I like water bombs, boys like water bombs, Mrs. Welikeplay isn’t quite so fond. But these aren’t the ones you chuck around, theses are little inky explosions in the safety of a jam-jar.  The boys in the welikeplay labs love doing this one, to the extent of rearranging the kitchen furniture so as to hang around upside down to give it a little nuclear mushroom effect.

You will need:
1 jam-jar
a pipette (or use a straw by taking covering the end to pick up droplets)
a little water
a little oil
some vibrant food colouring

Make a mess.

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 5up, enjoy and achieve, geeky

It’s the end of November, and the end of this years NaBloPoMo. For the uninitiated that’s interNAtional BLog POsting MOnth, in which participants (like me) pledge to write once a day for 30 days to get ourselves into the grove of blog gardening.

Browsing through my stats other NaBloPoMo-ers have been coming to visit my posts, particularly How much time to game? and Gun play, or not? They’ve also been asking about old playtime things, like Squawkers - making the chicken string thing. All in all, a good month.

And so I’d like to say thanks to those who’ve blogrolled me whilst mine is quite broke:

• A Little Space for Me
• kiwi countdown
• Momisodes
• Cynical Dad
• A Wild Ride
• Evil Pink Cupcake

And to all the other NaBloPoMo visitors who’ve helped me on my way.

tag... play

When I was a boy RoSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) was one of the driving forces being making me and all the UK’s children wear seatbelts back in the late ’70s. As we had black plastic seats they caused me to endure a fair amount of thigh-burn to me on hot summer days. But their heart was in the right place. And now they’re making the right noises again.

From the Times;

Suffering from a twisted ankle or skinned knee should be an everyday part of childhood, according to Tom Mullarkey, the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

He said that overzealous bureaucrats were undermining legitimate concerns about health and safety by applying guidance too literally and failing to use common sense.

Play is that in which children find their own capabilities and boundaries.  They need to sit on the edge of the wall to find out how good their balance can be.  They have to be free to fail and fall; and we have to be better than all the king’s horses.

Panic a little, but
enjoy.

tag... play, stay safe

It’s not often I come across a new and never tried children-crafty thing these days, and when I do it’s a time for celebration and experimentation. Adrienne was saying nice things in defence of homedads at Thingamababy, so I followed her link and found Baby Toolkit where they had posted the most fantastic craft with crayons. I’ve done a little research, using my own experience of toasting cheese sandwiches with a iron, and worked out how to do this craft and still be able to iron your trousers later. Hopefully. It’s also a good exercise in letting your 8 year old start to use a hot-hot iron.

You will need
1 big piece of greaseproof paper
1 big piece of foil a bit bigger all round
your iron
that stash of old crayons that’s been scuzing around your craft draw
a pencil sharpener

Start warming your iron to a medium setting, too hot and you’ll get bubbles. Layer the greaseproof paper on top of the foil. Take some of old crayons and shave them into a pile in the middle of your paper. Flatten this pile down so it covers just one half of the sheet to a fairly even depth. Fold the paper and the foil over and start to iron evenly and slowly until the shavings fuse into one great big translucent sheet. Allow to cool. Now cut out your shapes and hang on thread at your window.

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 8up, makes

I’m starting to amass a fair old collection of play hats. From pirates (yarr) through builders’ hard hats and princess’ tiaras to those doctors head mounted cd things. Over the years of childcare I’ve found play-hats to be an invaluable resource for getting inside the kid’s head.

Hats, perhaps more than any other piece of costumery do allow kids to be someone-else for a while. It’s roleplaying in one simple step. You see your average child doesn’t have such a concrete notion of self as us encrusted grown-ups. You may have noticed this if you’ve been feeling a little grumpy and your kids have come bundling in. They’ll pick up and mirror your mood back to you with out pause (at which point you could choose to grump back at their grumping… but that way madness lies, doesn’t it?)

As they enact these other roles you may hear then saying things you’d not expect. No2 child in his copper’s hat became a young dictator, despite his usually mild self. Add a tiara and they become imperious, a cowboy stetson makes them crusty whilst an astronaut’s helmet makes them adventurous. Children are incredible things. To do roleplay like this they must have absorbed the roles these hats imply, whilst usually never even having met cowboys or princesses. Very clever little beings even if they struggle to tie their shoes. Taking on such roles allows them to say things that they’re thinking, but which their usual role of child forbids them from saying. The child in a police hat may voice authority over the parent whilst the doctor cd thing or nurses tricorn puts them in a caring role for their carers. So much can be learnt through this play.

The trick, if there is one, is to buy some big costume hats too. Being a little pirate captain is no fun unless you’ve a hulking growed-up crew. A ward sister is no fun without a bandaged patient. Builder work together to build and fix the house. Policemen need parents in trilbies to occasionally become a detective to give the wee ones clues to capture the cookie thief. Even a simple folded newspaper hat make you a Little John to a diminutive Robin Hood.

So what would be in your ideal hat collection?  What would give your kids a voice?

