Creating a holiday scrapbook with young children

I love to travel, and I've always made scrapbooks to document my adventures. I first started making holiday scrapbooks on my childhood holidays to France, where I would fill old exercise books with pictures, postcards and notes. As an adult, I would keep a detailed diary while we were away, then on my return write it all up, glueing in pictures cut from tourist leaflets and ticket stubs.

On our recent holidays with small children it has been forgotten. I have usually been so busy looking after and entertaining the little ones that I don't think about making time to sit down and write up a diary (although this blog has proven to be a fantastic way of keeping a record about some of the places that we have visited as a family.)

On our recent holiday to Snowdonia, I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity for Harry to start his own holiday scrapbook. We bought him a cheap exercise book which had a plastic wallet attached to the cover, and I provided him with a pencil, crayons, glue and scissors. Then when we were out and about we collected tourist leaflets about the places that we had visited, postcards, and other paper ephemera souvenirs like tickets. I've never been organised enough to add actual photographs to my scrapbooks, but you could easily do this too with a bit of planning. Then every day at some point we sat down together and spent a few minutes writing about that day.

I cut out pictures for him from the leaflets, and he arranged them on to the page and glued them down. Then we added a date, a note about the location, and he drew some pictures himself. He wasn't keen on doing too much writing, but I gave him a few prompts and he wrote captions and labels for his pictures.

You could ask your child some questions and write down their answers, or just chat to them about what you've done that day and write down what they say. Older children can be given a sentence to finish or a topic to write about. We also labelled maps with places that we visited and labelled diagrams of things that we've seen, for example the parts of a castle. 

Slightly older children can keep a more detailed diary, and research more about places that you've visited to add in some extra information.

It would also be a nice idea for children to start an online travel blog that could be shared with friends and family, and then it would be easy to include your digital photographs. This would be easy to update as you were away, as it only takes a few minutes to upload a photo and a few lines of text.

While you are out and about keep an eye out for ephemera that you can use in the scrapbook - we've used restaurant and attraction business cards, receipts, tickets, leaflets and so on. You can also buy postcards, stickers or bookmarks. Craft shops that sell scrapbooking supplies have ranges of themed stickers, for example stickers related to a country that you are visiting.

It's a good idea to photograph or scan the pages when you have finished so that you have a permanent record in case something happens to the original book. Something that I really need to get started on with my collection of holiday scrapbooks!

More recently we created a scrapbook together of our Summer Holiday 2016 - you can find out how we did it here - Making a Holiday Scrapbook

Review - Kids Pass Discount Family Pass

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know how much we enjoy taking day trips and outings as a family. The cost of all those attraction tickets can really add up though, and so we are always looking for ways that we can save money on entry. I was recently introduced to the Kids Pass website, which promises plenty of great offers that can save you up to 50% on family days out.

It's completely free to sign up to Kids Pass, and registration is quick and simple. Once logged in you can access the Member Offers area of the website. Here you can filter by location to find places closest to you, and also drill down by type of attraction - for example Indoor or Outdoor, Theme Parks or Aquariums. When you have found the offer that you want to use you can print out a voucher that will give you the discount on arrival.

I found a good selection of local places to visit. There are four in Sussex, including a saving of £2 at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Hastings for up to six people, and 20% off at Knockhatch Adventure Park in East Sussex which is on our list of places to visit.

Some of the deals are exclusive to Kids Pass members and some are offers which are generally available but have been handily collected together in one place. As well as days out, you can also find vouchers to save 15% at Rainforest Cafe and 20% at Planet Hollywood which are great deals. I've been having a good browse, and I can see that it's definitely going to be worth checking the site before we plan any trips away.

On the Days Out section on the website, again you can filter by location to find attractions in your local area or areas that you are planning on visiting. In particular the Parks section is very good as many of these are free to visit and you might discover ideas for places to visit that would be difficult to find if you aren't local.

By next year there will be 1000 attractions on board across the country, and the website is continually being updated. It's definitely worth signing up, you are bound to find a voucher for somewhere that you are planning to visit as a family!

This is a sponsored review.

Different Rangoli to make with children for Diwali

Rangoli are beautiful, artistic designs that originate in India. They are created on the floor, either indoors or outdoors, and are usually formed with natural materials such as dyed sand, rice or flour. They can be very simple or incredibly complex and usually feature geometric designs and patterns. They are made to welcome the Hindu deities, they act as decoration and are thought to bring good luck. Rangoli are often created for Diwali, the Festival of Lights.

Designing and creating Rangoli is a great activity for children of all ages, because you can tailor them to the age and ability of the child. There are many different ways that you can make Rangoli with children, and this post contains some of the ways that we've created Rangoli together.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know how much we all love Hama beads in this house. The Hama bead circular pegboards and the huge range of coloured Hama beads available makes them perfect for making Rangoli designs that can be used as coasters, place mats or decorations for a Diwali celebration.

I began with a series of designs for small Hama bead Rangoli. These designs use the small circle template and are very simple, easy for young children to copy or use as a base for their own ideas.

