Your new bike - the colours you want! You can pick the colours of all the components for your new bike at MyVelo and they'll build it especially for you!
It's a really pretty bike with one for women and one for men. It's perfect if your kids love cycling and you need to cycle along with them - or just if you like cycling! You get the custom colours you want!
I love this pale blue! It's a lovely colour and unlike any other bike I've seen!
It's got puncture resistant tyres too!
Cycling is a great hobby too - great for getting fit as well as getting places fast!
Ask your local council about cycle paths in your area - they may have a map!

Claremont Farm website has a kid's patch where you'll find free colouring to print off and 3D models to make!
There are also some corny jokes, puzzles and other stuff to keep the kids busy!

Wrapping toys for Christmas
There's a certain skill involved in being a parent towards Christmas time that means you have to be very careful to buy the right presents, but also to be able to hide them away from the kids.
One option is to not have them in your own house. The disadvantages of that can be that you still need to wrap them and then sneak them back into the house on Christmas Eve. Always make sure they're going to be covered by insurance too - your presents in your own home might well be, but in someone else's they might not. Break ins around Christmas time can be heartbreaking and expensive as thieves often target homes just for the presents.
The advice from our local Home Watch is not to leave presents out under the tree on display. Of course many people like the way they look, so want to find an alternative way round this. It's simple - collect empty boxes and wrap these as presents and keep the real ones safely hidden away. If you get boxes that stack inside each other they will be put away without too much effort too. This is great for confusing the children too - if they do open an empty box, who are they going to tell! You can also tell them that Santa magically sends the presents inside the boxes on Christmas Eve and that they have to wait and see what Santa brings them!
Hiding the presents in a cupboard out of their reach might seem like a plan, but kids are enterprising and will just bring a chair or stepladder in! The best thing is a locked cupboard. That way they are not tempted to peak. Keep the key out of their way though!

Download and print out this wordsearch for your child. - right click file save as - it's a PDF file.
Your child has to find the top toy names on the puzzle.

Kanban clear stamps are really lovely. The clear acrylic stamps are kept on a backing sheet and applied to your acrylic block in order to be used. The stamps can be arranged easily on the stamp and because you're using a transparent block you can ensure they are lined up really well. Use either lined or squared paper if you want them to be lined up really evenly. The stamps peel off and stick again to make sure you get them where you want. This is much better than wooden block stamps where you have to line them up on your actual finished card and print before you know if it's in the right place. You can use water, oil or solvent based stamps with these but remember to clean them after use. Water based inks are probably safest to use with children.
The stamps can be used on cards, notebooks, paper and any surface you want them to allow to print! You could get a roll of plain wallpaper and let them enhance it with stamping their favourite stamp on it! You can teach them about symmetry, pattern design and layout skills by encouraging them to make different designs and layouts! Stamping is great fun and something younger children can have a go at! The cute bears in the Hamish & Isobel Wooly Bears Clear Stamps set are really cute! Your children will enjoy making designs with these cute little bears in various poses and with some lovely scottish themed items like a thistle, kilt and bagpipes! The hearts and flowers and tutu are really lovely too and these will be very well used! The stamps both include various phrases to print on the card too - this makes the stamp set really useful as you can give a really professional finish to your cards.
For anyone already into stamping these Hamish & Isobel Wooly Bear stamps will be a lovely addition to their stamping craft kit. For children you will find they will love stamping and many will also love colouring in their stamped cards - so the stamp set can be used as a stand alone kit. Encourage them to make cards as well as create great pictures which they can enhance with colour, glitter or cutting and sticking! For children who love arts and crafts they will be a real treat to play with!
The card making kit provides a lovely assortment of materials for making fantastic cards. The Dawn Bibby Cupcake designs come with a sheet of ideas and suggested uses but you are sure to think up lovely ways to use the items to make some fantastic cards! You will need little foam pads to make the toppers stand out as they're designed to but these are available cheaply too.
A card making kit is a way to spend wet days during the holidays and your children will love making such really pretty cards with the cupcake motif being a strong favourite! The cupcake ribbons are used along the bottom or top of cards normally and these again are all theme matched to ensure some really smart looking cards can be made.
Don't get glues or sticky pads out straight away, get the card designs mocked up first and play around with mixing and matching the different toppers and ribbons! Make small cards or big cards and use some of the lovely sparkly glitter card for a backing too! There's really so much in this kit that you can make lots of cards and have tons of fun! You could plan out the children's card making by getting them to write a list of who they have to make a card for so they can think a bout the person as they're designing it and so they can decide which colour cupcakes Grandma would like on her card!
Dawn Bibby's card designs all work well with each other so it's impossible to make a bad card using her craft sets and the stamps allow you to personalise the cards or anything else you want to be stamping too! The designs are very pretty and carefully colour matched through the set so you get a great mix choice for making each card different!
For giving children a great start with crafting a set of stamps and a card making pack can be just what they need to fire their imaginations! It's a great idea for spending wet weekends or summer holiday time doing something fun, pretty and crafty!
Encourage children to do crafts by ensuring everything you need is out and ready to be used. Give them encouragement and help putting card designs together and when they've made cards make sure they are used! Relatives will love their special cards made by your children. It's something so much more thoughtful than sending ready made cards.
Handcrafted cards are fantastic fun to make and allow you to express your creativity. They also can demand a high price at school fetes and events so could be something your children make for fundraising for school too! You may discover you have a real flair for card design and making once you've used this Dawn Bibby stamp and card kit. There's plenty of card material in the kit too so you can make lots of different cards. It offers great value for money and the stamps can be added to your collection.
Children love making things and they will enjoy getting stuck into card making! Older children will have lots of fun making designs and showing off their skills, younger children will love making them but might need a little help! It's a lovely family activity and you will be surprised how much fun they have and how proud they are of the cards they make! They will want to make cards again and be keen to see all the other design kits available! The toppers and ribbons will also be used for other things like making door plates for their rooms and sticking on their notebooks! The cupcake designs are guaranteed to be very popular!

