Attribution of image Jelene from Flickr

This is a Facebook story captured from Play Fest. A team effort from 6 different Play Fest guests contributed line by line to make this story. It’s amazing what minds come up with when working together!

Once Upon A Time, In a land filled with sweeties and cupcakes there was a gnome called Jim and a Snail called Al. Jim was bald and round with a huge beard and Al was eating all the cupcakes whilst trying not to get buttercream in his shell. Unfortunately, he had forgotten who the cupcakes belonged to. The big scary village dog called Huracio. He was supposed to be guarding the cupcakes when he’d gotten distracted by the village cat…Grissom who was only a few feet away, picking his fleas out of his ears.

Grissom saw this opportunity for a chase and that’s why things began to unravel quickly. Jim rode Grissom bare back to get to Al before all the cupcakes were gone. But when he got there he just stopped and stared in horror as he realised that one of the cupcakes…was…ALIVE!

Al had transformed from a slimy snail into a beautiful butterfly!

And the moral of that story is…

Don’t eat the cupcakes with the snails on top!

DO eat the cupcakes with the snails on top, cos it’ll not be long before they turn into beautiful butterflies!

Cupcakes don’t make you fat but make you turn into beautiful butterflies LOL a girl can dream eh!

you should always eat ALL the cupcakes to make sure that there are no naughty snails left lurking in the buttercream

Which is your favourite ending?

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

This is my first ‘guest post’ for playfest – and after having been a regular ‘playfester’ for nearly a year now I am quite honoured! I got into playfest through twitter ( I think it was the lure of chocolate as far as I can remember) but I have never looked back. As well as ‘meeting’ some genuinely lovely people, I have learnt so much and got so many new ideas to support learning through play at home! Getting the chance to talk to other like minded mums and dads, and bounce ideas around is invaluable… and I know if I’m ever stuck, I’ll get some great ideas back! Its also great to know that my ideas may be inspiring others! Win Win!

So, it has fallen on me to do a round up of the fabulous playfest chat that we have had this week – and for once I feel quite knowledgeable! Playfest this week was all about Early Phonics… and once again there was some fabulous chat, ideas and links that I hope to summarise for you now!

Lots of people were aware of Early years phonics… it seems that our children have bridged the home-school gap and told us all about the sounds they are learning at school, but for a lot of us it seemed very different to when we were at school and the differences between how we were taught to read and spell, and how it is done today became apparent!

Phonics was defined as…

‘a way of teaching reading… its based on the sounds of letters, groups of letters, and syllables. Letters (or graphemes) are the written representation of the phoneme (sound). … Children are basically learning letter sounds, children learn them with associated actions, to build up sounds in how the the letters join up into words and then ultimately use these sounds to forms words. Children seem to learn this in a multi-sensory way, listening, looking, speaking and sensory with actions.’

It seemed apparent that we were worried that children were being taught to spell wrong, concentrating on the phonetic spelling rather than the correct one. It was noted that it is not particularly ‘taught wrong’ but that the different ways of writing sounds (144 in total!!!) are taught over 6 phases, so as the children progress they learn all the different ways of representing different sounds, as well as being given the skills to try and choose the most likely spelling for that word. There are also ‘tricky words’ which the children have to learn, as they are not phonetically plausible.

Some playfesters were also concerned about the coverage of phonics in school, thinking it may go too fast and that for some children certain things needed reinforcing – whilst also being worried about making sure you took the same approach as your child’s school at home so as not to confuse the children by teaching different methods! The suggestion here was to speak to school and see exactly what approach they were taking – and that way any learning you did at home would complement and support even more!

Whatever the viewpoint, it was obvious through the chat that we all wanted to support our children’s learning at home – and we all seemed to have weird and wonderful ways of doing this, whether a game or an activity!

Playfest came up with some FAB ideas for supporting phonics education at home through play:

• Singing – rhymes, songs and the alphabet song!
• Vtech – their laptops came highly recommended!
• Leapfrog – particularly the ‘My First Leaptop’, ‘Scribble and Write’  and the ‘Fridge Phonics’
• Magnetic letters ( used on the fridge to spell and create words and find sounds – great for lots of little activities!)
• Bottle tops with letters on to turn over and sound out and also create words with
• Finding matching sounds in books
• Making word cards
• Foam letters and bath crayons in the bath
• Playing i-spy… starting with saying the sound and progressing the the letter name!
• Hopscotch – but with letters rather than numbers!
• Ping pong balls with letters on – use a fishing net to scoop out and say the sound or make a word!
• Orchard toys – Alphabet lotto (lots of scope for phonics play!)

Playfest also came up with a lot of free and easily accessible resources to use at home!

