Art Projects for Kids

Art Projects for Kids is an excellent crafty blog written by Kathy Barbro, an art teacher. On her blog, she shares lots of fun art projects and crafty ideas for children (and adults).

If you are looking for some creative inspiration and ideas for projects to create with children, Art Projects for Kids is the blog for you!

The Crafty Crow: "a children's craft collective"

The Crafty Crow is a blog that specializes in linking to other blogs that feature children's crafts plus The Crafty Crow also offers tips, tools, tutorials, resources, and other ideas from time to time. The blog author also has another blog called Bella Dia.

Child Friendly

Child Friendly is a useful site where parents can access information about their next family outing and "Search from 1000’s of the very best family friendly places in the UK and abroad."

The site offers details about family holidays, hotels, days out, British pubs, holiday parks and child friendly restaurants in the UK.

Parenting Squad

Parenting Squad is a very useful blog offering "Tips, hacks and news for parents and their families."

The blog is packed with lots of useful and practical advice for just about every possible subject that a parent would be interested in learning more about. The Home Life section is about things such as chores and discipline, finances, shopping, entertanment, sitters & nannies, relocation, entertainment and saftey. The other sections are Family Planning (planning, conceiving, adoption, pregnancy, birth, new parents), Education, Health, Social Skills (etiquette, conflict resolution, culture, relationships, sex education), and even a No Children Zone (sex & relationships, time management, work balance, and wellness).

The blog is easy to navigate with all the different categories and also with a handy "Browse by Age" feature.

Brightest-Kidz: A Resource for Kid Friendly Science, Science Activities and Science Education

Brightest-Kidz is a fun blog aimed at educating children about science by offering lots of fascinating information and activities.

The Official Annabel Karmel Website

The Official Annabel Karmel Website is a very impressive site devoted to food and nutrition for babies and children. Annabel Karmel is a popular cookery writer in the UK and you can purchase her books via her website.

Her site offers lots of healthy recipes, how-to information, a nutrition guide, How to Cook Videos, a forum, a Kids Cooking Site with Kids Cooking Videos plus competitions, prize draws and giveaways.

There is also a new AnnabelKarmel TV channel to watch online.

Kids and Cooking: Encouraging Kids in the Kitchen

KidsandCooking offers lots of recipes for healthy family meals at home as well as recipe ideas for school fetes, party food, picnic food and recipes for making your own healthy fast food.

The site also has lots of other features and (over 70) articles such as how to encourage your children to help make dinner, lunchbox ideas, food crafts and teaching children about healthy eating.

In addition, KidsandCooking also offers some fun videos demonstrating how easy it is to cook with children.

TheKidsGarden: Helping Kids Enjoy Creative Gardening

TheKidsGarden is a great resource for parents and schools. The site provides lots of useful articles (over 60) about getting children involved in creative gardening. It also includes ideas for educational (and fun) activities and projects plus fun ways to encourage recycling.

The Toymaker - free papercrafts

The Toymaker is a charming papercrafts site by Marilyn Scott Waters.

The site has a lot of lovely features such as Charles and Brook Otter paperdolls (and outfits) to print out. The Holidays section offers a lot of different templates for paper boxes, decorations, cards and other fun items. The page of free paper toys are particularly delightful.

Marilyn Scott Waters slso has a lovely journal (blog) called The Toymaker.

Homemade Baby Food Recipes

If you are the parents of a new baby, I think you will appreciate the site, Homemade Baby Food Recipes.

In addition to the recipes, there is information about baby food allergies and digestive problems, and a guide to introducing solids. The site is an excellent resource for all new parents.

ParentDish - a blog about parenting

ParentDish is an informative and thought-provoking blog about parenting with lots of useful tips, advice and relevant news for parents.

RaisingKids: practical parenting advice

RaisingKids is a fantastic website that offers lots of information and practical parenting advice.

The site is packed with useful information and features in-depth articles about: education in the UK, finance, family motoring, family holidays and travel advice, food & nutrition, health & fitness, child development, and parenting skills.

Jan Brett's website: free activities for kids

Jan Brett is a popular author/illustrator of children's books. She also has a wonderful website with loads of free activities, coloring pages, and projects that are fun and educational.

Her site really is a wonderful resource for parents and children. I think the pages showing how to draw a hedgehog , how to draw an armadillo, and how to draw a bear, are particularly appealing. The site isn't just for children!

Kids Craft Weekly - free

Kids Craft Weekly is a superb resource for parents of young children and it's free!

Amber Carvan, the editor of the newsletter, is a stay at home mother with two young kids and not only does Amber write the Kids Craft Weekly newsletter which is published every fortnight, (every two weeks instead of the original weekly schedule) she also shares a lot of wonderful, creative ideas on her site which includes printable project sheets as well as suggestions for putting together a useful crafting box.

Kids Birthday Party Guide

Kids Birthday Party Guide is a great resource for birthday party ideas! There are lots of fun ideas for birthday party themes, games, recipes and activities.

Free online chess course

Teach your kids how to play chess with a free online chess course:

chessKIDS academy "offers online interactive lessons, quizzes and games for kids, five chess computers for you to play, and a resource center for parents and teachers of kids who play, or would like to play, chess, including a scholastic chess download pack to enable any school to run a chess club."

Midwives & health visitors online

These are two excellent sites about pregnancy, and for essential information and support for new parents:

midwivesonline.com "UK's unique, leading, Midwives website for Expectant & New Parents, DADS included!"

and

healthvisitors.com "providing parenting information for infants and children 0-5 years."

Both sites are an invaluable resource for parents and expectant parents. If you are expecting your first baby, take a look at the pregnancy FAQs page and the birth FAQs for lots of helpful information.

How to type lessons (for kids)

Dance Mat Typing, is a fun, educational site from the BBC that provides an introduction to touch typing for children aged 7 - 11 years.

Free Craft Projects, Easy Homemade Gifts, Craft Patterns

AllfreeCrafts.com is exactly that - a website that offers " "Free crafts, craft projects and patterns to make easy homemade gifts"

There's something for everyone here! For instance, I like to knit so I appreciate all the free knitting patterns. If you prefer crochet, there are plenty of free crochet patterns or if you enjoy sewing, the site provides free sewing patterns and projects.

There is also an excellent recycling ideas & recycling craft projects as well as ideas for easy homemade gifts and crafts, recipes for gifts in a jar. and lots of great ideas for children's arts and crafts.

Plus, don't miss All Free Printables, the sister site to All Free Crafts.

Directory of classes & activities for children under 5

What's On 4 Little Ones aims " to be the UK's first website with comprehensive details of the classes and activities for children in your area, that you can enjoy with your young children under 5."

There is no charge to use the directory and you can search by county/major city or post town/borough, type of activity or activity name – or a combination of these