Top budget baby toys

It is important to purchase your child’s toys based on their taste and it is possible to find toys your child likes that contain an educational element too.
Before we divulge in to 2012’s best toys, it is important that you consider a few factors before spending your hard earned money.
Age and gender should be considered first and a toy should always be age appropriate or it will serve no purpose at all.
It is also imperative that you consider safety. Following a mass recall of toys in 2007/2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act was enforced and the level of safety on toys was increased significantly.
Toys are now tested thoroughly for their safety, but you should follow age guidelines and check the legitimacy of what you are buying to ensure your child is protected from harm.

Educational toys
Educational toys are great as they can make your child’s play time enjoyable and educational. As your baby develops, their playtime becomes more and more important as they use it as an opportunity to express their ideas and personality. By incorporating some educational toys into this activity you can aid your child’s creativity and awareness.
Of course, you still want your child to have fun and recalling what toys you enjoyed in your childhood is a great way to guarantee this.
To guide you through the top toys on the market this year, there are a few items you must consider.
Classic wooden toys remain a popular favourite and are some of the best budget toys available. Soft toys are another favourite, offering children the chance to discover new textures and colours safely.
When looking at these items, always choose products which encourage development in numerous areas. Many modern toys contain a variety of colours, shapes and textures to aid your youngsters with their growth.
Toys which encourage active engagement are also recommended. These include mobile toys or items which require children to complete a set task. Not only does this strengthen their co-ordination and mobility skills but it can also prompt the development of their mental reasoning.
One of the best things about these items is that they are often affordably priced and that means you can get the best baby toys on even the strictest of budgets.
V tech baby toys are also popular for those on a budget and are renowned for their good quality and reasonable prices. V tech toys combine bright colours with interactive engagement to ensure your child has an educational and enjoyable experience.
Walkers, learning pads and even finger puppets are available from this manufacturer – offering parents a wealth of choice. Always remember to check the suitability of the toy before purchasing and try to invest in products which cover wider age ranges as this means they may be used more often, offering you value for money.

Be Creative with Carrots

Why not try Dr Christian’s top carrot tips:
• Fill jacket potatoes or sandwiches with a mixture of grated carrot and Red Leicester cheese
• Serve carrot sticks with favourite dips such as houmous or cheese and onion
• Roast carrots with other root vegetables like potatoes, parsnips and swede
• Add grated carrots to salad and toss with all the other ingredients
• Grate carrots and add to stews, casseroles, pasta sauces and curries – they’ll disintegrate into the sauce so you can’t see them
• If coleslaw is a hit, add extra grated carrot to you regular brand before serving
• Add extra cooked carrots to canned or cartons of soup, then liquidise before serving
• Mix mashed carrots with mashed potato and use to top cottage pie or fish pie

Bean & Carrot Patties with Guilt-Free Coleslaw

Preparation time:
15 mins + cooling time
Cooking time:
35-40 mins Serves 6

Ingredients:
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 15ml/1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 450g/1lb carrots, trimmed, washed and roughly chopped
• 5ml/1tsp ground cumin
• 5ml/1tsp ground coriander
• 200ml/7floz vegetable stock
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 (400g) can mixed or red kidney beans, drained
• 75g/3oz fresh wholewheat breadcrumbs
• 45ml/3tbsp chopped fresh coriander
• a little spray olive oil or olive oil to brush
• rolls and salad leaves to serve

Guilt-free Slaw

Ingredients: • 225g/8oz white cabbage, stalk removed
• 225g/8oz carrots, washed
• half a small onion, finely chopped
• 60ml/4tbsp virtually fat free mayonnaise
• 60ml/4tbsp low fat natural yogurt
• 10ml/2tsp Dijon mustard

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion and saute for 2 mins. Add the garlic, carrots, cumin and coriander and stir for 1 minute.
Pour in the stock, season well and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 10-15 mins or until the carrots are tender. Leave to cool.
Drain the liquid from the carrots. Then use a potato masher to mash them until lump free.
Add the drained beans and mash again until a rough mash is formed.
Stir in the breadcrumbs and coriander. Mix well and adjust the seasoning to taste.
When cold, divide the mixture into six then use wet hands to shape each piece into a round pattie about 2.5cm/1in thick.
The patties can be chilled at this point if you’re not serving them straight away.
Preheat the oven to 220C/Fan200C/425F/Gas Mark 7 and put a large baking sheet in to preheat. Spray or brush a little oil on both sides of the patties then place them on the hot baking sheet.
Bake for 20-25 mins or until pale golden.

