Learning made fun

Breast Cancer - The Challenges Faced By A Young Mum

Guest post from Claire Rowland, our West Yorkshire Musical Minis franchisee.

Firstly I would just like to thank Karen for approaching me to write this piece for the blog.

It all started on December 18th 2010, I was in the Irish Centre Leeds for our annual ladies Christmas doo having such a fabulous night with family and friends singing, dancing and drinking until the early hours of the morning. Also discussing the new West Yorkshire Musical Minis franchise that I had just purchased at the beginning of the month and practicing “I jump out of bed” ready for my launch class in January, causing great hysterics. It’s not often “us mummies” get a night out, so like many others I was making the most of it.

The following morning I woke up a little worse for wear and jumped in the shower, and did my monthly breast check. This is something I did and still do every month whilst in the shower, well it only takes 5 minutes and it can save my life I always thought. I do this as my Nanna died at a very young age of breast cancer and I suppose I just always had it in my mind to do so. I came across a hard pea sized lump which I had never felt before and thought this is strange, I will definitely have to go to the doctors tomorrow and have this checked. I let my partner have a feel as well, and he reassured me saying it will be nothing to worry about, but better to be safe than sorry. That night I went to bed and cried myself to sleep, deep down I knew something wasn’t right.

Florence - Art, Churches and Food

It had been 24 years since Rob and I had been to Florence. Then we were on a three centre visit to Rome, Florence and Venice. Whilst we had been back to Rome and Venice we had not managed to revisit Florence. We decided to address this and so made a return.

On our previous stay, not having much money, we stayed on the outskirts of the town in a small hotel, walking in every day, even though I was 6 months pregnant. This time we stayed in a hotel by the Ponte Vecchio (the famous bridge in Florence lined with jewellery shops).

Florence is a lovely city and fantastic for art lovers. We managed to mix and match flights to Pisa, so we went very early on Saturday morning and came back very late on Tuesday. This meant we had four full days.

Magic Magnetic Balls Cube Puzzle - A Review

I was lucky enough to be selected to write a review on the Magic Magnetic Balls Cube Puzzle from Paramount Zone.

The Puzzle arrived but unfortunately the metal tin it is packaged in was dented. I think it would have helped to wrap the tin in bubblewrap. The cube is made up of 216 silver magnetic balls. The first thing I did was open up the tin and separate the cube into one long line of the 216 balls. The line was 105 cm long. I'm still unsure as to why I actually did this as ever since I've been trying to put it back into a cube!

It is great to pull the balls apart and can relieve stress - although trying to put them back into a cube is in itself stressful! It is an interesting concept as each tiny silver ball has its own North and South magnetic poles and each ball seems to attract and repel each other.

You don't have to create a cube there are many other shapes that can be made. Unfortunately, so far, I haven't had much luck making any although my family have made a few interesting shapes. It is a shame the Puzzle doesn't come with instructions or a guide as to what shapes can be made. However, there are instructions and videos on the internet.

The siver balls are very little so this definately is not suitable for young children - the suggested age is 14+. This is an ideal stocking filler for teenagers and adults. It costs £9.99 and can be bought on the internet from Paramount Zone.

The Importance Of Nursery Rhymes

I know some people think nursery rhymes are just a bit of fun. Whilst they are fun there is also a lot that they can teach children.

A number of nursery rhymes are based on English historical events. Whilst young children who learn nursery rhymes are not aware of this it does help the adult teaching them to the child to focus on the fact that they aren't just meaningless. I have written posts about some of these previously.

As well as being fun, nursery rhymes can teach children basic language skills. They contain both usual and some more unusual vocabulary. They are rhythmic and can help young children learn sentence formation and syllables. The breaking down of words helps children learn how to communicate. For example, mama developers into mummy as the child's speech progresses.

Many nursery rhymes contain rhyming words, for example,
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."
This is a great way for children to discover words and forms the basis of reading skills.

Many nursery rhymes have actions to accompany them. This helps both the child's coordination and understanding of the words as they perform the actions.

Nursery rhymes are a lovely way for adults to interact with their child. The actions for a number of rhymes are done with the child sitting on the adults lap facing each other. For example, "Row row, row, the boat." This encourages eye contact and is great fun for both the adult and child. It can help bonding between the adult and child.

In our Musical Minis classes we find that the adults enjoy the nursery rhyme part of the programme as much as the children. A number of adults have found that they missed out on learning traditional nursery rhymes when they were children and are eager to teach them to their children. Adults for whom English is not their first language are especially keen to embrace English culture and learn the nursery rhymes.

