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Yes, the winter is upon us and with shorter, colder, wetter days, parents need to know where you can take your kids in the capital. That is why I drew up this list for Metrotwin and I thought I would share it here too:

Climbers & Creepers
An indoor interactive botanical playzone

Eddie Catz, Wimbledon (formerly Tiger’s Eye)
A great place for families on rainy days

Snakes and Ladders
One of the largest indoor playgrounds in London

Tumble in the Jungle
A jungle themed indoor adventure playground

Zoomaround
A great play venue in North London

Bramley’s Big Adventure
Indoor Adventure Playground for Kids

Gambado
All sorts of indoor fun for kids

Topsy Turvy World
Exhaust the kids before you go shopping

It’s A Kid’s Thing
Indoor Fun in Earlsfield

Eddie Catz, Putney
Indoor fun for under 5s

I usually try to steer clear of politics on this blog, but this seemed worthwhile. On 3rd April, the Government opened up its new strategy for play for public consultation

“We propose to make public space more child-friendly through a variety of actions including placing a stronger focus on spaces for play in the planning system; training for people who design and manage public space; supporting local community ownership of space suitable for play; and supporting more positive relationships between adults and children in public space. “

All sounds good. But then Kevin spotted a possible hiccup. He’s done a quick schematic of the decisions he goes through as a parent:.

At the bottom I scribbled ‘Too much traffic?’ and a subsidiary question, too seldom raised: ‘Too many cars?’ … ‘Wait for policy to confront car lobby’

It’s an interesting point. How can we make places safer for kids if the numbers of cars on the roads are increasing? Kevin’s follow-up piece in The Guardian is worth a read, I think.

What can you do with a swanky electronic toy that a child’s become bored with or broken? The obvious answer is to tip it or give it to another child: next door, for instance, or to a charity, or via eBay. (There’s a useful strategy for that here)

The less obvious answer is to get out a screwdriver and hack it. As Kaitlin says,

“with a few simple tools and some instructions, you can break into the brains of electronic toys and make them do things their manufacturers never imagined”

These guys made a Laserquest style game from electronic cats and LEDs.

Now, “these guys” are obviously a little older than your average curious child. There’s a fair chance that the toys will end up dismantled and broken beyond repair, even with adult supervision. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. As Russell said,

“it was fantastic to get beyond the nervousness about cracking things open and peering inside. It helps when you realise ‘the toys are cheaper than their components’.”

And, ahem, what price curiosity? Makes me think of JJ Abrams and his grandpa again.

[Update]
If your kids do start toy hacking, you might want to make sure various of your own electronic gadgets are off-limits. You might not want your computer turned into a batmobile.

WebUrbanist has an interesting post on urban adventure playgrounds. The following certainly struck a chord.

In a sense, you and I have always played in “adventure playgrounds.” We created a fort in the kitchen cabinets, jumped from couch to couch across oceans; we snuck out through a hole in the fence to a new world. We climbed trees and hid in bushes. We played in the mud and the rain. We chased each other, made secret worlds with our own language. We created spaces with whatever we could find around us. Some of us played in abandoned buildings, or barns, or vacant lots between buildings, used what we found and made up stories of our lives to be. We looked everywhere to find our space.

One of the links took me to a charity I’d not heard of before called London Play. Their mission is

To enhance the development and education of children in the Greater London area by developing and supporting the provision of children’s play, primarily by:
• improving the quality, diversity and accessibility of play opportunities in London;
• raising awareness of the importance of play in the development of London’s children;
• promoting co-operation and co-ordination amongst the play sector in London;
• developing a network of local play support agencies in every London borough.

Why? Well …

“Sadly, and increasingly, children are unable or not allowed to go out to play, and engage freely in play activities that a generation ago would have been taken for granted.

There is a serious danger of serious and long lasting damage to a whole generation of children by denying them opportunities to explore, experiment, and experience the wide, wonderful world around them. Being ‘wrapped in cotton wool’, children are deprived of the most natural part of childhood – playing and taking risks. It is only by direct personal experience that children learn to assess and overcome danger and hazardous situations, and gain varied and flexible responses to the different situations they find themselves in.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve just sent off the form to register Little Legends’ support, and we’ll be adding London Play certified playgrounds from tomorrow onwards. It’s great to know I’ll be able to keep one resolution!

I was reading a really good article in the Guardian yesterday all about the excess of toys children of today have. In days gone by, especially post-war, there just weren’t so many toys in circulation. That meant that children really relished the few toys they did have and took great care to look after them.

Most parents I know have toys bursting from the cupboards. Children are very savvy about what they want partly due to all the adverts on TV. However, there is definitely a bit of a backlash against too many toys at the moment. For example, I have heard that some groups of parents are putting a limit on the amount that is spent on party bags eg £2 per child and giving the same amount to a charity.

