Pages

Monday 13 April 2015

Help Build a Nursery in South Africa

Little Scribbles founder, Deb, spent time in Africa back in 2006, volunteering in a children's orphanage in Kenya. A little bit of her heart stayed in Kenya and she has done her best ever since, to raise money in supportive and effective way. We recently came across a fantastic local project, that aims to travel to South Africa to make hands-on changes to one of the poorest communities in the country. Youth at The Lane are a group of young people from South Liverpool, that are part of the Long Lane Church community. In August 2015 they will be flying to Johannesburg, South Africa to build a nursery for children stuck in poverty. Their goal is to raise £25,000 to enable around 25 community members to go and make this happen. Find out more about the team and their project here 



To help support the team, we are holding an online Barefoot Books fundraiser. Barefoot have lots of great books that feature tales from Africa, here are just a few of our favourites



There are lots more options on the website and if you buy any item from my Barefoot Books store, using the link below, and 25% of profits will be donated to this fundraiser. If the team have room in their bags, we will also donate a selection of books for the nursery!

Buy a Barefoot Book and support the Youth at The Lane South Africa Fundraiser

We wish the team the best of luck in their fundraising efforts and we hope that they have a safe and enjoyable trip. Good luck guys!

Sunday 12 April 2015

World Earth Day Activities

World Earth Day will be celebrating its 45th birthday this year, on April 22nd. Now, more than ever, is the time to get our children involved in taking measures to protect our planet. Children are aware of the importance of recycling and energy saving, but the more we educate children on exactly how we impact our planet, the greater chance of creating a sustainable future. Earth Day Network shows you ways that you and your children can take action and make a difference. There are also very simple things that you can do on Earth Day itself, as pointed out in the latest Barefoot Books blog.


The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales is the perfect book to read in the run up to World Earth Day. Each of the seven folk tales, featured in the collection, show how different cultures around the world embrace the natural world and strive to live in harmony


The short stories are great for snatching a short period of family time together, in the midst of a busy day. You can simply read aloud together or, if you have more time on your hands, you can have a go at the hands-on activity attached to the end of each story. Activities include ' Everything Goes Soup' and homemade bird feeders, and all promote green living and eco messages. 

The first story in the collection is The Sun Mother, a story from Australia. After an introduction to the country itself, the story goes on to spread the message that if we all look after the little patch of earth where we belong, between us we can care for the whole earth. The activity at the end of this story is to make an aboriginal song-line painting. Song-line paintings are traditional pieces of art that depict areas that are social to the painter. The activity encourages children to think of their favourite place, a garden or park for example, and to paint with whatever materials they have at hand. You could use sand, chalk, charcoal or whatever natural pigments you can find or, like us, you can just use paints.

We took our book and paints in the sunny backyard and got to work on our song-line paintings, influenced by our local park




We had lots of fun and, of course, ended up getting very messy, which is what we like best! We would love to see your song-line paintings of your favourite place on earth.

Thursday 9 April 2015

April Book of the Month

Spring is finally here and it has brought along lots of sunshine, yay! I am sure, like us, you are enjoying lots of outdoor time and are eager to try new activities with your little ones. With that in mind, we have chosen Millie's Chickens as our April book of the month, so that you can celebrate the great outdoors.


Read along as Millie tends to her chickens, that she keeps in her backyard, and learn how to tend to chickens day and night. The rhyming text engages children, as do the beautiful illustrations by Valeria Cis.



Silkie, Leggy and Rhodie are just some of Millie's wonderful chickens, that love to roam in the sunshine. Millie's Chickens is a great book for pre-schools and early years classes, that teaches children all about different breeds of chicken and how eggs are made. The STEM friendly science information, in the end notes, makes this book educational as well as lots of fun, and may just teach adults a thing or too also!



Unfortunately, we do not have any space for chickens in our backyard but we still had lots of fun learning about chickens and how to look after these fun animals. A trip to our local farm is on the cards, to test our new found knowledge of chickens. If you are looking for books about outdoors, for your children, this is the perfect springtime story.


If you are new to Barefoot Books, you can enjoy 20% off using SPRING2015 when you checkout. Hope you have lots of fun! Cluck, cluck, cluck!