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The Penguins of Madagascar at Chessington

The Penguins of Madagascar at Chessington World of Adventures

We’ve been fans of Chessington World of Adventures for several years now, and were super-excited to have the chance to stay at the hotel and take a look at their new Penguin themed family rooms, and to check out their Year of the Penguins’ spectacular.

With the Penguins of Madagasar movie out 30th March 2015 on DVD and Blu-ray, Chessington has a whole host of penguin fun to celebrate at the theme park as part of their ‘Year of the Penguins’.

They even have a ‘Penguins Live’ Show based om DreamWorks Animation’s PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR which is a singing and dancing spectacular indeed!

So Chessington’s Year of the Penguins features:

A new Penguin Bay and the arrival of six new Humboldt Penguins in April for the new Penguin Presentation (too cute!)
NEW Penguins of Madagascar themed hotel rooms at the Safari Hotel
The new Penguins of Madagascar Mission: Treetop Hopper ride experience
A celebration of the partnership with DreamWorks Penguins of Madagascar and the new show: Penguins of Madagascar Live! Operation Cheezy Dibbles!
It is running for the whole year and tickets start at £26pp for the day click here

If you have a chance to visit, or indeed stay at the hotel, your kids won’t be disappointed – the rooms really are rather special and the boys couldn’t wait to get into their bunk beds. On a grown-up note, I have never had such a comfy night’s sleep in a hotel, and to wake up to see wild safari animals roaming around outside our window was really quite special!

Disclosure: We were invited to this event courtesy of Dreamworks and Chessington World of Adventures for the purposes of this review and it was my birthday too. 🙂

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

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Penguins of Madagascar

THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR – ON DVD AND BLU-RAY

If you’re a fan of the Madagascar Movies, you’ll be familiar with the penguin characters Skipper andKowalski so in their own fun film, The Penguins of Madagascar.

The film is available on DVD and Blu-ray and opens with a young Skipper, Kowalski and Rico leaving the other penguins to rescue a runaway egg. This egg hatches (hoping this doesn’t spoil the surprise!) into cute little Private, and they set off together on their adventures as one big happy family!

There was much hilarity at the penguins addiction to Cheezy Dibbles – a rather brightly coloured orange cheesey puff snack (the kids couldn’t wait to act out the scenes!).

And there is also a rather hilarious character Dr Octavius Brine (part man, part evil octopus) and his plans to take his revenge on the world voiced by John Malkovich.

The film is action packed, and as a grown up, you really have to pay attention to keep up, yet the kids LOVED it, and can’t wait to watch it all over again now they have it on DVD.

Penguins of Madagascar is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD on 30th March from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

crafts, create, education, key stage 2, kids, monster

Minecraft toolbox – Build electronics with Piper

Piper – a Minecraft toolbox for anyone to create and invent with technology. Build electronics. Invent power-ups. Create the future.

So – the kids were pretty excited last week to hear from Mark at Piper all about their fabulous new toolbox for budding engineers who happen to like Minecraft!
As a family we tend to use ‘screentime’ as a reward at the end of the week, for best behaviour, and finishing homework without it being an excruciating teeth-pulling exercise. Minecraft is their favourite ‘go to’ game, and without further ado, read what our 10yo thought of Piper, and then watch the video!

In short, my son, 10yo RB says this:

“Minecraft toolbox – Build electronics with Piper. Piper is brilliant for seven and ups. I think it is really awesome because the instructions are in the game so it would make children and adults interested in making things outside of the game. Minecraft is a good way to get people that like Minecraft to play it. It will make a brilliant Christmas or birthday gift. It will entice people to play because it is easy to build so you can get started really quickly. Raspberry Pi is what all of the software runs on. Raspberry pie is a mini computer if you’ve got all the right equipment and gadgets luckily all of that comes in a really well made wooden box. The screen comes readymade and all fits in.

There are ten action-packed levels to complete in the game. You have to make your own buttons and fit the wires in the right places. The mouse comes with the box so you can look around.

There are lots more interesting exciting things about the game but they are for you to find out.”

RB Age 10 says – “NOW watch this video!”

