About the NYBY Garden Hoe

A metal garden hoe in child size, this little hoe will allow your helper to give you a hand in the garden, just make sure you point out which ones are weeds!
Image is squashed slightly

Buy from Adventure Toys >>

About the NYBY Gardening Gloves

A pair of textile gardening gloves, these gloves have bobble grips on the palm and fingers to give better grip of your tools and have stretching cuffs so its easier to put your hand inside, they are light weight children’s gloves so they wont give protection against spiky or stinging plants but are great to have alongside adult gloves so you can both garden together.
Colours vary mainly white with coloured prints.

Traffic light pancakes are best made with a traditional dropped scone (scotch pancake) recipe as the mixture is thicker and it is easier to achieve smaller pancakes.

To make dropped scones you need:

200g/8oz self-raising flour
1/2 level teaspoon of salt
1 level tablespoon caster sugar
1 standard egg
250ml/1/2 pint milk
25-50g/1 to 2oz butter, melted

1. Sift flour and salt into bowl
2. Add sugar
3. Mix to smooth creamy batter with whole egg and half the milk
4. Stir in rest of milk
5. Brush large heavy frying pan with melted butter.
Heat
6. Drop small rounds of scone mixture (about 12 in all) for your spoon, into pan
7. Cook until bubbles show on surface (21/2 to 3 minutes)
8. Carefully turn over with knife. Cook for further 2 minutes.
9. Pile scones in clean, folded tea-towel to keep warm and moist
10. Serve immediately

Makes 12 dropped scones

You can then use your imagination to create red, amber or green toppings. As an example, you could encourage your child to spread jam on the red scone, honey on the amber and then for the green you could use mint icecream or green glace icing as toppings. Alternatively you could divide the scone mixture up before you cook your scones and add food colouring to the mixture.

How to make Green Glacé icing:

225g sifted icing sugar
2 tablespoons hot water

1. Put sugar into bowl. Gradually add water
2. Stir briskly until somooth and thick enough to coat the back of the spoon without running off.
3. If it gets too thick add a drop or two of water; if it goes to runny stir in more icing sugar.
4. Add a couple of drops of green food colouring
5. Use immediately

WARNING! These pancakes are very sickly and very moreish:-))

Photograph accredited to philipe garcia on flickr

Are your kids bedrooms in a mess? Does it seem like a hopeless cycle?

Here are some tips to blast your kids bedroom and get them self-motivated to do it for themselves.

Bits missing? toys broken? bits of toys all over the place?

Prefer to watch this on video. Watch Izziwizzi Kids Play TV Episode #20.

The Challenge

- For 90% of children tidying up is not an attractive option as playing is much more fun.

- Yes children will find long lost toys in the depths of their toy boxes and get side tracked in playing with them rather than tidying up.

- Yes it will take longer

The Benefits of Motivating Children to Tidy Their Room

- Your children are more likely to appreciate the work that has been done and keep it tidy.

- You get to spend some quality time together

- It encourages children to take responsibility for their own environment

- It encourages children to look after their personal belongings

- It teaches children some self-discipline and organisation skills

- You will be creating good habits for later in life and save yourself a lot more time and headache in the long run

- You will have a nicer environment to live in

- You never know you might even breed someone who loves tidying and wants to help out in other areas of the house. Well it’s worth a try anyhow.

It is astonishing that the first 3 pages of Google are dominated by computerised games where children can pretend to tidy up. And yes, some of these games even said you could really please your mum by showing her how tidy your computerised room is. Wow!

How to get your kids motivated to tidy their room:

- Get some music on to get you in the mood

- Make a game of how much you can get tidied up in one song. The problem here with experiences is that children focus on quantity of tidying rather than quality. They will pick everything up off the floor and pile it up as a mountain in the corner.

- You can make games up with younger children to encourage learning, shapes, colours, toy types e.g. put all the toy food in one box, put all the dolls in another box.

- Talk with your kids and ask them about their toys, which ones they particularly like and why.

- Make games up with the toys that you find now and again e.g. make a puppet show.

Extra Tips:

- Keep the process simple by having a set of rules. Which toys belong in which place, what to do with broken ones or toys with missing parts.

- Be prepared to repeat yourself

- Have an ‘abandoned things’ box for small bits that get lost. Don’t worry about matching everything up, when you come to play with it and something’s missing, then go to the abandoned box.

- If you find toys with lost or broken bits check the abandoned box first. If you can’t find it there then it’s worth considering contacting the manufacturer as they often have replacement parts. So contrary to advice given elsewhere on the web, don’t just chuck it.

- If you do decide to get rid of broken things (get the permission of your kids if they are aware of what you are doing)

- Do not stop and examine anything was the advice given on one website. Everything broken should just be thrown straight in the dustbin. This is the worst advice from an environmental perspective that I have seen. If you can fix or replace bits before you throw them away. Even if you don’t want the toy anymore it could be re-used.

- Sort out clothes that don’t fit in another bag and toys and books in a bag

- You can give re-usable items to a charity shop or do a boot fair. Your kids will get loads out of doing a boot fair. Marketing their toys, practicing money and appreciating the value of money. They can buy a new toy as a reward

- You might also want a bag for things to put away for later and rotate if you don’t have enough room for everything right now.