To make the coleslaw, finely shred the cabbage, coarsely grate the carrots and mix together in a large bowl with the onion. Add the mayonnaise, yogurt and mustard and mix thoroughly.
Chill until required.
If liked serve patties in a toasted bun with the coleslaw.

Carrot Cake Muffins

Prep time:
20 mins Cooking time:
10-15 mins Serves: 4

Ingredients • 225g butter, softened
• 225g soft light brown sugar
• 3 eggs, separated
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 180g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 75g ground almonds
• 125g walnuts, roughly chopped
• 175g carrots, peeled and grated

For the topping:
• 225g cream cheese
• 2 tsp runny honey

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Line a muffin tin with paper cases.
Cream together the softened butter with the sugar until pale and well mixed.
Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well between each addition.
Add the orange zest, and sift in the flour and baking powder. Fold in with the lemon juice, ground almonds, walnuts and carrots.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they reach a medium peak, and fold gently but thoroughly into the cake mixture.
Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, leaving a slight hollow in the centre of each one.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10 – 15 mins, until risen and golden.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

For the topping, beat together the cream cheese and honey until smooth, and spread over the tops of the muffins.
Ensure that they are cool before doing this or the icing will melt.

Gardening

That exciting time of the year has come around again. Time to start thinking about sowing those seeds in readiness for another exciting growing year. Last year’s failures can be forgotten with lessons learned and the successes remembered with pride and pleasure.
Just remember don’t take it too seriously, have fun, garden with a smile and let the children do the same. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you grow the biggest vegetables, leave that to the showers, we are wanting to encourage taking healthy options both in growing and eating the produce. Let the children have the experience of carrying out every step of the process from preparing the ground, sowing the seeds. Don’t stop at them harvesting the produce, let them take it into the school kitchen and help the cook to prepare it – washing the cabbage, peeling the potatoes, shelling the peas and cutting up the carrots. It’s all about teaching them these important life skills that have up to recently been missing in education for far too long.
Have set evenings where parents, carers or grandparents can come into the school and for example make a wooden herb box together. Let them fill it with soil and sow the seeds, or put in the prepared plants. It is surprising how many families have never done things like this together, especially the mothers, aunties or grandmothers.
This is something for them to then take home at the end of the evening to encourage them to cook and eat healthily and maybe start their own growing project at home.
When the families have finished building and planting their boxes maybe you could have for example some home made soup ready inside the school just to give the evening the perfect ending and send everyone home warm and content. If you have the funding available a good idea is to give each family the recipe and ingredients for the soup to take home.
Sessions like this show families how easy and cheap it is to make a healthy meal instead of phoning for a take away and encourage the healthy option. Now we are into March it is time to start thinking about sowing the seeds. Seeds are the most popular and frequently used method of producing new plants. It is fascinating how many differently sized, shaped and textured seeds there are.
I have a good game that I play with children at schools that I visit and work in. You need ten small bottles or doctor’s sample bottles are ideal. Get a wide range of different seeds for example beans, peas, sweetcorn, beetroot, parsnip, carrot, tomato, onions, cabbage and lettuce. These give you a wide range of the different sizes, textures and shapes.
Carefully open the packets and tip the contents of each packet into each bottle. If you can remember what seeds are which that is ideal but otherwise number the bottles and seed packets accordingly from 1 to 10. Just don’t make the number on the bottle visible to the children. If you can remember the seeds you only need to number the seed packets. Ideally the seed packets can then be laminated to give the game long lasting use.
To play the game you just lay the ten seed packets down with the vegetable picture face up.
Give the children the ten bottles of seeds and see how many seeds they can match up correctly with the picture.
This gives them a great fun way of learning about what the different vegetable seeds look like.
With some vegetables for example peas and beans we actually eat the plant’s seeds. With other vegetables we eat different parts of the plant for example stems, leaves or even roots. Even these plants that we eat different parts of still do produce seeds if they are allowed to but usually they are picked and eaten before they form seeds. When a vegetable plant flowers and forms seeds before it is supposed to we call it bolting.
It can be fun to maybe let a few vegetable plants seed for the children to collect the seeds and try to grow them the following season.