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, play, 2up, 3up, 5up, imagineering

… and yes it does have that delightful misharmonic squeaky quality of Oz. But it’s still so much fun. A month or so back I introduced my boys to Youtube’s Potter Pals; and the simple multi-voiced rhythm of “Ticking” became our collective ear-worm. Now No1 child divides up the parts to start some acapella with Mrs Welikeplay, No2 child and anyone else who happens to be visiting (young Uncle Welikeplay looked quite astounded this weekend).

For your entertainment, and in the possibility of introducing sung simplicity into your play, we present “The Mysterious Ticking Noise”:

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 3up, 5up, 8up, musicality

The welikeplay dart printable seems to have been much appreciated; not least by my noble testers here at the welikeplay play labs. The idea of a printable aeroplane sheet seems to have taken root in their minds, and so I’ve been compiling a little list of my top other printables and instruction sites:

• instructions for the world record holding ‘Blackburn’ glider.
• the printable Monarch Butterfly or Scarlett Macaw designs with instructions
• or try the bumper instruction site to fold any-old piece of paper
• instructions for the very impressive OmniWin , though a little complex even for an 8 year old engineering savant
• if you prefer your internet to be, well more online, try Amnesias FlightSimX; but find the mute button for the repetitive drums which could drive parents cuckoo

Enjoy

tag... play for today, 5up, 8up, makes

Children and gaming are rattling around the news rooms again. The UK’s gaming violence study with Dr Byron has been up and running for a month or so. On the other side of the pond, a gaming poll has indicated that 43% of parents never ever play a video game with their kids, and only 27% play for more than an hour alongside their kids. Perhaps its a simple lack of time rather than a fear of pwnage from your own offspring. It is a concern, just yesterday I was asked the same question by three different parents, “how much should we let kids play?”

Games have changes since I was a kid. Growing up with a Dragon 32 and a geek-dad for company there were quite a few games for me to play. Granted we had to have a chittering tape player to load them over a timespan usually reserved for intercontinental drift, and in which choosing the wrong cassette led to one of pa’s ‘I’ll teach you to spell’ games. Though quite usefully this taught me to hack so as to achieve top marks, with probably more effort involved. But the one factor in all these games were that they were unanimously one player enterprises. The closest we had to ‘team’ gaming was to let one brother wiggled Tails lamely back and forth, whilst the other took full control of Sonic. Gamers were generally solitary oyster-like creatures whilst at play.

Things have moved on, Ultimate Alliance and Fantastic Four have four way cooperative play. Games can now be bought with pocket money. Games are now a lot more watch-able from the sidelines through their HD glory. And the umbrella is wider, games like Nintendogs or Scrabble on the DS have taken games to new or old places. Video games are now anything but solitary.

At casa welikeplay I’ve thought long and hard about this and I run the following with my kids.

You may play for as long as your dad/mum is interested. There will also be a mandatory day off every week. Arguing with the judgement of parents makes tomorrow a game free day.

Such an arrangement limits games to those which are either multiplayer, so we growed-ups can join in. Or games like the new Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction which, though only a one player game, is highly engaging and watchable. Or games like Big Brain Academy, which we’re happy to feign interest as we’ve bought the line that they’re somehow making my kids smarter.

I’m lucky, I’m at home to see my boys after school. And I like play. So I do get time to do the whole interest-rule-thing. If I didn’t I’d have to find some sort of arbitrary time slot.  I also like to think that it this parent play lifts the genre, perhaps they’ll be up there with film one day. So I’ve got them young, and perhaps those teen years will be easier as a result; though I’ve a lurking suspicion that unless I hone my skills I’m going to get pwnd time and again in the next 12 years.

tag... play, gamer, geeky, philosophising

AJ at Thingamababy has posted “How to Host a Garden Snail Race“, and - in doing so - has provided me & my kids with a future ‘rainy week’ activity.

Many of the molluscs will be too skittish to come out of their shells. You want brave snails. Wait until one peeks out of his shell and starts moving. Grab that one and, while holding the shell in the air, press a racing number onto the shell. DO NOT apply the number while on the ground because you’ll smoosh and possibly injure the snail.

tag... playpeople, 2up, 3up, 5up, 8up, gardening

You may have noted that, over the last few days the welikeplay household has been stricken by the dreaded lurgy. And so my mind has been gratefully turned towards the basics of play. Those little activities that you did as a kid, that you now pass on to you own kids. Nothing too wild or complex, just simple wholesome everyday play.

Today it’s going to be paper darts. There are squillions of them around, from the very simple to the intricate in the extreme. For my kids, and for posterity I’ve cooked up an A4 blueprint printable.

You will need
a printer to print this ‘print and fold’ pdf (do set your Adobe to print actual size or the folds won’t quite meet up)
A4 paper
a paper clip or two
colouring pens/pencils

Print the welikeplay dart blueprint and give to the kids to follow the instructions (if they’re under 8 or spatially dizzy they’ll probably need a hand); with any luck a welikeplay design approved dart will appear. Colour and prep for launch. A gentle throw causes this design to glide off into the distance. In case of nosediving, throw more lightly; or failing that add a paperclip towards the back.

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 8up, basics, makes, printable