Activity Village News

21st November 2008

A Message From Lindsay

I wish a warm welcome to all our new newsletter subscribers, and to those of you who have just discovered Activity Village for the first time! I'm glad that you have found us now, at this exciting time of year - we have so many new activities, crafts, coloring pages and printables in the pipeline that we hope to be keeping your kids busy well into the new year and beyond!

Having said that, some of you will have noticed that there hasn't been a newsletter for the past few weeks. Many apologies for that - we have had some unexpected events in my house over the last few weeks and I just haven't had as much time to get onto the computer as normal. That means I have a huge backlog of new crafts, printables, coloring pages, AV Baby pages and much more waiting to get up onto the net, which I will be putting up as fast as I can over the next few days. And in the meantime, there is rather a hodgepodge of "new stuff" this week! I hope to be catching up with Kids Thinkers and Diary of a New Mum soon, too.

Will you be travelling this Thanksgiving or Christmas? Start to plan ahead and scroll down for this week's Reader Tip, which has a great idea to make the journey easier.

Next week we will be concentrating on "Advent", with a host of craft ideas for you to get the kids involved in making their own advent calendars (so much nicer than the shop-bought chocolate variety, we think!) We have a large new section of advice and ideas to help you stretch your pennies further - useful in these troubled times. And we are also working on some fantastic "fairy tale" activities which will be coming your way soon...

What's New At Activity Village?

27th November brings Thanksgiving for our American visitors. This year we have added 13 fantastic new craft ideas (6 in the last few days), so you shouldn't be short of some good crafty inspiration!
Thanksgiving Crafts

We've also got 7 fun Thanksgiving fuse bead patterns...
Thanksgiving fuse bead patterns

...and some gorgeous new Thanksgiving coloring pages.
Thanksgiving coloring pages

Use our Thanksgiving notebooking pages in the classroom or home:
Thanksgiving notebooking pages

Obviously not everyone is celebrating Thanksgiving, so we have a few other activities to keep you busy this week!

We have had such fun with our monster crafts page, which is growing steadily. I think the best thing about monsters - from a child's point of view - is that anything goes!
Monster crafts

Counting Jars Game
Make this yourself or ask older children to make this game for a younger sibling, to help them learn to count.

If your children like making up their own games, you might find our new printable "money", counters, tickets etc useful. 13 sheets of fun here!
Printable game supplies

We also have 13 sheets of "realistic" printable money and coins - US Dollars, Euros and Sterling - for learning activities as well as games and make-believe.
Printable play money - notes and coins

For those of you celebrating St Andrew's Day on 30th November, here's an origami kilt to fold!  It's not totally authentic, but it's still fun to make, and we've included a printable sporran as well!
Origami Kilt

We have a new collection of coloring pages for children in hospital, with broken legs, in wheelchairs etc.
Get Well Soon coloring pages

And we have many of the same images as cards which you can print out for your children to color in - sure to make the recipient feel much better!
Get Well Soon coloring cards

New at AV Baby this week:


Baby Photo Of The Week
We're looking at the big issue of "sleep" next - I'll be updating AV Baby in the next few days.

A Giggle!

"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers."
Socrates

Recommended Product

If you have any behavioral issues with your kids, you might want to check out the Better Behavior Wheel, from Robert and Julie Butler. We've been recommending it at Activity Village for over two years now and have had great feedback from purchasers (as well as resorting to it ourselves on occasion!) Available as a digital download, the Better Behavior Wheel allows you to set consequences for undesirable behavior that fit your family - and the unusual and very clever twist of having to spin the wheel to discover your punishment works wonders to take the stress out of the situation for the parent and reinforce the message for the child. This is an excellent product and we recommend it highly.
Product review here
Find out more about the Better Behavior Wheel

Reader Tip

(Thanks to Karen for this idea)

Keep an “activity box” for each child in your car, for those long car journeys or unexpected traffic jams. Any flat box will do, but you may be able to buy a plastic-moulded box which doubles as a clipboard as well from your office supply company – these are ideal. Fill it with plain white paper, coloured paper, magazines, clippings, puzzles, crosswords, colouring pictures etc according to the age of the child (print some out from Activity Village or the other websites mentioned in our newsletter!) Include a selection of pencils (perhaps a pack of miniature colouring pencils, one or two normal pencils and some special gel pens for a treat).

Older children may enjoy newspaper clippings and print-outs from the internet – anything which they haven’t time for now but would like to “read later”. Cut out any "funnies" you see that are suitable. A quiz for them to do themselves or try out on their younger siblings always goes down well. 

Other things to include in the activity boxes are stickers, stencils, plastic novelty puzzles (the type you get in crackers or as party-bag presents), pre-cut cardboard models to assemble, paper dolls, and perhaps a sheet or two of foil kitchen paper cut to size for modelling fun.

Have You Seen?

Imagination coloring pages - children use their imagination to "fill in the blanks" before coloring their masterpieces!
Imagination Coloring Pages

Something To Think About..

"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."
Clarence Budinton Kelland

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	Don't miss...
	Thanksgiving
	St Andrew's Day
	Advent
	Hanukkah
	Christmas
	Kwanzaa
	Winter
	Shidonni

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