According to the Guardian article two health workers persuaded a nursery in Munich to pack away all playthings for three months. This is what happened:

Initially, the children were bored but by day two they had turned tables and blankets into dens and were absorbed in make-believe games. They became more imaginative and contented, and in the process learned to concentrate, communicate better and integrate more in groups.

So, what can you do with all those toys? Either you can sort some out and give the ones that are not needed to charity or you could put some away and rotate the toys that are on offer.

It is what a child does with a toy that is important but here are some ideas of simpler toys for different ages:

Under 1 year
Mirrors, mobiles, rattles, soft books, soft toys

1 to 3 years
Ball, threading toys, stacking cups, push-pull toys, sand and water toys, crayons and paper, plastic jug and beakers for pouring

3 to 5 years
Dressing up clothes, felt-tipped pens, colouring books, paper, an indoor tent, jigsaw puzzles, construction toys, a plastic tea set

5 to 7 years
Skipping rope, playing cards, little people toys, a post office set

7 to 10 years
Junior Scrabble, Snakes & Ladders, collections of things, a money box

This weekend I read an interesting article in The Sunday Times about how boys seem to be pre-programmed to play with guns. The article concludes that in the long run it is unlikely to harm them.

Having two boys, this is a subject I know something about. Try as I might to prevent them from playing with guns it is not working. All their games are about fighting in one form of another.

It is really frowned upon for boys to play with guns yet, in my experience, that is all they want to do. At school, my children have been told off for trying to make guns out of anything they can get their hands on. It doesn’t really fit in today’s pc world. However, I am now becoming resigned to the fact that boys will be boys and that it probably won’t do any harm in the long run. They are just playing and are not being spiteful or hurting each other.

Next time my boys are playing “fighting”, I think I will just leave them to it!

McDonald’s is trying to turn over a new leaf by installing special gyms for children. The latest “R Gym” is being tested in one of its branches in California. The “R Gym”s include:

-stationary bicycles hooked to video games
-obstacle courses
-aerobics exercises

The idea is that children will be burning off the calories as fast as they are eating them.

However, according to Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University:

“The number of calories that a child is likely to burn in one of those gyms is quite small compared to what they can eat, even in a small meal,”

For example, it would take a child more than three hours of exercise to burn off a 200-calorie milkshake!

So, are the gyms an attempt to make McDonald’s more relevant to children’s lifestyles today or are they merely another gimmick to attract customers in an age when everyone is becoming more health conscious?

For the full news article, go here

Source:nudie head@flickr

This article reports that an elementary school in Attleboro, Massachusetts has banned children from:

playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they’ll get hurt and hold the school liable.

The Principal of Willett Elementary school has supported the ban because accidents mostly happen at breaktime.

However, Willett Elementary school is only one of a growing number of schools that has banned the game of tag.

This report says that the Principal of Franklin Elementary school is in favour of the ban because children are emotionally and physically injured by tag. Moreover, some children did not feel good about the game.

However, critics such as On the Pitch argue:

Accidents happen. Kids get hurt which is a terrible thing. But at what point do we say enough is enough? Are we really willing to ban activities millions of kids love in order to prevent a handful of injuries? That may sound crass when talking about kids because any kid that is hurt is a tragedy. However, when we stop being rational about things, we lose something. Like childhood games.

And just to be clear – I partially blame our lawsuit happy society for this along with the over protective parents and school administrators since you know this grew out of some lawsuit somewhere where a school got sued because Johnny fell down and broke his arm playing tag.

What will be banned next?

Source: Rybread@flickr

Most children love a bit of rough & tumble with their fathers(or other adult): jumping up and down with him, being thrown in the air, swung around etc It is generally a healthy past time but there are a few hidden dangers especially when it comes to two popular activities:
(a) swinging the child round in circles by the arms
(b) letting the child hold on to your arms, climb up your legs and flip over
An article in The Times points to the risks of the child pulling their elbow or dislocating their shoulders, particularly when the child is doing (a) or (b). Also, once you have pulled or dislocated something it can easily recur

There is certainly something in this because my brother had both his shoulders dislocated when small and swung around enthusiastically by a friend of my parents (at my brother’s request).

You have been warned

Source: Healthier Generation

Worldwide Play Day celebrates play across the globe and emphasises the need for traditional play and exercise (no TV watching). As an acknowledgement of Worldwide Play Day Nickelodeon will not be broadcasting between 12 to 3. Hopefully this will encourage families to go out and have some fun. There are activities happening all over, so look out for what’s on near you.

You can find out more about how to take part here