Once collected they need to be dried off to remove all traces of water, this stops the seeds germinating before you want them to. Once dried out they need to be put in packets and labeled for future identification.
A fun thing to do is to let the children design and make their own seed packets. They can then give the different vegetable its own personal school named variety. Just remember to then store the seed packets in a dry place away from any mice who would love to bite into these packets and feast on the seeds.
I have mentioned about seeds being so different in size, shape and texture, but they still have lots of things in common and need roughly the same things to grow well.
The first thing the seeds need to make them start growing is water. This water soaks into the seed softening it and starting the growing process. The first thing that starts to grow is the root of what will become the plant. This is the anchor of the plant that holds it into the ground and takes up the water and nutrients from the soil to help make the plant live and grow. Next will come the stem and then its first leaves. These plants grown from the packet of seeds are called seedlings.
Maybe you could plant some bean seeds in a glass or plastic container or jar so the children can watch the growing process. Put some soil in the container then place the seeds up against the sides. Cover with compost making sure you can still see the seed. Then just watch it grow.
Another good idea is to sow cress seed on kitchen roll as these grow really quickly. The speed at which the seedlings grow depends on how much light and warmth they get.
One thing you need to avoid is the seedlings becoming drawn. This is when the seedlings are all so close together that they put all their energy into growing upwards, naturally fighting against one another for the light. To avoid this you need to prick out or pot up the seedlings. Pricking out is replanting the seedlings at intervals of approximately 2 inch in a seed tray which will probably hold approximately 24 plants, obviously depending on its size.
Potting up is when we put each seedling in its own individual pot. The advantage of doing this is that the roots do not have to again be disturbed before it is planted in its final planting position.
The other thing that the seeds need to grow besides water is heat. Different seeds need different amounts of heat to grow or germinate. Some seeds will be happy sown out into the garden in spring when the soil is starting to warm up. Others need to be sown indoors in the warmth and then transplanted outdoors when the outside temperature and soil temperature is much warmer.
The most important thing to do when you buy your packet of seeds is to carefully read the instructions on the packet. It usually tells you if to sow indoors our outdoors. If to cover with soil once sown and what temperature is needed for them to germinate and most importantly when to sow.
The packet also tells you how many seeds it contains. This can vary greatly from a few seeds in packets of cucumbers and tomatoes to hundreds in carrots and turnips.
Maybe you could make your own paper pots to sow your seeds into. These can be made out of old newspapers that would be thrown away or if you are environmentally friendly recycled.
These paper pots can then be planted straight into the ground when the seedlings are ready and you don’t need to disturb the root system as the paper pot will then naturally rot down and disappear.
Once the seedlings start to grow do not over water. This is a big mistake lots of people make. The seedlings like to be kept damp but hate to be too wet. How much water they need depends on if it is a sunny or dull day, thus how warm it is in the greenhouse or classroom.
Plants grown in the greenhouse will start to develop quickly during April and early May. This is where you become a gardener, getting all of the plants ready to be planted out without them becoming too drawn and straggly.
If you have some cold frames, these are ideal for hardening the plants off and slowly adapting them to the big step from greenhouse life to outside life. Basically a cold frame is a box with a plastic or glass lid on. You can leave the lid off during the day and put it back on when there is a risk of frost at night. What stars the members of Haworth Youth Action Group are. Their treat for doing so much brilliant work in the community was a trip to the pantomime at the Alhambra in Bradford. Instead of just thinking about themselves they said they would like to buddy up with older people who were either house bound, lonely or encountering problems. The afternoon was such a great success and shows we have some brilliant, caring teenagers coming through.
The gardening club at Haworth Primary School received some brilliant news over the Christmas period. We attended The Telegraph and Argus Best of Bradford Awards and came away with The Best Schools Community Project which was sponsored by Hallmark Cards. This award gave everyone at the school such a lift and we all felt so proud and honoured to be recognised by our own City.
The cooker has been busy in the cookery room at Haworth Primary School recently. The children have been busy making buns for the bring and buy sale, that along with the non-uniform day raised a magnificent £473 for the Haiti appeal. Our hearts go out to everyone effected by this terrible disaster.

Gardening in Schools Businesses
and the Community
Tel. 01535 647496
Mob. 07969 658743
email. the5thorpes@tiscali.co.uk

