help Activity Pack and Award Fund at www.nickjr.co.uk.

OLLY THE LITTLE WHITE VAN GOES TO SCHOOL!

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Darren

Young fans of the adorable, big-hearted and cheeky little white van can now join a unique schools education programme designed for reception year (year 1) children based on the popular children’s character Olly. ‘Olly’s Little Helpers’ Club is free to join and available for educators to download online at www.ollyslittlehelpersclub.com

The campaign launches this week to over 17,000 primary schools and approximately 750,000 children aged 4-5 years old.

Children will learn how they can follow Olly’s lead at home and now for the first time, at school, helping themselves, their family, other people and even the environment – all while having fun too!

A dedicated Teachers’ Zone provides comprehensive notes on how ‘Olly’s Little Helpers Club’ can benefit their reception and year one pupils. This provides teachers with the right tools to help inspire children to have fun whilst helping others. All materials are designed to support a child’s key development needs in line with the Early Year’s Foundation stages and curriculum.

In the Kids Zone, there are engaging activity sheets, club goodies and access to previous ‘Olly’ episodes. Kids will love the downloadable activity sheets, class posters, stickers, certificates, and badges. Parents also have their own ‘Zone’ to help them encourage their little one(s) to get involved with helping out at home.

Since Olly first came to CiTV last summer, he has been taken to the nation’s heart. Young viewers are captivated by Olly, voiced over by Justin Fletcher, MBE, the star of Mr Tumble, Gigglebiz and Justin’s House.

Olly the Little White Van airs twice a day on weekdays on CiTV at 9.45am and 1pm.

Versatile Blogger Award

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Darren

The brilliant Jude Wharton has nominated for a Versatile Blogger award.

Now that I have been nominated I have to tell my readers seven random facts about myself and then nominate 15 other blogs who I feel are worthy of this accolade. This will not be as easy as it sounds.

1. When I was 18months old I had to have a major eye operation because I had a kind of bubble growing over my eye. I can’t remember much about this and there doesn’t seem to be any photos of me at this time.

2. I was cross country champion at my school and represented my county a few times.

3. The first music concert I went to was Busted…in my defence it was a present for my wife (I must have still been trying to impress her)

4. I once did a 30mile charity bike ride and my legs have never hurt so much having not done any training for it.

5. I love pretty much all food apart from cream, I can’t stand cream.

6. In my adult years I have only cried 3 times, once for a moment on my wedding day, when Alyssa was born and when Mia was born.

7. My final random fact is erm I’m struggling… I have never been clubbing and to be honest I don’t think I’ve missed out much. When I was in my teens it was more about house parties.

Now I have completed my seven random facts I have to nominate 15 other blogs who I feel are worthy of this accolade.

- Musodad

Wow coming up with just 15 bloggers that I feel deserve the nomination was hard and I’m sorry for the people I didn’t include.

I hope you learnt a little more about me and as always feel free to comment.

2011 was the year that…

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Darren

2011 is coming to an end and I thought I’d take a look back on a pretty good year.

The year started with a new job at Bone Clothing. I was so grateful for the opportunity and loved working there and I get the feeling that that relationship hasn’t finished. The job was only part-time so when I was offered a full-time job with Kids Stuff Toys I had to take it and haven’t looked back.

Also in January I began the journey of learning to drive, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I booked my theory test pretty quickly and managed to pass that with just one question wrong. I then quickly booked my actual test and went out driving whenever I could. By the time April had come around I was ready and took my test in Eastbourne and little did I know I ha the chief tester but I passed with just one minor. All that stressing about it and I managed to pass within 3 and a half months.

The only other major event was Alyssa’s eye operation to try and correct her crossed eyes. Unfortunately she requires another operation in a weeks time but she was such a good girl last time I think she’ll be fine.

As far as I can remember they were the only really major things that happened to us in 2011.

Other things that happened were Mia turning 1 and learning to walk, Aly turning 4 and us going to Centre Parcs and Peppa Pig World.

2012 will be another good year with Aly starting school and us going on our 1st holiday abroad as a family.

OneDad3Girls – The Tales of our Young Family

Category Archives: learning