To be able to entertain visiting children you need a few simple toys.

Paper. Lots of it. Paper can be used as a backing for a collage for cutting and sticking, for colouring, drawing or writing. You can also fold paper into shapes and do origami!

Colouring materials - either pens, felt tips, crayons, pencils, paints or any other art medium you like using. When you sit down and spend quality time with a child doing art you can allow your own artistic skills to come out a bit. Start them off with a quick doodle and let them finish the rest of the picture. For some children colouring in is their favourite so you'll need to be able to create black outlined drawings in either pencil or pen to allow them to get on with some colouring.

Glue is needed for cutting and sticking and making models. If you're crafty you'll probably have some PVA glue around. This is good glue for children as it'll wash off clothes and hands easily. If you don't have any then you can make a simple glue using flour and water.

A ball is a great standby toy. Ideally a soft football as this is most adaptable for playing both football and softer indoor games. You can turn a hallway into a bowling alley very easily with a few empty plastic bottles and your ball! You can throw the kids outside in good weather and they'll get on with playing ball or you can join in and play piggy in the middle!

A board game of some description. You might already have a chess board, scrabble set, a pack of playing cards or even dominos. All these games can provide entertainment for children. You can teach children the rules and play the games or make up other games with the pieces. A Chess board can be used to play checkers on with the chess pieces, or you can play dice chase across the board. Each player has a playing piece they start off in a corner and taking it in turns to roll the dice one player tries to catch the other. It's a good game for encouraging them to count squares too. Cards are versatile as so many games can be played including basics like snap!

Just a few simple items in your house can make all the difference for a visiting child to have some fun!

 

Encouraging children to be active should be something every parent should be doing. Some children require very little encouragement and others require that extra little push.

You can tempt children into being more active by playing with them outside doing fun activities. Play ball games with them. Often a parent playing with them is what they need. This seems obvious if you've got an only child that they may well want someone to play with, but even when there are siblings there are no guarantees they will play nicely together. By being involved with their play you can help children learn to play and share toys.

Climbing frames and outdoor toys are good for children's development! These are more solo toy activities for children and ideal for a variety of gardens as they are available in single swing size to huge garden filling climbing towers and activities.

Ensure children know how to share toys and how to take it in turns. If there are lots of rows between children then these rules need re-teaching. Ensuring your children have good manners is an essential part of parenting and one that's essential for their well being and development of social skills.

