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Competitions, product reviews, opinions, and awards; welcome to the Festival Kidz blog!
Get Festivals on the National Curriculum!
What can kids learn from their festival experience?
People often ask me why I take my children to festivals. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that they think I am just dragging them along to something I enjoy and they have no choice but to put up with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The overriding reason we go as a family is because we ALL enjoy it. The kids don’t endure it – they actively look forward to it. But when I reflect on why I am so keen to support their love of festivals, it comes down to the benefits I perceive them to be getting.
There is so much opportunity for learning in Read more…
Quality family time
There are lots of reasons why our family loves going to festivals, many of which I have discussed on other blog posts, but for us the opportunity of good quality family time is a very important one.
As working parents, it is often hard to make the time to do creative activities together or just to spend time hanging out. At a festival however, time is there to be spent at will. We can spend a few hours getting messy in a craft tent, sometimes under the guise of supervising our children but ultimately enjoying the therapeutic qualities of working with clay ourselves, or indulging ourselves by curling up in a cosy Bell Tent with some knitting needles.
John Parr: Origins of Rock
John Parr talks to Festival Kidz about music through his life…
You might be forgiven for thinking that John Parr was a one-hit wonder, famous only for the huge 80’s chart-topping hit ‘St Elmo’s Fire’.
Granted that song did have most young girls of my generation singing away into their hairbrushes dreaming of kissing Rob Lowe in the mirror… but there is certainly a lot more to John Parr than that! Read more…
Get kids outdoors – give them a book!
Review – Mission:Explore Camping
We got very excited when the Geography Collective asked us to review their latest book. As if the first Mission:Explore book wasn’t fun enough, they have now released a whole new set of missions tailored specifically to our favourite pastime: Camping!
There are 50 all-new missions included in the book that are guaranteed to get kids both involved in, and intrigued by, their surroundings. From playing a challenging game of hide and seek in bright clothing to imagining the campsite 1000 years ago, young explorers will have to use every ounce of creativity and ingenuity they possess to complete their missions.
We took our New Born Baby to Glasto!
We took a couple of weeks off from work after Arabella was born and headed to Glastonbury Festival with my husband Harry, daughter Constance Avalon, and our new born baby daughter Arabella Leah (not forgetting our 20 odd friends and my dad!). ‘Mad’ is what most people called us, because I’d had an emergency c-section just 5 days before!
Taking kids to NON family-friendly festivals
Not all festivals are good environments for children!
A friend of mine took her toddler and young baby to Reading festival last summer – she was desperate to see Guns and Roses… BIG mistake
Read more…Festival Awards 2010
The winners from the Festival Awards 2010 were:
Best Family Festival – Camp Bestival
Best Small Festival – Kendal Calling
Best Medium Festival – Green Man
Best Major Festival – Bestival
Other categories:
- Best Toilets – T In The Park
- Best Metropolitan Festival – Gaymers Camden Crawl
- Best Breakthrough Artist – Mumford & Sons
- Best Dance Event – Creamfields
- Feel Good Act of the Summer – Paolo Nutini
- Best New Festival – Vintage At Goodwood
- Headline Performance of the Year – AC/DC at Download Festival
- Virtual Festivals’ Critics Choice* – Biffy Clyro at Glastonbury
- Overseas Festival – Snowbombing
- Anthem of the Summer – Florence & The Machine ‘You’ve Got The Love’
- Line-Up of the Year – Rockness
- Promoter of the Year – Glastonbury
Get Festivals on the National Curriculum!
What can kids learn from their festival experience?
People often ask me why I take my children to festivals. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that they think I am just dragging them along to something I enjoy and they have no choice but to put up with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The overriding reason we go as a family is because we ALL enjoy it. The kids don’t endure it – they actively look forward to it. But when I reflect on why I am so keen to support their love of festivals, it comes down to the benefits I perceive them to be getting.
There is so much opportunity for learning in Read more…
John Parr: Origins of Rock
John Parr talks to Festival Kidz about music through his life…
You might be forgiven for thinking that John Parr was a one-hit wonder, famous only for the huge 80’s chart-topping hit ‘St Elmo’s Fire’.
Granted that song did have most young girls of my generation singing away into their hairbrushes dreaming of kissing Rob Lowe in the mirror… but there is certainly a lot more to John Parr than that! Read more…
We took our New Born Baby to Glasto!
We took a couple of weeks off from work after Arabella was born and headed to Glastonbury Festival with my husband Harry, daughter Constance Avalon, and our new born baby daughter Arabella Leah (not forgetting our 20 odd friends and my dad!). ‘Mad’ is what most people called us, because I’d had an emergency c-section just 5 days before!
Festival Awards 2010
The winners from the Festival Awards 2010 were:
Best Family Festival – Camp Bestival
Best Small Festival – Kendal Calling
Best Medium Festival – Green Man
Best Major Festival – Bestival
Other categories:
- Best Toilets – T In The Park
- Best Metropolitan Festival – Gaymers Camden Crawl
- Best Breakthrough Artist – Mumford & Sons
- Best Dance Event – Creamfields
- Feel Good Act of the Summer – Paolo Nutini
- Best New Festival – Vintage At Goodwood
- Headline Performance of the Year – AC/DC at Download Festival
- Virtual Festivals’ Critics Choice* – Biffy Clyro at Glastonbury
- Overseas Festival – Snowbombing
- Anthem of the Summer – Florence & The Machine ‘You’ve Got The Love’
- Line-Up of the Year – Rockness
- Promoter of the Year – Glastonbury
Quality family time
There are lots of reasons why our family loves going to festivals, many of which I have discussed on other blog posts, but for us the opportunity of good quality family time is a very important one.
As working parents, it is often hard to make the time to do creative activities together or just to spend time hanging out. At a festival however, time is there to be spent at will. We can spend a few hours getting messy in a craft tent, sometimes under the guise of supervising our children but ultimately enjoying the therapeutic qualities of working with clay ourselves, or indulging ourselves by curling up in a cosy Bell Tent with some knitting needles.
Get kids outdoors – give them a book!
Review – Mission:Explore Camping
We got very excited when the Geography Collective asked us to review their latest book. As if the first Mission:Explore book wasn’t fun enough, they have now released a whole new set of missions tailored specifically to our favourite pastime: Camping!
There are 50 all-new missions included in the book that are guaranteed to get kids both involved in, and intrigued by, their surroundings. From playing a challenging game of hide and seek in bright clothing to imagining the campsite 1000 years ago, young explorers will have to use every ounce of creativity and ingenuity they possess to complete their missions.
Taking kids to NON family-friendly festivals
Not all festivals are good environments for children!
A friend of mine took her toddler and young baby to Reading festival last summer – she was desperate to see Guns and Roses… BIG mistake
Read more…