How it works:

– First you assemble the wooden toolbox and connect it with the Raspberry Pi 2, a 7 inch LCD display, a power bank, and an assortment of electronics.

– Once assembled, you enter a Minecraft adventure map viewable on the LCD screen.

– Your Mission: guide a robot to rescue astronauts on a foreign planet. The robot’s hardware is damaged on the way over, and you have to build it in real-life to control the robot in the game to save the day!

How this educates kids:

– Each gadget you build gives you a special power-up and progresses you through the game

– First build the controller to navigate your robot. Add switches to activate hidden bridges and doors. A row of lights to serve as a proximity sensor and more.

If you want to find out more, click here. Piper are on facebook and twitter.

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

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Sheep Crafts – get your craft on

Every month we run a craft challenge on a theme – February is #Sheep #Crafts.

Share your Sheep Crafts photos on Instagram, or over on Twitter, using the hashtag #GetYourCraftOn, add your link to the linky below, and we’ll pick the best ones to feature here on the host blog the following month. (and on our Pinterest board too)

The photos you share do not have to be of the finished article – let’s see your work in progress as well as your completed masterpieces! Anything related to the #Sheep crafts or #SeantheSheep (! if you’re Aardman animation fan) topic. Just tag them with #GetYourCraftOn and follow and tag us too so we know you’re taking part) Our team’s four Instagram accounts are: @incredibusy (that’s me!), @redtedart @bluebearwood &@missielizzie.

This month’s Craft Challenge is #Sheep #Crafts. #GetYourCraftOn, and add your link to the linky below and check out our Pinterest board too.

[inlinkz_linkup id=494807 mode=1]

chinese new year, crafts, FREE printables, key stage 2, kids, life

Hand Coloured Chinese New Year printables

Hand Coloured Chinese Lanterns

My little blonde boys are both incredibly fascinated by the Orient, and at the beginning of every year are keen to go to Chinatown to celebrate Chinese New Year. We are lucky enough to be close to London’s Chinatown and a couple of years ago they bought some rather lovely window clings, graphic and colourful, but really too big for their bedroom windows in our Edwardian house.

So this year, we came up with a fun way of making their own, from a template I created here (and if you click here and here you can download and print these Chinese New Year printables yourself too).

You will need:

1) Print off the Chinese New Year printables template here and here
2) Packet of Sharpie Pens (*which you can get here in the UK and here in the US)
3) Pack of Clear CD wallets or any plastic stationery sleeves
4) Blu tack

Instructions:

1) once you’ve printed off the Chinese New Year printables template, blu tack the clear plastic cd wallet into position over the graphic and start tracing around the illustration with a black sharpie pen.

2) Then simply colour in with a selection of reds, yellow, oranges. Or if you fancy a change, try a range of greens and blues – that looks great too!

3) When you’ve finished, take the CD wallet and blu tack it to the window! voila!

To watch a video of how we did these Chinese New Year printables, pop over to Red Ted Art’s YouTube channel here where we have made a guest appearance (again!) showing you how to do this, you’ll notice that I got bored with the colouring in bit, and Maggy had to take over… as a Chinese inspired art project however, both of my boys LOVED doing these, and it kept them busy and quiet for AGES!
10 yo specifically asked for a sheep… as it IS year of the sheep!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

*affiliate links for your convenience… 🙂

create, kids

Room Makeover for boys

A Room Makeover for 10 year old boys

Lucky Boy! He’s next on the list for a room makeover, and has very strong ideas himself of how that might look!

Room Makeover for boys

He’s always had the biggest room – and it’s been the shared ‘playroom’ for the two boys, however, with more and more homework and less time to play with ALL of their toys, we thought it would be a good time for a bit of a de-clutter.

He has a great cabin bed already, so we’re going to give that a lick of paint, and although we have watched a great video on youtube, with a ‘space up’ bed which opens up to store your clothes and books – I’m not sure we’re quite ready for that yet!

So we’re planning a room makeover for boys refresh with some fab brick patterned wallpaper, love the look of this white loft brick wall mural on one wall, and a chalkboard on another – using blackboard paint, and some fun cupboard handles to hold the chalk!