There are a few nursery rhymes that are old fashioned and personally I feel have no place in today's society. Georgie Porgie is one of these - the little boy who kissed the girls and made them cry.

Traditional nursery rhymes carry much more importance to today's children than made up current rhymes. They can be backed by historical events and can be found in books. Once children attend nursery and later school, their teachers will be able to carry on with these traditional rhymes. The modern rhymes used in individual settings aren't known by others outside the setting where it was used.

Nursery rhymes are an ideal way to show 'learning made fun' ties in with the Musical Minis philosophy perfectly. If there is a nursery rhyme you are unsure about or one you want to discover the meaning of please let me know and I'll research it for you.

Photo by Flickr abakedcreation

Oxford Musical Minis Magical Christmas With Mickey & Minnie Mouse & Father Christmas

Due to popular demand Oxford Musical Minis is proud to announce its forthcoming Magical Christmas events full of music, movement, story time and lots of fun.

Come and visit Santa in his grotto, receive a present and experience snow all on one day!

Places are limited and must be pre-booked. All ages welcome. Payment must be made prior to the event to secure the booking. Places will be allocated on a first come first serve basis, based on payment.

All sessions will be running 10.00am – 12.30pm.

Bicester: Saturday 1 December
Woodstock: Sunday 2 December
Calvert Green (Bucks): Saturday 8 December
Kings Sutton, near Banbury: Sunday 9 December

Cost: £7.50 (non refundable) per child (to include entertainment, a visit to see Santa and receive a present and refreshments and snack for each child).

To book a place call Leena on 01296 738652 or email: leena@musicalminis.co.uk 

A donation will be made to Taylan’s Project, Brain Tumour Research in Children, so please support this event

Champneys Tring - A Review

Spa days and Spa breaks have become more popular in recent years. It is lovely to escape for the day, or a few days and be pampered, coming back refreshed and ready to tackle everyday life again.  The Champneys resorts don't allow under 16's in so there are no children there. When my 3 children were young Rob and I did visit Champneys leaving our children with their Grandparents. Musical Minis Mums have gone for pregnancy relax days, hen parties and just to have time to unwind. Champneys does charge a premium as it considers itself to be a luxury spa, unfortunately we don't!

Rob and I stayed overnight at the Tring resort at the end of Summer. Perhaps because we remember so clearly the Champneys of 16 years ago that we were so aware of the downhill slide of this spa. Each time we have visited Champneys Tring over the past few years we have noticed standards slip. Our recent one night stay was enjoyable but our visit was very impersonal and the standard of cleanliness and maintenance was very poor.

On the plus side the food is good and the staff friendly. On the negative side the treatments can be hit or miss. The spa staff are trained to carry out a treatment in a particular way (e.g. 3 strokes one way four strokes another) without any consideration for personal need. There are numerous treatments to choose from, which in itself can be problematic as you are not really sure as to how they differ.

The Champneys stay now just seems to be packaged. We were appalled that when an elderly guest asked for an additional half cup of coffee in the drawing room after dinner, she was told only one cup of complimentary tea or coffee was permitted. With nowhere to purchase a drink the lady had no alternative other than to make a cup in her room. Surely this is not 5 star service and was just one example of how the service is now regimented.

Having to use the public facilities after the 11.00 a.m. check out time you would expect the facilities to be kept clean. However, both the men's and ladies toilets were dirty over a number of hours. We noticed these were used by the staff and still nothing was done about the state of them. The carpets in many parts of the resort are stained, the tap in our room would not turn off completely and was loose and a number of the hooks for towels in the sauna were snapped. All in all the resort needs a lot of maintenance and recognition that it's guests are individuals looking for a personal service.

Perhaps Champneys is now catering for the masses but still charging premium rates. Perhaps the management don't think it's necessary to keep the resort clean and in good repair. We gave feedback via a questionnaire which was emailed after our stay and to the staff before we left but weeks later we have had no response. It's not easy to organise childcare to have time for yourself  and if you have managed to do so, the experience we had at Champneys Tring really wouldn't have been worth the effort.

We think it's time to find another spa to visit. Have you been to any you could recommend? Or maybe you've been to Champneys and enjoyed your stay. Do let me know.

Photo by Flickr o5com

How Do You Warn Young Children About Stranger Danger?

