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1. Themed Party.  Think about having a theme.  Depending on your child’s age, a themed party could be great fun.  For example a Pirate themed party, could also be a themed fancy dress party.  Kids love dressing up so you are half way there before you have started.  Tie the kids invitations and thank you notes in with the theme, may be get your child to drawer some themed pictures to go on the wall.  You can also get a themed cake, party bags and table ware.

2.  Party Invitations.  Buy your party in invitations in plenty of time, and send them out 2 weeks before the party, to be sure your child’s best friends can come.

3. Birthday Cake.  If you are ordering a Birthday cake, ensure you allow plenty of time.  Make sure that the birthday cake is big enough for all the children to take a piece home.  Don’t forget the birthday cake candles and matches.

4.  Photographs.  It is great fun to look back at photographs or a video.  Make sure you have plenty of space left on your memory card and your batteries are fully charged.

5. Entertainment.  Children over the age of  4 can be tricky to keep amused, why not think about an entertainer or a bouncy castle?  If you are doing games yourself, plan plenty, better to have too many than too little.  If you are doing pass the parcel and you have more than 10 children coming, wrap up 2 parcels to make it more exciting, as little ones often get bored waiting for their turn.

6.  Party Food.  Successful finger food for kids parties include: jam sandwiches, cheese spread sandwiches, cocktail sausages, crisps, cherry tomatoes, grapes, jelly and ice-cream, pink wafers, cup cakes and chocolate fingers.  Make up some jugs of squash ready before your guests come.  Put a jug of water out also as some children may only drink this.

7. Extra Help.  Before the party ask a couple of the parents or your friends to stay and help, if you try and do it all on your own, you won’t enjoy it as you will be too busy running around.

8. Party Bags.  Ideally choose quality paper or fabric party bags, which are much nicer to receive than plastic ones.  Make sure you have 2 spare, in case a) you have miscounted or b) one of the guests brings a little brother or sister with them.

9. Party Bag Fillers.  It is always better to give less, but better quality party bag fillers.  Cheap plastic toys will break quickly and will soon be added to land fill.  Why not choose, 1 or 2 small wooden gifts, like a yoyo, a spinning top or some pencils.  Pop a balloon in, 1 or 2 small chocolate bars, or a small bag of sweets and a piece of birthday cake, wrapped in a napkin.

10.  Enjoy! Remember to enjoy the party yourself, and take pleasure in your child’s smiles!

Childs  s

Writing a story is hard work, even for authors. There are characters to create, dialogue to deliver, plots to plan, tension scenes to capture, endings to invent and starts that have to sizzle so much they superglue your reader onto a chair.

Then you have to put it all into interesting sentences that flow smoothly. Whew! Breaking the complex process of writing into chunks makes helping kids with their writing more effective – and far more fun too.

Here are two ‘chunks’ you could try to help your child write with more impact.

Show, Don’t Tell

As we read words, pictures form in our mind. See what happens when you slowly read the lines below:-

* Snow glistens, thick and white on a mountain top.

* Orange and yellow poppies stand tall and cheerful in a vase.

Our job as writers is to create these pictures in the brains of our readers. That’s what Show, Don’t Tell is all about.

However, how can we do this when the idea is more abstract – like emotions? That’s much harder for kids to write as there is no picture. Therefore we need to show them how to create one. For instance:-

TELL: My brother is lazy.

SHOW: ‘Your turn for the dishes Tank,’ said Mum.

‘Yeah, later,’ he said, yawning, and turned up the TV louder.

‘No, now,’ said Mum. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed. She knew later in Tank’s mind meant somewhere between the year 2012 and infinity. Once, as punishment, Mum put all the dishes and saucepans Tank had forgotten on top of his bed. He just dumped them on the floor. A week later they were still there, a shoe in the spaghetti sauce, sweaty socks on the plates and a really bad smell wafting out the door.

Ah, now we have the picture for our minds. It takes much longer to write – but as readers, we are far more convinced.

How to Write Tension Scenes

Imagine a birthday party, a top restaurant, friends and family – and a massive earthquake that ends in disaster.

Here’s the starting point by a 9 year old boy:

We were having fun in the restaurant when suddenly the ground started to shake. I didn’t believe it. Then glasses started to break all over my plate. My sister tried to stand up, she was afraid. The ground was trembling, there was noise everywhere…

Tension scenes are one of the hardest parts of a story to write. Kids often make them too basic and short. Why? Well, we say ‘write what you know’, but children often don’t have enough ‘emotional experience’ to imagine this sort of thing.

However, other people do – and their words are all in a dictionary or thesaurus.

