NurtureStore

It’s summer holiday season when lots of us are travelling with kids so this week’s Twitter Tips* are all about keeping children entertained on a car journey.

Twitter Tip #1 The key to traveling happily with kids is a little planning: make a box of goodies for snacks, treats and activities

Twitter Tip #2 Make a bingo game to take along with pictures of roadsigns, vehicles, people and landmarks you can spot along the way

Twitter Tip #3 Play 20 questions. With younger children give clues to about someone in the family, let older ones ask questions

Twitter Tip #4 Stock a busy bag with pens, paper, stickers, doll, magazine, books, sweets, a magnetic scribble pad, magic colour pens

Twitter Tip #5Every 20 mins or so give the kids something new from the busy bag – keeps them busy & helps measure out the journey

Twitter Tip #6 Take along some audio books (borrow some from the library ) -better for carsickness than watching a film on a screen

Twitter Tip #7 Locate the playgrounds along your route. Stop regularly and get out of the car to let the children run around.

Twitter Tip #8 Put together a compilation of the family’s favourite music: can’t beat a singalong to lift everyone’s mood!

Twitter Tip #9 Make story magnets & play with them on a baking sheet -they won’t get lost down the car seats

Twitter Tip #10 How about some washable car window crayons to let the kids get creative while they ride?

*These #goplayTwitter Tips are tweeted each Friday at 8.30pm – follow @nurturestore or the #goplay hashtag to share

View the Twitter Tips on playdough, water play and encouraging reading and writing

Happily shared with Top Ten Tuesday and We Are That Family’s Works for me Wednesday

Both of my daughters, at around the age of 3, gained a sudden awareness that they might get lost and not be able to find mummy or daddy when they were out. It’s a very scary thought for young children and quite natural for the realisation to come at around this age: they’re gaining an awareness now of the wider world, and taking little steps towards independence by staying places without a parent (such as pre-school) and wandering just a little further away when we’re at the park.

I think you tread a fine line talking about these issues with young children. On the one hand you need to answer questions they have, to re-assure them and give them confidence that they would know what to do if it did happen. On the other hand you don’t want to dwell on issues which might give them more fears or cause bad dreams, and which hopefully won’t happen anyway.

I have two books to recommend to you which we have found really helpful in exploring ‘being lost’.  The first is Come on, Daisy!by Jane Simmons. This is suitable for ages 2-4 and tells how Daisy Daisy wanders off from Mama Duck and gets a little frightened by suddenly finding herself alone. The story has a happy ending and Daisy learns to stay close to Mama. The illustrations are beautiful and it’s a great book to read aloud.

The second book is more for 4- 6 year olds and features one of our favourite characters. It’s Little Rabbit Lost (Picture Puffin) by Harry Horse. You’ve just got to love Little Rabbit – he’s such a 4 year old! Full of independence and confidence but, as it turns out, not quite ready to face the big world alone. This story tells of a family trip to a rabbit amusement park where Little Rabbit wanders off alone. The details in the pictures are wonderful and the book provides a good way for your child to talk about Rabbit getting lost, and what he should have done.

These books have helped us tackle the issue of getting lost before it’s ever happened, to give the girls the chance to think through what it might be like and what they would do. We have three Golden Rules…

1. I will find them. Whatever happens they know I’m going to be coming to get them. This is to reassure them and try to help them not panic. Mummy will come.

2. Stay where you are. I tell the girls I will come to them, so they mustn’t wander out of the park or shop to try and find me (and  perhaps put themselves in danger of a busy road).

3. Tell a grown-up. In a shop I’ve told them to tell the person at the till, in a park they could tell another mummy. We’ve talked about using a big clear voice to say ‘I’ve lost my mummy’ and practised how they’d answer the questions they might be asked.

Rather than scaring or upsetting them I’ve found these books and golden rules have empowered them – helping them feel more confident to cope if they did get lost. (But say a prayer that it never does.)

Have you talked about getting lost with your children? What Golden Rules do you have?

This post is happily shared with Babyrambles and the Keeping Children Safe carnival.