Like the rest of the nation I'm upset about the abduction of April Jones and hoping she is safely reunited with her family soon. I remember as a young child being told never to talk to strangers, take sweets from strangers, get into strangers' cars etc. I instilled the same fear of strangers into my 3 children.

The difficulty I have is how to inform children that some strangers are 'bad people' whilst at the same time protecting the child's innocence. It's horrific to go into details about what some strangers may do to some children. As parents, Rob and I can't remember telling our children any reason why not to talk to strangers, apart from telling them some strangers may want to take them away from us to live with them. I know some parents mention sex crimes, murders etc. but I chose not to do so, on purpose.

Childhood, I believe, should be an age of innocence, so how do you explain about stranger danger to young children? With my own children they grew up knowing some strangers weren't nice but the majority were. If they were with Rob or I they could reply to questions from strangers. If they were by themselves then they weren't to speak to strangers just in case they were 'bad' strangers. When my children were young the James Bulger case with the child murdered by other children was in the news. The main way I protected my children was the fact that they were always with a responsible adult. If my children were playing outside an adult was with them watching them.

How have you dealt with the stranger issue and warned your children? It would be great if we could share tips to keep our children safe.

 Photo by Flickr xoxoryan

School Health And Safety - Nepal versus UK

Guest post from Emily Sherr, my 19 year old daughter, who is studying Education with History at Durham University. Emily has just returned from volunteering in a school in Nepal.

One of the things that annoys me most in the British education system is the obsessive concern over health and safety. We really haven’t found the balance of a good, helpful and productive level of precaution and have ended up with a system which is really over the top. Judging by my experiences over the summer in Nepal, we are not the only country which is finding the balance hard. Nepal, however, is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with health and safety being a nice idea which isn’t really implemented. Which ones better, I’m not sure, but both definitely need work.

I think this point is best illustrated if we look at school trips. I went on two great school trips in Nepal which were really good fun but probably not very safe! In Britain the process of organising a school trip is long, rigorous and excessive. Everything is organised to the very last detail; parental permission is obtained long in advance, forms are filled in (which in my experience are long and pointless!), student to staff ratios are sorted, risk assessments are done, insurance is finalised, back up plans implemented, first aid kits prepared and many more behind the scenes procedures are completed. Everything is documented, checked, double checked and checked again. This intense process must have annoyed parents and teachers alike.

This process is very different in Nepal! First let me just make clear that the school trips were only for the boarders and not the day students and took place on a Saturday. The school trip was announced a few days in advance and on the day of the trip whoever wanted to come just jumped onto the school bus which wasn’t big enough for us all so younger ones were piled onto laps. A dubious head count was done and we set off. Once we were out of the police controlled zone, volunteers were allowed to sit on the roof of the bus which was great fun and had amazing views. As the children don’t leave the school much, when they do, they like to make an effort. One of the girls was in a pink princess dress and others all dressed up for the occasion which was really amusing. On both trips we climbed mountains. The first of these was much more like rock climbing in parts as we scrambled up very steep paths. Paths is probably not the correct word as it make it sound like there was a set route on which it would be difficult to get lost. This would be incorrect. There were many paths and no one really knew which one to follow, especially on the way down when we kept getting lost. The children all went off at different speeds, most of the time without an adult (by adult I mean the 7 volunteers and 1 teacher). I somehow became the first aider as I’d brought two antiseptic wipes and a plaster! It’s was all a bit of an unorganised mess. Having said that, we made it to the top, and then we made it down again. All the children got on the bus and we went back to school. Admittedly it could have been organised better, none of the children had water with them - I lucky did because otherwise I would have got dehydrated. We could have made sure children were always with an adult and that there was a first aid kit - but we didn’t and everything was fine. The same can be said about school trip number two. Leeches were the main problem here and over half the children were leeched. Although not great, leeches aren’t that harmful and it’s more unpleasant than anything else. This time a headcount probably would have been useful as we nearly left a child behind but he was fine and was returned to school in one piece.

So all the kids were ok and had a great time on the school trips so no harm was done. I still think that things do need to change and probably will at some point in the future. It just shows you how different cultures and countries work - neither Britain nor Nepal have got health and safety right in my opinion but both do sort of work in their own way. I’m sure things go wrong in Nepal but they still do in Britain despite the intense and vigorous policies. Either way I thoroughly enjoyed my Nepali school trips and I know the kids did too - for now I suppose that’s sort of all that matters. I wonder if any country or even school has managed to find the balance between excessive and underused when it comes to health and safety.