Related Posts
Hape toys – great for the imagination
WHENEVER we go to playgroups, at some point my toddler will make a beeline for the pretend kitchen areas.
He loves the role play of making me a cup of tea or something to eat! So it was great to try out the Hape Pop-up Toaster Set at home.
It definitely came at the right time for us as we were stuck in the house as my son had a viral infection. #funtimes
So it was a great distraction for him as we pretended to make breakfast together. Sometimes I was lucky enough to be served breakfast on the sofa!
The classic wooden set comprises of seven pieces including a toaster that pops up two slices of bread, a plate, knife, butter and honey pot.
I absolutely adore wooden playsets, for me they’ll always have the edge over mass produced plastic toys – although don’t get me wrong, you’ll still find lots of plastic toys in my home too!
Made to last, they’re the sort of thing you pass down from child to child.
Toys like this are great for your little one’s imagination – it makes you realise how much they actually watch you while you’re at work in the kitchen!
The Hape Kitchen and Food range also includes a Tea Set for Two and even a Coffee Machine – very millennial!
Available to purchase from Hape’s Amazon store.
City Farming in Vauxhall
IT may seem that normal life has been put on hold at the moment.
But when you’re a mum, you still have kids who want to go out to experience new things and explore.
After six months behind closed doors, options may seem limited, but it’s always good to have a look at things which take you outdoors while allowing you and the little ones to stay safe.
We recently enjoyed a trip to Vauxhall City Farm and I was impressed by the measures being taken to ensure social distancing and general post lockdown safety.
The space is small but perfectly formed and the kids absolutely loved the chance to feed the animals. I thought we would be in and out in ten minutes, but I simply could not drag both my three and ten-year-old away.
Entry to the site is free with a voluntary donation and food for the animals is just £1 a bag.
The kids also loved the chance to walk around the farm’s community garden following our own recent endeavours into growing fruit and veg at home.
Staff are constantly communicating to ensure there are only a certain number of visitors inside the farm at any one time, which means that entry numbers are limited and queues can form when busy.
There are also lots of handwashing stations and a one-way system in place to help with social distancing.
Fruit Bowl’s #5in5Challenge and Sneaky Vegetable Recipes
I KNOW I’m not the first parent and I certainly won’t be the last to struggle with getting their child to consume their recommended five-a-day fruit and veg intake!
I truly believe that half of parenting is trying to think of ingenious ways to sneak vegetables into meals – the craftier, the better.
This January, children’s snack brand Fruit Bowl has stepped in to help with their #5in5Challenge – and it involves stickers!
Any purchase from their site in January would have included a free #5in5Challenge 5 A Day Chart designed to help parents encourage little one to enjoy their five portions, every day for five days.
My three-year-old always equates stickers with fun, so he was more than happy to rise to the challenge. It also helped that he’s a fan of a range of Fruit Bowl snacks – especially the Strawberry Peelers.
To top it off Fruit Bowl also teamed up with BBC’s Masterchef semi-finalist, Theo Michaels, to create a week’s worth of child-friendly recipes using his new meal planning service, FiveDinners.
The recipes are designed to take the hassle out of mealtimes for parents and provide children with at least two of their five a day, every day.
How do you get kids to eat vegetables? #EatinFullColour at the Bird’s Eye First Plates Restaurant
How do you deal with getting your kids to eat vegetables?
An easy life or forever a struggle?
Mine is the latter, so I was intrigued when we got an invitation to the Bird’s Eye First Plates Restaurant.
Here little ones were encouraged to #eatinfullcolour with a range of veg based dishes which included pea cake (yep, and it was actually quite nice!).
It was interesting to see the dynamic as all the kids sat together happily – mostly – trying out lots of different vegetables.
Us parents were lucky enough to get tips on how to get more veg in their tummies from TV child psychologist, Dr Elizabeth Kilbey, as seen on Channel 4’s The Secret Life of 4, 5 and 6 Year Olds.
She told me: ‘Don’t be deterred by them saying ‘I don’t like that’.
‘If they like particular colours try pairing them up, association helps.’
And even, gasp, making eating veggies fun!
For example, Dr Kilbey added: ‘Can we have a snack of every single colour today? Can we build a rainbow of the food we eat today?’
Research by Bird’s Eye to mark their Eat in Full Colour campaign shows that children are actually becoming more adventurous with their food, with 4-9 year olds naming sprouts and spinach as their favourite vegetables.
Almost a third (32 per cent) of parents say their children would eat just about ANY type of vegetable served – and only 29 per cent struggle to get their kids to eat their greens. Unfortunately I’m in that 29 percent!
But I was given some hope to keep trying after the event, adding more colour to ALL of our plates and trying new vegetables.
Click to see footage from the event (my daughter even has a speaking part!).