• Letters and sounds
• Pronounce the phonemes
• Phonics play
• Making learning fun
• Alphabet song
• BBC Words and pictures

Maybe the resource that came the top of the recommendations was the Alphablocks... children get to learn all about phonics and blending and segmenting sounds from these 26 very cute alphabet characters which come to life! They are great for us too as they help us to pronounce the sounds correctly!

It may be all change from when we all learnt to read and write… but with the ideas and resources that were shared through both twitter and facebook I think it is clear we are all keen to support our children!

Kate x

@yummymumto2 / www.whatmeandtheboyssay.posterous.com

katep

Blogging and Vlogging are relatively new to me, but I LOVE it! I was first introduced to this world by Izziwizzikids and things have taken off from there! It has taken me into a world of photography, videoing and reviewing.. all things I never thought I would end up doing!

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Here are some ideas to liven up your valentines day with your little one.
These ideas are brought to you thanks to the brilliant mostly mums who come along to Play Fest every week and on this particular week we had a focus on Valentines day fun with kids. Traditionally, valentines day isn’t really aimed at kids, but we saw it as a great opportunity to show how much you care and give them opportunities to show their loved ones how much they care too. You can do this in a fun way and enjoy some time together.

Using the letters from VALENTINES, here are a few fun things to try out for valentines day with your kids.

V – Vaccuuming

A – Art

L – Lots of love

E – Poached egg hearts for breakfast, lunch or tea

N – Make a nice treat

T – Time together

I – Do something using imagination

N – Nagging – not so much of it ;o)

E – Something educational

S – Sticking and glueing

Other fantastic creative fun ideas to try include:

1. Making heart jewell biscuits. Make some heart shaped biscuits and cut a shape out of the centre. Bake with a boiled sweet in the centre.

2. Have a treasure hunt with heart shaped clues and romantic cryptic clues if you are feeling really clever

3. Stimulate those creative poetry skills by saying words and asking your LO to point to the various parts of their body. For example, shed, flair, boulder, tree, peg, race, peir, pie etc.

4. Make a cake or cup cakes and use jelly heart sweets to cover.

More creative valentines fun ideas:

For more play ideas. Come along and join Play Fest every Tuesday on Twitter from 8.30-10pm and every Thursday on Facebook from 8.30-10pm.

What are your favourite actitivities to share for valentines day?

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

What do mums think about technology and toys? Do children over indulge? Can technology become problematic in play?

Play Fest mums shared their views on technology and toys, with many positive benefits and only a couple of down sides.

0-100+ years

Technology is so simple now, it has the ability to connect different generations. Happiest and most memorable family time is spent playing with games consoles together such as the Wii or even more so with controllerless Kinnect. Children can also play very well together with technology which helps parents when they need to get on with jobs.

On the flip side there were reports of some children getting frustrated and bad tempered when they get interrupted. Some children can also get bad tempered if they are not allowed to play on a games console. On the opposite perspective it was also highlighted that a games console can act as an excellent reward for good behaviour.

The earlier children get introduced to technology the better, was the general view held by mums at Play Fest as it forms an integral part of everyday living for children right into adulthood. However, there was also a general view that this should be in moderation and combined with other play activity which is more tradititional.

What were views about mobile phone game apps?

These were viewed really positively as providing a great tool for distraction when in queues in public places. It can help to control a childs behaviour and adults sanity.  Children from as young as 18 months play on mobile phone applications.

Quality of technical toys

It seems that in modern times, toys can either be designed really well and benefit children in fanastic ways with education and learning, but there are still some interpretations of technology which don’t work. Providing toys are well designed, then technical toys can be really effective.

When should we introduce technical toys?

Technology is part of everyday life and gets children interested in all sorts of things and should be embraced. The Play Fest even brought about a traditional toy shop considering stocking some high tech toys. It’s about a balance and making sure that introducing technology does not put them off traditional toys and play within the home. The only downside to technical toys is that they eat up batteries, which cost money and often run low. When technology in toys can embrace extended battery life or wireless batteries, this will overcome the most popular widespread problem with technical toys.

The following websites were highlighted by Play Fest as being fun websites to try for play and learning with technology:

Cbeebies

Cbbc

Club Penguin

Moshi Monsters

Lego Hero Factory

Star Fall

Dr Zeuss Game Lorax

Education City

Magic Belles Music

Favourite Kids Apps:

Mind shapes

Duck Duck Moose

John Higham Early Reader Apps

What are your favourite online game websites and mobile phone apps for kids? Are there any we have missed?