So try this: Get your child to underline key words in the story – and then use a thesaurus to help bring the scene alive. You can actually do this BEFORE they write as well. Just ask, ‘what are some things which will happen?’ and make a list for them to use.

e.g.

fun – delight, enjoyment, amused, teasing, laughing, happy

shake – shudder, shiver, quake, quiver, buzzing, tremor,

break – crumble, disintegrate, collapse, crush, shatter

afraid – scared, fearful, terrified, panicked

tremble – quiver, shudder, beat, vibrate, grind

The idea is NOT to merely substitute one word for another. It is to give a greater variety of words/inspiration/ideas to the writer – and let their subconscious do the melding.

After:

The waiter smiled as he put down a hot chocolate pudding right in front of me.

‘You’re not going to eat all that!’ said my Dad. ‘Here, I’ll help!’ He reached across with his spoon, teasing me. I pulled my plate away fast. Everyone laughed.

‘Just a little bit,’ Dad begged.

I shook my head. It was weird, but there was a strange buzzing sound as if everything was not quite real. I lifted my spoon, my hands felt like they were shivering. Or was it really the floor shaking? It wasn’t possible, but now all the glasses were starting to clink. Suddenly one fell, shattering glass across my plate and into the dark chocolate. Then the noise hit me, harsh, grinding, vibrating right into my brain…

Get the idea? See how the word ‘fun’ has turned into something more specific – teasing and Dad trying to steal chocolate pudding. A simple ‘shake’ now has triggered ‘shivering’ and a ‘buzzing’ in the head. Best of all look at that last line; the words suggested from ‘tremble’ have now made this incredibly evocative and powerful.

If you want rich writing, give kids plenty of rich ingredients to work with.

(C) Jen McVeity, National Literacy Champion.

Children Birthday Party Invitations and Child Birthday Invitations

Planning the Children Birthday Party Invitations, http://www.cardsshoppe.com/kid-birthday-invitation/children-birthday-party-invitations.htm can be a real challenge, especially if you haven’t taken the time to plan very far ahead. Don’t wait until a few days before the big day to start trying to put the details of the Children Party Birthday Invitations together. A good rule of thumb is to put the wheels on planning your Party Children Birthday Invitations, http://www.express-invitations.com/ about six weeks prior to the kids birthday party date. One of the best ideas is to choose a theme for your event so that you can use it as the guide for all of your other planning decisions, including picking the Children Birthday Invitations, http://www.cardsshoppe.com/, the refreshments, and the entertainment.

One of the more challenging aspects about organizing Children Birthday Party Invitations, http://www.express-invitations.com/kid-birthday-invitation/children-birthday-party-invitations.php is trying to keep at least some of the arrangements quiet. Kids love surprises but at the same time they do things that thwart their own enjoyment when they try to find out what is going to happen. One of the first thing you need to decide is whether you are going to have your birthday children party in your home or whether you are going to reserve a party room somewhere. If there are only going to be four or five birthday party guests, then home is probably the best place; if it is summer, you can always hold the birthday party outside, which probably means less cleaning up.

The theme you choose will depend on whether the party children birthday is aimed at boys or girls. If it is a girl birthday party but the guests are a mixture of girls and boys then you need to select a theme that is suitable for all. Birthday themes might include a pirate party for boys, a Barbie or my little pony party for girls, and depending on the children’s aged, a teddy bear party for a mixed group. Another thing that you should order a month or so before hand is the birthday cake, unless you are going to make this yourself. It’s also a good idea for the cake to reflect the overall theme of the kid’s birthday party.

After you choose a Kid Birthday Invitation, http://www.express-invitations.com/kid-birthday-invitation/ theme, you’ll want to start putting together the child birthday invitations for the big day. Choosing personalized birthday party invitations is the best idea because you can have all of the important details printed right on the card before they are sent to your guests. One other note to consider is adding both the starting and the ending time of the party on the Kid Birthday Invitation, http://www.cardsshoppe.com/kid-birthday-invitation/. You want to make sure guests’ parents know when to come back and pick them up after the event is over. This eliminates a lot of confusion.

The rest of the refreshments should be a consideration once you’ve sent out the Children Birthday Party Invitations, http://www.express-invitations.com/kid-birthday-invitation/ and placed the order for the cake. While ice cream is a good choice, some parents might think the cake and ice cream combination would be too powerful. Having hot dogs, pizza slices, or even chicken fingers at the birthday party can be a good idea. Make sure you choose a variety of foods so you’ll have something that everyone will love.

Nowadays, most Children Birthday Party Invitations, http://www.cardsshoppe.com/kid-birthday-invitation/ guests expect to come away from a birthday party with a little something. Get some brightly colored bags to put their slice of birthday cake in. If the children are small then little things such as a balloon and a pencil with a top to match the theme of the birthday party might be a good idea. If you follow these suggestions for your kid birthday party then you can be confident that everyone will have a good time and you won’t be over stressed on the big day.