If, like me, you are trying to do your bit to reduce your waste footprint on the planet and reuse whatever you can, then this is just a small way to help with one of those things that can create unneeded plastic waste at kids birthday parties.
I decided this year that instead of buying (very cheap I have to say) themed plastic party bags I would either make something myself or buy paper bags.
To be fair you can buy reasonably cheap paper party bags
So the World Cup 2018 has started and there are games on every day and it can be a bit difficult to keep track of. Obviously you will know when your own team are playing but you might want to watch out for other teams too.
So if you are looking for a printable UK TV schedule for the World Cup so that you can keep something with you to hand to refer to and know when all the games are on then we have one here for you.
Yes you can go all techno and get the official app but sometimes it just makes things easier to look at the whole schedule on a piece (or 3 in this case) of paper.
So here is the schedule, showing what date and time the matches are on, together with whether they are on BBC or ITV and with a space for you to complete the scores.
We will update this as we go along with the relevant teams showing in the quarter finals, semi finals etc so if you want to you can come back and print page 3 again once these things have been decided.
Download the printed World Cup 2018 schedule of games here. The format is a 1 page Word document (updated for the last 16).
Here is a fun craft activity to do with the kids – how to make your own very hungry caterpillar. This could be an activity for your own kids or something you can do in batches for a group of children, e.g at a playgroup or preschool.
The result is this, the caterpillar before he ate through all that food and got a tummy ache!
Firstly paint your green card or paper with a very rough mix of dark green and yellow paint. Make sure the colours don’t blend together too well!
Mark up the back of the card with discs. If you are just doing one or two you can obviously make them much bigger.
Cut them out so that they all have slightly differing colours in them.
Cut a body shape out of white card and a head out of the red paper. if you don’t have red paper colour in some white paper with a red pen!
Use a glue stick to start gluing down the body pieces one at a time, overlapping each other onto the card body.
Stick on the head and then you can either use sticky eyes or else just draw on your own eyes (the rights colours are green in the middle and yellow outside but sticky eyes do just fine). Draw in his mouth with a marker or felt pen.
You can then use sellotape to attach the lolly stick to the back of the head so that you can move the caterpillar around – ideal to use with the story book.
And there you go, the finished hungry caterpillar:
And if you want to buy the book…
So I have recently taken up swimming as a great form of exercise both to keep fit and also to keep my back flexible and stop my back pain. I am not a great swimmer but I can keep going for a bit doing breaststroke and although that is not as good as doing front crawl I’m sure the swimming helps as part of my exercise regime.
However, the more I swim and the more lengths I do, the slightly more boring the swimming gets so I decided to see if I could get a waterproof iPod or some kind of music device to help stop the boredom and keep me swimming for longer.
I am a big music fan and I find that it helps in the gym, particularly on the treadmill to make the time go quicker. However, my everyday iPod will was obviously not going to be any good for swimming and so I had a look for a waterproof iPod, as I wasn’t sure if there was one, and found that there was indeed such a thing.
Actually there are two options for getting music in your ears while you swim and one is to buy a custom waterproof iPod or MP3 player and the other is to buy a waterproof case for your existing iPod or MP3 player. There are companies that take standard iPod shuffles and waterproof them with a 2 year guarantee.
| Waterproof iPod Shuffle options | |
Obviously there are pros and cons to each and it is a personal decision as to which one will be better for you but I would suggest the following:
If you are a frequent swimmer then maybe a waterproof iPod would be better then you don’t need to keep taking your iPod out of the waterproof case and also you can load up some songs that are perfect for swimming to. You can also get hold of a smaller iPod shuffle that is easy to attach when you are in the pool.
Waterproof MP3s can also be used in snow and for other watersports and not only for swimming. In fact obviously you can use them whenever but they are designed to work in water so you might as well use them for that!
The iPod can be attached to your goggles and you will also need waterproof headphones or earbuds to go with it. A waterproof iPod can also be used just like a normal iPod.
If you just want to waterproof your iPod for going on holiday then think about getting a waterproof case, there are plenty available and the majority of these are cheaper than buying a waterproof ipod or MP3 player so you don’t have to shell out a lot of money.
You can also just get waterproof cases that will protect your iPhone or other smartphone for when you are at the pool or the beach so that your phone doesn’t get damaged by water.
However, if you are planning to swim with music then it is probably better to get something much smaller and easier to use than using your iPod or iPhone.
Linkee is a board game for all of the family that was launched in 2012 and has taken the country by storm ever since.
Having been rejected by the dragons in Dragons’ Den, the founders went on to prove Peter Jones and the rest of the dragons wrong by making a success of a new board game.
So if you have heard of it, or played it at a friend’s house and are wondering where can you get Linkee? Then look no further!
The fact is that board game sales have been increasing in the last few years as people are embracing the non-screen culture. Many new board games have come on to the market as well as the old favourites still being sold in ever larger numbers such as Monopoly.
Linkee has become one of the most popular and best selling board games in the UK and is sold online as well as in good toy shops.
There are two versions of the game, a general family version and a version specifically designed for children from 8 years old and upwards. The game only takes a couple of minutes to learn and is fun because everyone can play at the same time and players don’t need to wait their turn.
Check out the links below if you want to buy one of the versions of Linkee that are available:
You can also get booster packs with extra questions for the game although there are 1400 questions in the original pack so that should keep you going for a while.
If you are looking for some of the old style board games then you can often pick up new versions on Amazon or else you can frequently find the original versions for sale on eBay for quite good prices.
If you have the time then take a wander around car boot sales and you will more than likely find some old board games for sale there, just check that they have all the pieces before buying!