During the summer holidays most people take a family holiday. Either in the UK going by car or train, or by airplane to somewhere sunny!
Taking the kids with you is essential for a family holiday but how do you keep them occupied for the whole journey?

It will take a little planning to get the perfect travel bag for your children! So start at least a week in advance, hopefully more!

Of course the exact items to pack will depend on budget, your child's age and their likes and dislikes.

Each child should have their own pack and for avoidance of arguments it is best to make them as identical as possible. If you're creative you can print out your own puzzles and quizzes for them to do - but there are plenty of resources available online or you can buy ready made books of puzzles.

Essentials - a clipboard! A pen or two and some crayons or colouring pencils and pack plenty of paper to draw and write on, perhaps colouring in sheets to do of their favourite tv characters, or doodles books. Comics are a good addition to the pack of things to do too. A sheet of stickers can also keep them quiet!

Most children like word searches - so include some of these. Cheap books of puzzles are available so you could include one of these. If children are the same sort of age then get similar books, if one child is younger then look for a puzzle book suited to their age. It is possible to have word searches made specifically for your child - please get in touch on our about page if you'd like a personalised word search. All we need is the list of words you'd like included!

You may remember I Spy books from when you were a child. These are still available and this one I-Spy On a Car Journey (Michelin I-Spy Guides) is perfect for car journeys! The children get to tick off various items when you see them! It keeps them looking out of the window and generally quiet although when they spot something they may shout out that they've seen it!

An alternative version would be to use your planned route to make a list of towns and villages that you'll be going through and print this out on a sheet with tick boxes! Of course this is great fun and gives children and idea of where they are on the journey! It'll also start them looking out for street signs and directions! too which is certainly a useful skill as they get older! Older children might like to spot road numbers too to add an extra level of hardness to the quiz!

An alphabet game needs a sheet with the letters of the alphabet written down on and children have to create a list of things they've seen out of the window! The objects have to be spotted in order to make it more tricky.

Word games can be fun too! You can play a variety of games using car registration number plates for ideas! Decide which letter you'll be using and then each round consists of finding a first name for a boy, a girl, a type of animal and a country that start with that letter. You can also try and make up phrases using number plate letter combinations too. This often gets silly as combinations can be quite tricky, so will keep children's spirits up if you join in and help make up silly phrases.

Remember to stop for plenty of breaks on a long journey. Take bottles of water and drinks for everyone and snacks that you can eat without mess on the move in case you get stuck in slow moving holiday traffic.

Singing songs can keep them amused especially if you use songs like Old McDonald but use the names of cars instead of the animals! Ten green bottles is classic car song too! You can also take music cds along with you for the journey but don't play lullabys! You could play audio versions of books - something like Harry Potter that everyone will like - and is quite long! If you have DVD players in the back for the kids then they can keep occupied for hours watching their favourite DVDs!

For younger children pack some toys instead - things that they can play with safely in the car seat! Tie toys to the car seat though so they don't get thrown on the floor!

As well as snacks and drinks pack baby wipes to clean them up quickly. As well as sick bags consider taking old plastic tubs (like ice cream comes in) as this will seal any mess up shut until you get to a safe place to dispose of it. You can also use them for putting wrappers, fruit peel and dirty wipes in to help keep the car tidier!

Two very simple games that require only pencil and paper.

Noughts and crosses is a very simple game that involves drawing a grid of two horizontal lines and two vertical lines. First person to go decides if they are a nought or a cross. They draw their symbol in one of the 9 squares created by the grid of lines. The second player takes the other symbol and places that in an empty square. The aim of the game is to get three symbols in a line. Play alternates until the grid is filled up or there's a winner.
Small children can enjoy playing this game.

Older children will enjoy hangman. The first player picks a word and draws a line space for each letter of the world. The second player has to guess the word. Each letter guess results in either that letter being inserted into the spaces in the word or a hangman gets drawn. Rules vary but most children will enjoy playing more if letters they have picked are written down when they are picked so they can see which they have already guessed at. You can change how many lines make up the hangman to make it easier for the child, or invent a new shape you can draw with simple lines.