Family Focus

It’s funny how kids are wired to touch everything they see. They spend a good amount of time from a very young age exploring their world through touch.

As parents my husband and I are in agreement that for our kids we are more than happy to limit the screen time and technology they get. 

Freestyle Kids is back at Green Heart Fair in 2015 so we thought we'd put together a snap shot of what we will have on offer - and what is so great about the event!

We will be there showcasing our eco friendly toy ranges and reusable products.

I get asked a lot for recommendations for baby toys and I struggle to answer to be honest because I don't really think babies need 'toys'.

Before a baby can sit unassisted, hold something steady in their hand and pass it between each hand they are not really ready for toys as such, and certainly don't need a lot of money spent to entertain them.

We love treasure hunts and do them quite often at home for birthdays, Easter or Christmas.  Although I am not too bad with drawing simple clues I thought a ready made general set of printable clues would be handy for us, and for everyone else too so decided to whip a set up just in time for Easter.

We love books in our house, to the point that they are overtaking our house!  Every time the Lifeline Bookfest rolls around we head off and stock up and usually for each birthday and Christmas they are given books by relatives.

We recently set about creating some book inspired art. 

I have visions of racing boats down the water as a child, I have no idea if these are memories or just visions, but it is certainly something that says 'childhood' to me.   I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to introduce my kids to such a simple but exhilarating activity, and the other day was it.  We got drenched getting home from another outing, it had been raining heavily so there was plenty of water rushing down the street but it wasn’t raining too heavy, and as I said – we were wet already.   I grabbed some plastic boats and off we went.  The..

Do you want to make a switch to quality open ended wooden toys, but friends and family keep buying you plastic stuff, or do you have a heap of it already and it seems wasteful just to get rid of it??

My kids love foraging for items outside and going on scavenger hunts for nature based items. We use these outings to talk about a number of things.  Taking care of our planet, and why we don't pick flowers, leaves and such off plants and trees, animal habitat and what kinds of animals live where, why rain and sun are important to plants, and even basic stuff like talking about colours, shapes and textures. The kids usually take a basket each and fill it with treasures we've found lying on the ground during our walks. When we get home we either add items to existing collections (r..