He really rather likes yellow too, so we’re on the hunt for an anglepoise lamp – and an Alarm Clock is a must – He struggles with the mornings!

He also has a sofa bed in his room, which we’re going to keep there, it’s ideal when unexpected guests arrive, and he bunks in with his brother – so we’ll add a few scatter cushions from new Finnish designer Nora instagram.com/projektityyny to tie it all together – His brother has plans for his own room too so watch this space!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

crafts

Tissue Paper Plate Wreath

We do rather love a home made wreath in our house at Christmas, so much so that every year there is a battle as to whose is featured on the front door!

So our home made wreaths tend to find their way fixed to the various interior doors of the house, and just as well with this one, as it’s made from a paper plate, and some green tissue paper!

Our youngest designed this one himself, and was pretty easy to make, using three different shades of green tissue paper, ripped, scrunched and glued to the front of a paper plate, which had previously been cut into the shape of a wreath (or a polo mint, if you’re a 10yo boy!)

Have fun! If you enjoyed that wreath – check out this one made from old books!

crafts, create, father's day

Fimo Moustache jewellery

I’ve been using Fimo as a modelling clay for a very long time – back to my Art Student days when I was making rather scary necklaces, with big spiky teeth!

And the husband is bit of a moustache fan, so we decided to make him a Mustache badge from fimo, for a little stocking filler for Christmas.

You will need:

Fimo
Kitchen knife
Grease proof paper
Template

Position the template on the fimo, and cut around with the knife.

Place the fimo onto the greaseproof paper and bake in the over for 25 minutes at 120 degrees.

When cool, glue a jewellery brooch back attachment (or safety pin) to the back of the moustache to create a brooch…

click this link to download the template Moustache Jewellery KidsChaos

Another fab idea is to take the Moustache brooch, and pin it to the front of a folded card, and get your child to draw a face to go with it! I’ve attached another Happy Birthday template KidsChaos template to illustrate just what I mean!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

crafts, create, key stage 2, kids

Traditional Paper Star

Traditional Paper Star

The boys just love a paper craft, and we can thank our lovely friend Maggy for that (she told me to say that…) – Maggy taught them how to make origami paper boats when they were very little, and now at 10, the youngest is forever making Ninja Stars, Jumping Frogs and Paper cranes – and now his latest, the Traditional Paper Star.

For this lovely origami traditional Paper Star you need 14-15 square origami sheets, of various colours (we tried to persuade him to make them in Christmas colours, however, he is ‘his own man’ and went with these colours!) It literally only takes minutes to learn how to make this!

Fold each piece of paper to the long triangular shape, follow the youtube instructions linked here… demonstrated by the lovely Maggy from RedTedArt… and insert one into another until you join the first with the last to create this star shape – how lovely, we’ll be hanging this creation on the Christmas Tree next weekend!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

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Hogwarts in the snow Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour

As MASSIVE Harry Potter fans – the boys were soooo excited to hear that we were going to visit Hogwarts in the Snow Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour for 12yo’s birthday treat…

The creative team have gone to town with the most fabulous snowfall covering the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, we were blown away with just how beautiful the Hogwarts castle model is covered in a blanket of snow.

It was our first visit to the studio tours, so we felt really honoured to see the castle’s festive makeover up close as well as the iconic Great Hall decorated for Christmas – the two long dining tables are dressed for this seasonal feast with turkeys, hams, fruit, vegetables (ENORMOUS bowls of peas!) and snow cakes.

So be quick, and treat someone special to a gift ticket this Christmas, the perfect present for the ultimate Harry Potter fan! Hogwarts in the Snow runs from Friday 14th November – Sunday 1st February 2015. Book online at www.wbstudiotour.co.uk

Incidentally, the shop is AMAZING – we spent ages in there, and it’s as beautifully merchandised as some of the sets themselves – We loved the vast array of clothing available and we treated 12yo to a really cool Gryffindor™ Hooded Sweatshirt.

And the grown-up bearded one bought a rather stylish Hufflepuff™ V-Neck School Cardigan – suits him!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!