Capable Child

My family are huge Julia Donaldson fans and Tabby McTat has remained a firm favourite as my daughter has grown up. We love the clever rhymes and the busker’s songs. So, when we heard about Freckle Production’s Tabby McTat stage show coming to Lichfield Garrick Theatre, we jumped at the chance to see it. We were to finally find out if the Busker’s songs were how we had imagined and sung them countless times. It was a full house at The Garrick and the sense of excitement and anticipation from the children and parents was palpable. It seems Tabby McTat is a favourite among many families! We had a great view from the gently tiered seating in the  stalls. Whilst the children waited for the show to start, the actors wandered the aisles and warmed up the audience even sitting amongst the children as the show started. I was surprised that Samuel Sprat was first on stage as he comes towards the end of the story in book. Today, however, Samuel was telling the st...

The Freedom Trail is high on the list of ‘must see’ sights of Boston. But how to do the Freedom Trail with kids?  Boston by Foot offered us a solution with their special tour Boston By Little Feet. http://www.bostonbyfoot.org/tours/Boston_By_Little_Feet Boston by Little Feet is at aimed at 6-12 year olds and is 60 minutes long. We learned lots and visited 10 of the main Freedom Trail sites that were reasonably close together. (We walked less than 1 mile in total.) We saw other walking tours with a lot more people and a lot more walking involved. So a shorter, smaller tour was a winner for us. We were very grateful that our guide went at the pace of the children in our group and involved them in spotting things and answering questions. However, I do wish we had all done our homework a little more! It turns out that I knew very little about the American Revolution- it doesn’t really feature on the British primary curriculum. There was a lot of informati...

Your child is now a month into Reception. I’m guessing that they are reasonably happy being dropped off in the morning, that they have started talking about children that they play with and they mention how their teacher likes things done - a lot. I’m also guessing that at home they may be cranky, overtired and, at times, tearful. It’s pretty tough being a parent of a child who is starting school. First comes the worry of how your child will get on and then later comes the thoughts about whether your child will get used to the weeks and months of school ahead of them. Starting school may be one of the biggest life changes that your four or five year old has been through. Even for children who attended nursery full time, school is quite different. The levels of concentration required are high. The expectations upon children are many and varied. As a parent or carer, you are their emotional back up and it’s you who gets all the worst bits, for a while anyway. Here are my t...