Giraffe Spotted Outside State Library
01 Apr 2011
Spotted this Giraffe outside the State Library!
The Serabeena blog
Adding a sparkle to creativity
Happy Family Reading Together
21 Mar 2011
Happy Family switched off the telly and read a good book together.
Photo care of Getty Images.
Kids Programme at the Melbourne City Library
21 Mar 2011
Photo care of: kidsbabydesign.com
Melbourne City Library has a great range of activities including: fun stories, songs, and rhymes for toddlers, preschoolers and kids.
Check out their programme here.
Stompers looks especially fun.
Stompers Encourage your child to have a life-long love of books by coming along to Stompers, Melbourne Library Service’s new weekly program for toddlers aged 18 months to 3 years. Come along for a half-hour of stories, songs, rhymes, music and most of all, FUN!
City Library, Wednesdays from 10am to 10.30am East Melbourne Library, Wednesdays from 2.30pm to 3pm North Melbourne Library, Thursdays from 10.30am to 11am Stompers runs from February to mid-December except during school holidays and public holidays. Sessions will not run on public holidays or during school holidays.
Toy!...Toy!
11 Mar 2011
Photo care of melbournestreetart.com
Cool Toy graffiti in Melbourne, Australia.
Fairy Scene Kit Accepted Into V&A Museum of Childhood's Permanent Collection!
09 Mar 2011
Fairy Scene Kit designed and manufactured for Early Learning Centre (UK)
Serabeena is very pleased to learn that our Fairy Scene Kit designed for Early Learning Centre was accepted into the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood (London, UK).
The V&A Museum of Childhood has a wonderful collection devoted to childhood-related objects and artefacts. The museum spans from the 1600s to present day.
The museum’s collection features toys – including dolls, dolls' houses, puppets and teddy bears – games, childcare, clothing, furniture and art and photography. In addition, the Museum runs a dynamic programme of temporary exhibitions and displays, a wide variety of activities, events and workshops for adults and families, outreach projects in hospitals and the local community, and an award-winning programme for schools.
The museum aims to encourage everyone to explore the themes of childhood past and present, and to develop an appreciation of creative design through our inspirational collections and varied public programme.
Photo care of Helen Rawlinson Flickr stream
For more information on how to get there, visit the museum website.
Barbie in Shanghai
08 Mar 2011
Photo care of eventmagazine.co.uk
The news reported today that Mattel plans to shutter their glitzy Barbie concept store in Shanghai. Opened in 2009, the exit from China is mostly explained by Mattel’s failure to localize their product to the local market.
Photo care of lostateminor.com/
Photo care of lostateminor.com/
Restoring Imaginative Play
07 Jan 2011
Wow! According to this article, children spend an average of 7 hours 38 minutes a day in front of a screen!
As mentioned in previous blog entries (like this one from Wednesday), the ever-increasing trend of structured play is having a serious impact on creativity and the ability to use imagination later in life. Developmental psychologists believe that creativity and imagination are formed in early life. It’s therefore critical that children have the opportunity to engage in creative play during their earlier years in order to develop creative thinking skills that are so necessary in our culture.
According to Kathy Hirsh-Pasek a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia (USA): Play is just a natural thing that animals do and humans do, but somehow we’ve driven it out of kids.
Now, a movement is underway to restore imaginative play.
Much of the movement has focused on the educational value of play, and efforts to restore recess and unstructured playtime to early childhood and elementary school curriculums. But advocates are now starting to reach out to parents, recognizing that for the movement to succeed, parental attitudes must evolve as well — starting with a willingness to tolerate a little more unpredictability in children’s schedules and a little less structure at home. Building that fort, for example, probably involves disassembling the sofa and emptying the linen closet. (A sheet makes an excellent roof.)
Gemstone Rhinestones
07 Jan 2011
Get crafty and use Serabeena Gemstone Rhinestones to add a sparkle to any boring surface. Use rhinestones on craft projects, greeting cards and decorations. Get fashionable and use them on clothes and accessories. Here are some ideas from around the web on how to use Gemstone Rhinestones:
Gemstone Rhinestone Felt iPod Cozzy from by dixon_ticonderoga (Flickr)
Rhinestone encrusted clutch care of Natalie526’s Flickr Stream
Got ideas of your own? Write to us with some photos!
What makes kids creative?
05 Jan 2011
Photo care of WSJ
What makes kids creative and how to encourage children to use their imagination and be creative?
According to this article, children in the US have been scoring lower on creativity tests.
This is mainly because of increase in rote learning and amount of time spent on computers, video games and watching television: Researchers believe growth in the time kids spend on computers and watching TV, plus a trend in schools toward rote learning and standardized testing, are crowding out the less structured activities that foster creativity.
What to do to encourage creativity? Many parents are stepping into the breach by nurturing their kids' creative skills. They are challenging them to generate new ideas or encouraging them to notice problems in the world around them and research possible solutions. By tolerating “wrong” answers or allowing their children to live in a fantasy world for a while, parents can put off the emphasis on skill-building and achievement, researchers say.
The article also has some examples from the Torrance test and some funny creative answers.
Merry Christmas!
23 Dec 2010
Merry Christmas and best wishes to all for 2011.
Care of weihnachtskarte.com