Then I moved onto creating large Hama bead Rangoli designs. These designs use a lot of beads as the large Hama bead circle template is quite big, but the final designs really are vibrant and eye catching. I love that the pegboard is so versatile, there are so many different ways that you can place the beads on the pegs!

Dyed rice is a very popular choice of material when making Rangoli. Rice is very cheap and it's easy to dye using food colouring. For these dyed rice Rangoli I drew the basic design onto painted cardboard and filled the outlines with glue before the children spooned the dyed rice into the different shapes.

Salt is another great natural material that is easily dyed with food colouring. Our recent dyed salt Rangoli designs were really easy for the children to make using clear contact paper and they also make lovely window decorations.

I have rounded up all my other Diwali crafts and activities into one post which you can find here - Simple Diwali crafts for young children.

Ladybird Tuesday - The Three Little Pigs

The Three Little Pigs is part of Series 606D - Well Loved Tales. I think that most people had at least one of these books around when they were little. Published between 1964 and the early 1990s, these books were re-tellings of classic stories and fairy tales, and were graded in order of reading difficulty. The Three Little Pigs was published in 1965 and is one of the earliest books in the series, along with classics like Cinderella and The Elves and the Shoemaker. It is a Grade 1, so at the easiest reading level.

The book contains all the classic lines - "By the hair of my chinny chin chin, I will not let you come in" and "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow yourself in". The story does get a little more complicated than I remember it though when it comes to the third pig with the house of bricks. Although the first two pigs get eaten up (no sanitised version here), the third pig spends the last two thirds of the book outwitting the wolf before the wolf meets his inevitable fate in the cooking pot.

The illustrations in the book are a little more cartoonish than you usually see in a Ladybird book, perhaps because it is animals rather than humans that are being portrayed. Although at an easier reading level I think it would still be a challenging book for a new reader, but it would also be great for reading aloud to younger children.

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Being left behind while the husband is away

For the last nine days Ram has been away on a work trip. He started in San Francisco for a conference and then took a trip to Las Vegas, because it's on the way home. Although I'm pretty used to evenings and nights alone, it was by far the longest that he's been away since we had the children, and the furthest apart geographically that we've ever been.

I've been very lucky while he's been away. My Mum came and stayed for a few days which was a great help, and I've been visiting both parents as well as being visited myself by friends. Now that the children are older it's not nearly as hard as it would once have been, and during the week it didn't really feel much different than normal. Of course we all missed Ram, and Harry in particular did seem a little bit unsettled at times, but we've had fun too.

I've eaten a few more chocolates and baked a few more batches of cookies than is good for my waistline, especially as I've been missing out on my regular gym trips. I've rewatched a fair bit of Breaking Bad, started up a new crafty project with mini Hama beads and scheduled plenty of blog posts ready for our upcoming holiday.

I was very good, and every night but one I resisted the temptation to scoop a child out of their beds and put them in with me when I went to bed - while night time cuddles are lovely children do tend to wake up much earlier when they are in bed with me!

Things have been relaxed a little bit, the children haven't quite managed a bath every night and I've been a bit lazy about tidying up. But they've also become a little more independent - I've been encouraging them to serve themselves to drink and cereal and to help with the tidying and cleaning a bit more.

Now I'm thinking that it's my turn for a break away somewhere, although I'm not sure I'd want to go quite so far or for quite such a long time!

Simple Diwali crafts for young children - round up post

Diwali is also known as the Festival of Light, and it is celebrated all over the world as one of the largest and most important festivals for Hindus.

I've come up with several Diwali crafts and activities for my children over the last few years, so I'm grouping them all together in this Diwali round up post so that they are all easy to find. Many of these crafts are particularly suitable for younger children.

My most popular craft is my Salt Dough Diwas. One year they were even featured in "Yours" magazine, which I was very excited about! They are really easy to make, and when they are painted and decorated with sequins they are so bright and cheerful. Ours come out now year after year and are still looking as good as the day that we made them.

I first discovered Hama beads around Diwali one year, and now of course they are a regular feature on my blog! I used the large and small circle pegboards to come up with a variety of different Rangoli designs. The small Hama bead Rangoli designs make lovely coasters for a Diwali celebration, or as simple decorations stuck or strung around the room.

The large Hama bead Rangoli designs were also a lot of fun to make, and make nice table mats or standalone decorations. The circle Hama bead pegboard is really versatile, and with the larger board you can make some really complex designs. They look fab in the centre of the table for a Diwali meal.

We've also made some simple Rangoli using dyed rice.These were a bit more fiddly, but looked good and the children had a lot of fun making them. Colouring the rice is really easy and it's fun for the children to get involved.

I also tried a different way of making Rangoli, this time Rangoli using dyed salt for a finer texture, and using my Cricut mini to cut out templates for the different areas. I ran them through the laminator to make them nice and sturdy, and they look great stuck on the window.

We have also put together some really simple Diwali cards which worked very well using some printable colouring pages, and I'll be using this idea again this year. There are lots of different pictures to colour out there and many of them come from the Diwali story so are a great starting point for telling the story.

Finally there are all sorts of sweet treats that you can bake for Diwali. We tried our hand at some Burfi sweets which are very easy to make and use just three ingredients.