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

Are you looking for tips and ideas to make your childs party really special? Izziwizzi Kids Play Fest got together with mums and party entertainer Pippa Saunders @PippaTrulyMadly and hosted a party on Twitter and Facebook to brainstrom some ideas for fantastic kids parties. We hope these ideas will spark lots of really creative ideas and get your party off to a lively start in a way that suits your budget. We’d love you to share your ideas by contributing to this post.

What do you need to think about when you start to organise a kids party?

Play Fest came up with details of all the things that you need think about when you embark on your project of organising your child’s party.

1. A theme

2. Who to invite

3. A venue

4. The games and activities to bring your kids party to life

5. The food

6. The cake

7. Your budget

8. Crowd control

9. Party bags

1. A Theme

Your party theme could be based around something that your child loves to talk about, but you might also like to consider the mixture of age ranges who will be attending the party and what might capture their imagination. Ideas include pirates and princesses, nursery rhymes,

2. Who to invite

How many children can you invite within your budget? What will the age range be? A smaller age range makes it easier to maintain the interest of children in the games and activities.  Don’t forgot to check with your child who they want to invite to their party and guide them where appropriate.

3. A venue

You need to think about where you will host your childs party. Do you want to have lots of children in your house, or will your budget allow for hosting your childs party elsewhere? Sometimes it can be as cost effective to host your childs party elsewhere and save you a lot of cleaning up at home.

4. Games and activities to bring your party to life

The games you select make a difference to your party. Do you want to energise children? Do you want to calm them down? Do you want to get different age groups involved? Here are some party games and activity ideas that Play Fest came up with.

• Fish for your party bag
• Pass the parcel – You can include a prize on every layer such as a golden coin or medal to maintain the interest of younger children.
• Musical statues
• Dead ants – where children lay on their backs and wave their arms and legs in the air. Thanks @Chaoskay
• Treasure hunts – using golden coins for example
• Parachute games – e.g. for a pirate theme you could make the parachute the sea and catch the fishes i.e. the children running around under the parachute.
• The bumps
• Bubble machines seem to go down really well
• Plate or cup decorating
• For a space theme create rockets with plastic bottles and launch them with alka seltzer
• Make and decorate a biscuit
• Fabric snakes
• Picture frames
• Simon says
• Pin something on something e.g. pin tail on donkey, pin tail on Peppa pig

5. The Food

A couple of food ideas came out including plenty of fresh crunchy food such as carrots, cucumber, grapes etc and lots of nibbles.  Don’t go over the top with food. They will be so interested in playing that food often gets left. Themed food boxes are an idea as an alternative to a buffet style.

6. The Cake

Play Fest came up with some novelty cake ideas to spark your imagination. Please do share your creations to spark more ideas. Cakes included bomb cakes (using liquorice sticks as the fuse), toadstool, numbers, hedgehog (using chocolate buttons as the spikes), princess castle, spider man cake with web cup cakes, fire engine and a Vanessa Phelps look alike Tinkerbell.

7. Your budget

Think about how much you are prepared to spend and hopefully these ideas will give you lots of low cost ideas to bring your party to life.

8. Crowd Control

What techniques will you use if your party guests get over excited to calm them down and get their attention? What will you do if some children don’t want to get involved? How will you keep the interest of different ages? Ideas to gain the attention of lots of noisy children include sounding a horn to let them know that you are ready for the next game.

9. Party Bags

Will you provide party bags for kids, or do you prefer something alternative. Ideas for party bags include personalised colouring pages and crayons, bubbles and cup cakes in a box. Printed t-shirts were also mentioned as a big hit.

Relax as much as you can. You know your kids party will deviate greatly from the plan, but that’s all part of the fun.

Finally Play Fest came up with some ideas for your Party Play List. Try some of these to see if you can get your little ones jiggling.

Time Warp
Agadoo
Zingzillas theme tune
Party rock
Birdy song
Hokey Cokey
Witch Doctor Ooh Eeh Ooh Ah Aah Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang

How do you get a good response to party invitations. Do you have any tips on how to increase your response rate to party invitations?

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

Think of rice crispy cakes with the
moldability of clay and you’ve got
PlayFoam. Lightweight foam
sculpting beads that you can
squish, stretch and shape into
hundreds of exciting designs. It
never dries out, does not crumble
and will not stick to surfaces, so
you can use it over and over again
and cleaning up is so easy. It is
non toxic and non allergenic

Try PlayFoam with this starter pack
containing 6 blocks of PlayFoam in
yellow, orange, pink, blue, green
and white.

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

Wooden Farm Puzzle

5 Layered Puzzle

These are delightful wooden puzzles with a wide variety to choose from.

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.

www.izziwizzikids.co.uk Catwalk Creations by Crayola product review by Al and Lily-Mai for IzziwizziKids

Al Boxall-Gordon

I am the founder of IzziwizziKids.co.uk and the Play Fest.