By The Green Parent
07th April 2017
1. RECIPE and MAKE Chocs Away
Making your own Easter eggs is fun, helps cut down on excess packaging, and means that you can tailor the goodies to your taste. It’s a great activity for kids to try too - perfect to keep little hands busy during the holidays. Turning the eggs out of the moulds can be a little tricky, so you’ll have to help younger children, but decorating them is easier and rewarding. This BBC blog is a good guide to getting it just right, and Jamie Oliver’s vegan-and-refined-sugar-free Easter Eggs look amazing.
2. EVENT Game On!
This weekend, London’s Somerset House will be buzzing with the very latest games – those played indoors, outdoors, and even completely in your head – at Now Play This. It’s a chance to explore “The peculiar, the beautiful, and the deeply experimental”. Head to the Cabinet of Impossible Games to find out about playgrounds that were never built and prototype games, the Ten Second Room to discover how duration impacts play - try being a virtual make-up artist or try out games yet to be released such as RainboDisko, a board game played on a spinning record player. The event somehow promises to combine cutting-edge awesomeness with retro magic – a perfect combination!
3. MAKE and LEARN The Shipping Forecast
The warm weather makes it more of a pleasure to play near water. Head to the park, and find a stream to sail some boats down. We love these cute ones made from egg boxes (use some of your Easter left-overs!), these simple-but-beautiful vessels made from paper, and these classic, candle-powered puf-puf boats. Making boats teaches basic science, engineering, a healthy dose of art, and is a brilliant springboard for imaginative play. Send your toy figures on a real-life adventure!
4. EVENT and DO Floral Dance
We’re sure you don’t need any extra encouragement to get out into your garden, but National Gardening Week , which runs from the 10th–16th is pretty inspirational. Find an event near you on their website – you might learn about bee-friendly planting, go behind the scenes of a stately home gardening, pot up your own plant, or get involved in your nearest community garden. We’ve been looking down their list of edible flowers and wondering which ones might work in our patch.
5. EVENT Knight at the Museum
Eureka! The National Children’s Museum is celebrating the Easter holidays by turning their clocks way back, for a dose of Medieval Mayhem. Travel back in time (and over to Halifax in West Yorkshire) to meet kings and queens, knights and a few damsels who are most definitely NOT in distress. Join in with daily interactive story sessions and challenge your family to see who’ll be victorious on the medieval assault course. Construct your very own castle in some large-scale den building sessions, and on 11/12 and 19/20 April everyone is invited to test their chivalry, bravery and gallantry at Eureka! Knight School. Over the Easter Weekend (14-17 April) you can try your hand at entertaining a royal court with some very special Jesters, and throughout the holidays older children are invited on an adventure to explore the Land of the Goblins (age 8 years and up). All activities are included in the cost of Eureka! admission, or free to annual pass holders.