We’ve been playing I-spy Letters today as we were out and about in the neighbourhood. We were hunting for the lettert ‘R’, which happens to be the initial of Little’s best friend, but of course you can choose whichever letter you like: think about what stage your child is at with letter recognition and play the game accordingly.

Young children might just be able to spot the first letter of their name. Older children can be set the challenge of spotting each letter in alphabetical order.   If you have more than one child you can even make this a competition to see who can find all the letters of their name first. Aside from helping children to actually recognise letters, this game helps them to sort through an assortment of information to home in on what they’re searching for. It shows them that letters have a real purpose, as you can talk about what all the writing is telling passers-by. It’s also good for them to see words written all sorts of different fonts and in both upper and lower case.

Somedays the school run can be fun, other days it can be a chore, so it’s handy to have a few games ready to use if the kids need to be chivvied on a little. What games do you play?

For other ‘out and about’ ideas you might like:

Make Your Own Street Map

Our sunflowers have now moved outside to our little greenhouse to enjoy the Spring sunshine and get them used to being outside. We’ve been out enjoying the garden too. Little has been especially interested to see creatures out there. She will stop in her tracks and peer at her feet, watching an ant running around. Big is interested to know which animals are goodies (that would include worms and ladybirds) or badies (which definitely includes slugs and snails). So we have decided so survey what animals we have sharing our garden with us by playing… Garden Bingo!

First we talked about what animals we might expect to see. (Sorry Little, but no elephants are likely to be found.) Then we drew pictures of them. Everyone can join in with this, no matter how young or artisically challenged they might be. Little did a great worm, ladybird and spider – with carefully counted legs. Big’s cat is very characterful and her butterfly is perfectly symmetrical. I was able to muster some greenfly and wowed everyone with my woodpigeon.

Then we stuck our animal pictures on to our bingo card and wrote their names underneath, along with a tick box for each one. Each time we spot an animal in the garden we’re going to tick them off our card. Take time to have a good look at each animal as you see them. Look at their shape, colour and patterns and count their legs (or note their lack off). Talk about their role in the garden ecosystem and decide if they are goodies or badies.

If you like a competition you could make each person a slightly different bingo card to see who can spot all their creatures first to get a ‘full house’. We like to promote harmony in our garden so we have one big bingo card to complete all together.

If you’re out in the garden and growing things with your children, come and join in with our Sunflower Club to get a Spring and Summer full of activities all linked to growing and gardening.

We had such fun on our woodland walk today. The girls relished having so much space to run in. They gathered lots of natural materials on their treasure hunt: leaves, seeds, fircones, moss. They used them to make some nests and also to make some jewellery too. We brought some small lengths of wool with us and use them to tie together some jewels – favourite leaves the girls chose from their treasures. We tied the brooches on to their coats and they pretended to be forest fairies off to a party in their finest clothes.

To help children get to know their local comunity you can make your own street map. I’ve used this with children who were new to the area to help them feel settled in their new home, and with children starting school, to help them feel confident about the school run.

Start by taking a walk around your local community. You might want to pick a particular route that the children take regularly – to school, to the childminders, to the shops. Help your child to spot local ‘landmarks’ which they recognise on the way – a post box, a zebra crossing, a park, the house where the barking dog lives. Use a digital camera to take pictures of each landmark.

When you get home, print off the photos. Use a roll of paper (or the back of a wallpaper roll) to draw out a basic road map of your journey. It’s doesn’t have to be exactly to scale of course, and you’ll probably need to do this bit for them. Then, together tell the story of your journey – talking about all the things you pass on the way and sticking them in the right places on your map.

When you’ve finished you can use the map to play with toy cars or dolls’ house people to bring it to life.  You could roleplay situations with the child – for example  you could walk a doll to school along the route and have them say goodbye to mummy and line up to go into class. This lets your child try out situations before they occur – giving them chance to prepare themselves and become more confident in the real situation.

Next time you go on the journey keep a look out for all your landmarks and notice if any have changed.