Carol Vorderman

Carol Vorderman launches her online maths school www.themathsfactor.com

Carol Vorderman, Britain’s most famous numbers expert, has launched her new online maths school www.themathsfactor.com this week, the world’s first structured online maths school which teaches children as well as their parents. Here she talks to Northern Life Family about The Maths Factor.
The website is packed with fun things for children to do and they will receive five compulsory maths sessions per week, each lasting from 15 – 20 minutes. Each session includes video lessons from Carol, maths to music (times tables with dancers and rap and rock & roll), interactive games, rewards, feedback and avatars, but it requires plenty of practice using the proper language of maths and its symbols.
Carol says “I am so proud of The Maths Factor. It’s the culmination of years of work so that children and their parents can learn maths in the simplest way possible. Anyone can be good with numbers if they are taught well and they practice, and The Maths Factor will prove it.”
“We have built technology so that children will learn at their own pace, and a love of numbers will be inherent in everything we do. I also explain to parents all of the new numeracy methods taught in schools and tell them every week exactly what their child is about to learn and what games they can play away from the computer.”
“I believe that our Learn The Times Tables course is simply the best available in the world. There really is nothing like it in book form or on the internet. By the end of the package, children will know up to 12 x 12 automatically and the world of mathematics will open up for them.”
“As a Mum, I know how hard it can be for parents to know exactly what to do to encourage children with maths, so we also provide games for each precise piece of learning to print out and play. I simply want all children to be the very best they can be with numbers, arithmetic and mathematics. Please come and try some free sessions to see what I mean.”
Parents need never struggle with maths homework again. In fact, they will start to enjoy it thoroughly; recent surveys have stated that 4 out of 5 parents say that maths homework causes arguments at home. There is also a unique system for parents to automatically reward their children if they complete a certain number of homeworks, which has been developed so that children and parents can learn together.
The aim of www.themathsfactor.com is clear – the development of the child is the priority, as is nurturing their love and understanding of maths.
Parents pay for private maths lessons for their children at prices ranging from £25 to £60 per hour in Central London.
Themathsfactor.com offers excellent maths tutoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week from £10 per month (with an average of £5 per month for the Learn The Times Tables package, depending on the progress of each child).
So for two hours of tutoring PER YEAR in Central London, a parent and child could learn with Carol every day, all year round.
The site will launch with arithmetic and times tables for children from age 4 to 12, quickly rising to cover all maths up to age 16. Themathsfactor.com will add algebra, trigonometry and every other part of maths in a few short months, followed by adult numeracy by the end of the year.
This is the culmination of Carol’s dream to bring excellence and excitement to maths so that everyone can enjoy it. Why? Because she believes it can change a child’s world.
www.themathsfactor.com with Carol Vorderman is available from the first week in March.

Puzzles

Jane Horrocks talks Fifi

Northern Life Kids managed to catch up with her to talk about her new role.

It was a deliberate decision the petite 44-year-old actress made when she first shot to fame not to cultivate celebrity:” I used to go to parties every now and again and then it became less and less appealing especially as the gossip magazines got more profile. I didn’t want to be part of the circuit. So I did consciously stop.” After a long career spanning TV, film and acclaimed theatre performances, in the last three years, her enduring appeal has extended to the under fives in the hit TV series Fifi and The Flowertots in which she voices both the central character Fifi who lives with her friends in a magical garden and the prim and proper Primrose.

Now a global phenomenon, since it premiered on Five’s Milkshake! And Nick Jr in May 2005, the show was the brainchild of Bob The Builder creator Keith Chapman, and is hitting the road in theatres across the UK for the next year.

We meet for our interview in the recording studios in Soho where Jane is putting the finishing touches to additional voiceover work for the tour before heading off for her family holidays in the Scilly Isles.

She loves working with her fellow voiceover stars and there is a sense of camaraderie with the crew as they prepare the show for its 100-date regional tour which kicked recently and ends in June next year “I’m not surprised Fifi’s been a success,” she says.” When they were talking about a female version of Bob for girls, I thought it would do extremely well and it has. There’s something in it for all kids. The music’s catchy and the animation is beautiful Keith’s a clever guy. But she does appeal to adults too. My dresser on my last theatre job told me Fifi woke her up like an alarm clock every morning. She watched the episode and then went to work. I asked her: Have you got children? And she said: No! It was really sweet.”

Since her breakout role as petulant teenager Nicola in Life Is Sweet, Jane has switched between serious and comedy work with ease – playing scatty P A Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous and Little Voice, the singing prodigy she played on stage and screen that won her Olivier, Bafta and Golden Globe nominations.

Jane’s latest roles have been as a bored housewife embarking on an affair in Jimmy McGovern’s The Street – although she refused to take her clothes off: “I even kept my shoes and socks on. The director just raised an eyebrow!” - and BBC’s The Amazing Mrs Pritchard about a supermarket manageress who became prime minister. More recently she was in the West End in the Alan Ayckbourn farce Absurd Person Singular and starred in the acclaimed Young Vic production of Bertholt Brecht’s The Good Soul of Szechuan which she describes as a career highlight “I loved it. The director Richard Jones was superb and it was one of the best experiences I’d ever had. I’ve enjoyed doing the live work recently and am talking about doing another play.”