How To Motivate Your Child to Keep Their Room Tidy?

Make it easy for them, easy boxes to put things in, easy hooks to hang coats on.

Habits are things that we do repeatedly without almost being aware that we do them. They become an unconscious thing that we just do. So if you are not a tidy person naturally you need to make it become a habit and you do this consciously making yourself repeat behaviour until you do it regularly without even thinking about it.

And here is how to form good habits

Consciously dedicate 15 minutes a day to a ‘tidy up time’. Set a specific time of day for doing this and stick to this as much as possible.  Write it down somewhere, ideally in your diary or chart. Something you look at daily. If you write it down you are far more likely to act upon it.

Avoid introducing pocket money for tidying their room if you can. It seems to really work on the face of it, but then the reward of money becomes the focus of attention rather than the original benefits discussed. A financial reward can come for older children by selling old toys. But if keeping a tidy bedroom is mixed with other activities during the week as part of a pocket money rewards scheme for general good behaviour it can work really well.

And Don’t forget those other day to day things that kids can be doing to keep those tidy habits

- After getting dressed make their bed before breakfast

- Put dirty clothes in the wash basket after they’ve taken them off

- Put toys, CD’s and DVD’s back in their boxes

- Put their coats and shoes away when they get back from school

- Take plates and cups back into the kitchen

- Put towels back on the rail in the bathroom

How many times do you find yourself doing these things for your kids just to get on with it? Do you find yourself getting sucked in?

November is a great time of year for planting spring bulbs e.g. the daffodil, the crocus, the tulip. It’s a short and easy job that your kids can enjoy and takes just a few minutes. You can talk about the essence of how the spring bulb comes to life, how it grows up towards the sun and how it needs water to stay alive.

Dig a hole that is twice as deep as the bulb is high. Carefully place the spring bulb in the hole ensuring the roots are facing towards the bottom. Cover the bulb with soil and although there will probably be lots of rain to water your bulb you can ask your child to water afterwards. You can also plant bulbs in pots and leave in the house. They usually grow quicker if they are kept in doors and if you want to be a real cheat, you can place your bulb on the radiator in the spring to stimulate bringing it to flower.

Photo attributed to Secret Tenerife Flickr

Yorkshire Parkin is a traditional bonfire night recipe in Yorkshire, but this ginger cake can be enjoyed at any time of year. It’s very easy to make and this recipe has been brought to you directly from my grandmother-in-law who happens to have born and brought up in the heart of South Yorkshire.

See the recipe being made on video

For this recipe you will need:

8oz / 200g Self-raising flour
4oz / 100g Medium oatmeal
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
2 1/2 level teaspoons of ground ginger

In a separate mixing bowl you will need:

4oz / 100g margarine
2 tablespoons golden syrup
4oz/100g of demerara sugar

3/4 pint of warm milk plus a little water.

Method:
1. Mix together the the dry ingredients i.e. the flour, oatmeal, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger in a mixing bowl.
2. In a separate bowl mix together the wet ingredients i.e. the margarine, golden syrup and demerara sugar. Cream these with a wooden spoon to make the mixture light and fluffy.
3. Alternate mixing in the dry ingredients and the warm milk into the creamed wet ingredients until the mixture takes on a consistency similar to porridge and then goes a bit more runny.
4. Pour the mixture into a greased and lined loaf tin or baking tray and cook in a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour. A fan assisted oven may take less cooking time.

This rice biscuits are versatile, delicious and very moorish!

You will need:

200g/4oz of Self Raising Flour

100g/2oz Ground Rice

150g/3oz Caster Sugar

150g/3oz Margarine

2 Tablespoons of Milk

(a few drops of food colouring if you are making them different colours)

Method:

First make sure everyone has washed their hands thoroughly.

1. Mix together thoroughly, flour, rice and sugar. Rub in the margarine. (Kids love to squidge the margarine through their fingers).

2. Mix to a stiff paste with a fork using the milk. Add any food colouring to the milk before you pour it into the mixture if you are colouring the biscuits.

3. Roll out thinly and cut into rounds with a cutter or cup.

Bake in a moderate oven at about 200c for 10-15 minutes. Fan assisted ovens may cook quicker.

You can decorate with butter icing, chocolate drops, smarties or anything else that grabs your imagination.

Photography credit clspeace Flickr

I Can Cook At Christmas is a fun, exciting and educational DVD which aims to get young children in the kitchen and cooking tasty treats. Packed with simple recipes, guessing games, songs and top cooking tips, the show celebrates a hands on approach to cooking.

Exclusive to this DVD, Presenter Katy Ashworth welcomes a group of lucky young chefs into her kitchen to cook up a festive feast! Children find out how to make tasty ‘Turkey and Ham Bake’, followed by yummy ‘White Christmas Cookies’ as they prepare for a very special Christmas party.

Every episode includes fun sing-a-long songs with Katy who will work alongside the children as they learn to connect what’s on their plate with the world around them.

Special Features include:
• Songs with Katy
• Visits to the i can cook garden
• Having fun with i can cook

::amazonicancook(“0750651997″)::