If you are teaching your young children about Diwali, here are some books that they might enjoy:

The Best Diwali Ever (affiliate link) - A heart warming picture book about Diwali, siblings and how very special this celebration can be.

Diwali colouring book for kids (affiliate link) - A simple coloring book for young children, suitable for ages 2-5. Contains all sorts of things to colour including lamps, fireworks, candles, lanterns, food & rangoli patterns.

First Festivals: Diwali (affiliate link) - Featuring simple text, gorgeous illustrations and satisfying lift-the-flaps, this book explores common Diwali traditions and helps young children understand the importance of this special holiday.

Mr Men and Little Miss Happy Diwali (affiliate link) - The five-day festival of lights is celebrated by millions of people across the world and the Mr Men and Little Miss can't wait to join in. They're busy cleaning their homes, creating Rangolis, lighting lamps and enjoying all the festivities, including large feasts that Mr Greedy is particularly looking forward to. It’s going to be a busy five days of light and laughter!

We have several years yet of Diwali crafting ahead of us, and so I'll be updating this post with all our new ideas. I also have a huge Pinterest board filled with wonderful Diwali crafts and activities from around the web, do pop over and visit!

Follow Jennifer Jain's board Diwali Crafts and Activities on Pinterest.

Dyed Salt Rangoli for Diwali using the Cricut Mini

Rangoli are designs that are created on the floor, either indoors or outdoors, usually using natural materials like dyed sand, dyed rice, coloured powders or flower petals. The designs can be simple or intricate, and are often based around geometric shapes and patterns. Rangoli are often seen at Diwali as decoration and to encourage the goddess Lakshmi to enter homes. They are a fun activity to do with children because there are so many different ways that you can design and make them.

This year we've made Rangoli using dyed salt in a cardboard template placed on sticky clear contact paper. I used a Cricut Mini to make our templates but you can easily cut them by hand

You need:

Salt and food colouring
Template shapes - mine were cut using a Cricut Mini
Clear contact paper (sticky backed plastic)
Tape to hold in position on the table
(Laminator if required)

Instructions:

This activity does require some preparation, and it's a lot easier to do if it's all set up beforehand!

First you need to dye the salt. I used cheap supermarket salt and liquid food colouring. Pour the salt into a bowl and mix in a generous amount (at least a teaspoon) of food colouring. Stir well, then leave somewhere warm to dry out. I prepared my dyed salt a few days in advance.

Then you need to prepare the Rangoli template. I used a Cricut Mini to cut out my shapes. A limitation of the Cricut Mini is that you can only cut shapes that you have in your library - I'm too mean to purchase additional cartridges, but I find that the basic shapes included in the Craft Room are very good. I used a selection of designs including circles, ovals and leaf shapes, and tweaked them a bit to get the shapes that I wanted.

If you are cutting the shapes out by hand I'd recommend using a craft knife and cutting mat. There are lots of designs online that you can use for inspiration, it's best to look for a simple one like this basic Rangoli pattern. Cut the design from thin cardboard in a contrasting colour.

Lay your clear contact paper out on the table sticky side up and secure the corners with tape. Lay your design out and make sure that it is stuck down firmly to the sticky paper. 

Then you can let the children loose! Use fingers to sprinkle the salt and press down onto the paper. It doesn't matter if you put down too much salt as you can carefully shake off the excess salt over a bin. Seal the design with a second sheet of clear contact paper stuck down over the top. 

The finished Rangoli were fine as a temporary craft, but I wasn't sure if they would last well if I hung them up. So I ran them through the laminator to make them a little sturdier and to be sure that no salt would escape.

The dyed salt can also be used to make a temporary Rangoli design outdoors or on the floor with older children. Simply draw out a design on the floor using chalk and fill in with the coloured salt.

I've made several different types of Rangoli with the children. We have made Rangoli using dyed rice, and I've also designed Rangoli using Hama beads. We've made large Rangoli Hama bead patterns and small Rangoli Hama bead designs.

If you are teaching your young children about Diwali, here are some books that they might enjoy:

The Best Diwali Ever (affiliate link) - A heart warming picture book about Diwali, siblings and how very special this celebration can be.

Diwali colouring book for kids (affiliate link) - A simple coloring book for young children, suitable for ages 2-5. Contains all sorts of things to colour including lamps, fireworks, candles, lanterns, food & rangoli patterns.

First Festivals: Diwali (affiliate link) - Featuring simple text, gorgeous illustrations and satisfying lift-the-flaps, this book explores common Diwali traditions and helps young children understand the importance of this special holiday.

Mr Men and Little Miss Happy Diwali (affiliate link) - The five-day festival of lights is celebrated by millions of people across the world and the Mr Men and Little Miss can't wait to join in. They're busy cleaning their homes, creating Rangolis, lighting lamps and enjoying all the festivities, including large feasts that Mr Greedy is particularly looking forward to. It’s going to be a busy five days of light and laughter!

You can also find all sorts of different Diwali crafts and activities on my popular Diwali Pinterest board.

Follow Jennifer Jain's board Diwali Crafts and Activities on Pinterest.