She has also voiced the US version of the show: ”I decided that Primrose was a bit of an LA wag type like a character in that movie Mean Girls, where as Fifi’s drawl is Middle America, sweeter and softer,”she explains.

Motherhood is a huge priority with Jane. She took time off to be a mum to Molly,9, and Dylan, now eleven, but insists it was not the eight years that has often been quoted: “It was actually two years. The figure keeps going up! I consciously didn’t work as much when my daughter Molly was young but in fact, I did a whole series of Ab Fab during that time but I was very focused on her. Now they’re much more self-sufficient they’re fine about me working but they do miss me a lot because I’ve been doing a couple of theatre jobs back to back. That’s why voice over work is so handy when you have a family. I’m fortunate I have this other career, you couldn’t manage a family doing theatre alone, you have to have some financial backing.

She smiles when asked what her children make of her: “I think I infuriate them because I’m a Luddite and can’t use a computer. We haven’t got broadband at home. They think I’m a comic mum because they take the mickey out of me permanently and they don’t do anything they’re told! Things have gone downhill since I started to work again.” The children come to see her perfomances: “I had to kiss another actor in The Good Soul Of Szechuan. They were repulsed and looked at my fella as if to say: Poor Dad!” Afterwards, when I asked Dylan what he thought of the play he simply asked: Can you buy the props? I liked that swivel chair. Can I have it for my bedroom?”.

Having loved ones in the audience doesn’t affect her performance but if there is an admired director in the house, she admits she does feel nervous. During intense theatre productions she often sees an acupuncturist to combat any tension.

Earlier this month Jane, who was born in Rawtenstall in Lancashire, received an honorary doctorate from Lancaster University:” I was hugely nervous. I went into the ceremony quite cocky. My mum said: Won’t you be scared? and I was going: Of course not. But when I got up onto the stage to get it, I could hardly speak.”

Jane is a rare breed of actor. Talented and funny but someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Her quirky prettiness and uniqueness means she will always be in demand for roles:” HD is the kiss of death for actresses over a certain age because you don’t want everything highlighted! I’m sure a lot of actresses have Botox because of that.

At the end of the interview when asked how it feels to be a national treasure, she laughs in surprise:” That’s very difficult to answer!” Then smiling at the head of production, who is wearing a dress she rather likes: “Now I’m supposed to be a national treasure, I think I deserve that dress. Because national treasures should be able to get what they want!”

Interview from Northern Life Kids issue 13 june/july 08 To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.

Gardening with Steve

The reception class have just had a session planting all the pumpkins, I wonder if they can beat the 7 stone one from two years ago? It always fascinates me watching the development of the pumpkins. They don’t seem to get any bigger for weeks and weeks and then all of a sudden they seem to just take off. Don’t forget they need plenty of water and feed, that’s why we plant them on the manure heap.
I recently spent two days at St Mary’s Primary School in Middleton, Leeds, where I worked with every class, including the teachers and hopefully inspired them with my work. They made an outdoor classroom, concreting in all the wooden mushroom seats. These make a wonderful resource for the teachers to take classes out for story time or outdoor curriculum work.
We also made a habitat for insects and mini beasts out of old wooden pallets. They were packed full of grass, stones, old plant pots and pipes and anything else that might make a cosy home. This will also make another wonderful resource for the whole school to use.
I have just carried out a project with the Good Friday club at the church in Crossroads, the next village to Haworth. The children and adults made, filled and planted up four wooden planters which add lots of colour to the area around the village Christmas tree. We had lots of fun and plenty of laughs over the two Friday evening sessions.
Talking about Crossroads, pupils at Lees School which is in Crossroads (if you know what I mean), have been busy putting up a fence and gate in readiness for the new school pond. This has been a brilliant project that each year group has been involved with, from digging the holes and concreting in the posts to nailing on the lats and making the gate. This is the brilliant thing about my work in the schools. The amount of subjects covered and different tools used within this project alone is quite amazing and the effect projects like this have on the children is equally as amazing.
I received quite a surprise or should I say shock while recently attending the Haworth and Worth Valley Rotary Club’s 10th Anniversary dinner. I felt really honoured to be asked to attend the event along with my wife Jackie. But I was presented with a Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of my work in the community.
This is only the fourth time they have given this award in their 10 year history so I feel really proud that they feel my work deserves such recognition.