London Zoo

Before I had children I was in two minds about visiting zoos, I know that the animals are all born in captivity and they would not be equipped to live in the wild, zoos offer a home for them, but I still felt very uneasy at watching them in the enclosures, especially great apes. I still feel uneasy but I also see how amazed the boys are at seeing the animals in real life, they love to watch animal based cartoons and programmes so it is very exciting for them to see the real thing. We have also visited rescue centres and found out about injured animals and how we can help.

 



So off we went last Sunday and it was certainly a very full day! We managed to see most of it, take part in workshops (see the shadow puppet show in my previous post), have lunch and numerous ice creams and play in the children's fun areas, we didn't try any of the playgrounds but that was just lack of time.

Here are some of the highlights for us:

The Okapi, is it a zebra? A horse? A small giraffe? The boys couldn't decide

The boys enjoyed the play areas set up for children throughout
 the zoo

The big cats, especially the tigers
 

The penguin beach, excellent!
One of the best I've seen
 

The giant Iguana the boys thought was a statue, then it moved!

The butterfly tunnel, it was wonderful, the boys loved the
butterflies flying all around them, I was a bit nervous at
squashing one though...

The bouncy castle!

The aquarium, especially the fish from the Finding Nemo film

It wasn't the cheapest of days out so we had to plan it carefully (we were not staying in London so had to think about trains and local transport too), but all the details can be found on the website http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo

Shadow Puppets at London Zoo

We were visiting London Zoo last Sunday and the boys wanted to go to the aquarium first (I think that the month in Cornwall gave them an interest in fish...) and we were pleased to find that a shadow puppet craft activity was going on inside. Reuben needed some help in making the puppet, but he had two willing helpers in me and my friend! The bit that absolutely fascinated him was making the puppets move afterwards.

Reuben's puppet is the small starfish on the left

The puppets were made by cutting out a shape on thick black card, we then added some holes to make patterns (we made round holes in the starfish) and covered them with shapes from transparent coloured acrylic sheets. We then taped a stick to the back with a paper clip at the end to give the fish a sense of movement.
The puppeteer was behind a big white screen lit from behind, Reuben went to join him with his finished starfish and listened intently to all the man had to say. He was moving his puppet and talking to the puppeteer for a very long time and we enjoyed seeing him so absorbed in an activity.

Apps for toddlers

This, I take it, is a bit of a controversial issue and to be honest, if Reuben had not been using the ipad already I don't think it would have occurred to me to give it to Isaac (who is two and a half). But as ipads feature prominently in this household, as well as computers, cameras, smartphones and similar, and I don't like to limit my children's experiences (we are autonomous/child led educators), they are used quite a lot and I never have had reason to worry as my children use them as just one of the tools at their disposal and are not obsessive with them.

So this is a list of apps (in no particular order) that Isaac in particular really enjoys (all available from the app store on your iphone or ipad, and android often has a twin version).

• Anything with Dora the explorer or the spin off Diego. These are interactive stories with puzzles to solve to allow the story to continue.

• Disney digital books, interactive stories, we have Toy Story, Nemo, Mickey's spooky night puzzle book, Pooh's birthday surprise, Winnie the Pooh puzzle book
• It's a small world. From Disney this is a really lovely trip round the world on a balloon app to charming images and music
• From Ladybird, Happy babies and Peekaboo. For very young children, touch and discover where the animals and their babies are, very sweet, Isaac still likes it!

• Dr Seuss books and games. We have a lot of the books, Isaac's favourite is Oh say can you say dinosaur. Isaac also likes the music app Dr Seuss band and the colouring one

• Monkey preschool lunch box. A collection of matching games involving numbers and colours, this was really popular with my boys and my stepchildren
• Boowa and Kwala. A spin off from the website which is a bit too difficult for Isaac but the apps are nice. We have the circus and the farm one. It's a little journey with games and songs through a farm and a circus, French and English options, Isaac seems to like both!

• In the night garden. Very sweet app from the Cbeebies programme
• Peppa Pig. I must confess we have all of them and Isaac likes them all...
• iWriteWords. Handwriting app that Isaac very stubbornly tries to do!

• ClikyStickyTrains. He LOVES this one. Make your own train and watch it go. There are more in the series, we also have the cars and Christmas ones

I'm sure there's more as Reuben has flooded the ipad with apps and Isaac gives them all a try but I think these are the ones he uses more often. Ok, now off to play in the sand pit!

Make a Pop-up book

Pop-up cards and books are addictive!!! Reuben wanted to make a small card for his daddy and next thing we knew we were making a pop-up castle half as big as the table.

Our first attempt

Wizard of Oz from a template

A very good one stop website with instructions and templates to download is Robert Sauda's
http://wp.robertsabuda.com/make-your-own-pop-ups the artist and children's books illustrator. And the cards can be put together to make a book.
Here are some examples, the pop-ups are divided into simple, intermediate and advanced.

Advanced: Ship pop-up

Intermediate: Shark pop-up

Simple: Rabbit pop-up

Or you can get a ready made kit like the Creativity for Kids one.

Britannica Kids apps

We use the iPad a lot and the boys came across a Dinosaur app by Britannica Kids. It's a bit advanced for them (nearly 3 and 5, it's aimed at ages 8 to 10) but they still enjoy looking at the pictures of dinosaurs and doing the puzzles.

It's divided into different categories: The World of Dinosaurs - Dinosaur Characteristics - Death of the Dinosaurs - Discovering the Dinosaurs - Dinosaurs A-Z (featuring 36 different dinosaurs) and there is a good games and quiz section. The pictures are great too, scary but the boys like that!!

So this led me to find out if there were any more apps from Britannica and of course there are! They can be used with both smartphones/tablets and the pc/laptop, and tie in with the Britannica Kids website http://kids.britannica.com (note: the encyclopedia is subscription only but there are a lot of other resources on the website).
A list of the apps can be found here http://www.britannica.co.uk/ebproducts/Apps.asp# and this includes The solar system, Knights and castles, Egypt, Ancient Rome, Rainforests, Volcanoes, Snakes and the Aztecs

Project Noah

This is a very worthwhile, educational and fun project to get involved in. Share pictures of wildlife and plants to help document our planet's biodiversity.

It works through a smartphone app with linking website and facebook page.
Website http://www.projectnoah.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/projectnoah

You can take pictures on your phone then post them to compare with similar ones, to add to the database or for others to help you identify the animal/plant. You can help identify organisms yourself, join missions and help build up a worldwide map.

Cardboard Swords

As a life long pacifist I knew this moment would eventually come, and it wasn't so bad! Reuben watched a cartoon version of the Three Musketeers and, as usual, he watches something and takes inspiration/wants to experience the things he liked in real life. So of course the question arose: Mummy can we make some swords so I can challenge you to a duel?
The safest thing seemed to be cardboard so off we went to the craft corner, this was the result:

Not quite d'Artagnan... but good for a four and a half year old

Cardboard reinforced at the back (with another two strips of cardboard, cross shape) lots of silver foil and a mountain of sellotape to keep it together. The duel? Scary stuff... I kept losing my weapon!