Because we now have quite a few schools, many people think that Perform is franchised like most other drama, dance and singing organisations. But we aren’t. Everything is centrally run and we are very specific about the sort of teacher who works for us – specifically, we only pick the  fabulous sort. Which is why I actually really enjoy the contracting part of my job, because it means that I get to talk to them all.

It’s not easy to get to be a Perform teacher. Simon Fielding (our Regional Partner) and I audition around sixty actors on the first Monday of every month. We ask them to prepare and play a drama game for us. If they get through that round, they have to learn and perform a dance routine, and if they get through the dance round, they have to sing a song and then have an interview with us.

We make no apology for the gruelling process we put them through. Not only do they have to be able to act, sing and dance, they also have to demonstrate that they’d be brilliant with children. We are normally left with about five people! X Factor is tame compared to Perform.

The successful people are invited to two days of training where they learn the Perform teaching style and, if they are successful, they watch workshops and then, with the support of an Area Partner, can start cover-teaching for us.  Obviously, all the normal CRB and reference checks are made too.

Part of the beauty of being centrally run and not a franchise is that we all have the same curriculum – so at the moment everyone is madly learning our Circus and Hercules Beat Resources for next term. Check out our Lion Tamer and Hercules Beat dance videos!

This means that, if any of our talented teachers get acting jobs (and they do), it’s not catastrophic as the person we put in their place will be equally brilliant and will also know exactly what to do in class because we all follow one programme. From the children’s point of view, yet another fun person comes to teach them.

You might see your Perform Teacher at class at 4pm and then on Eastenders at 7.30pm and, whilst we try as much as possible to keep consistency, I’d rather Perform children be taught by inspirational and talented actors who might get jobs because of their skills, than people who aren’t so special.  I’ve heard too many scary stories of am-dram loving retired bank managers buying theatre school franchises and that is not the way of Perform.

The big question that parents always ask me is “How do you get your teachers to be SO ENTHUSIASTIC”? And anyone who has ever been to a Perform class will agree that our teachers love what they are doing. After all, how could you not be enthusiastic when you are acting, singing, dancing and playing crazy games with a gorgeous group of children?

Sometimes actors have to do boring jobs when they are ‘resting’, so I think they feel privileged to be passing on their love of theatre to children – practising their own performing skills every day by singing, dancing and playing colourful characters in improvisations. Some use it as a time to practice their accents so, if you see a teacher playing an Irish character in class, you might find they have to use an Irish accent for an audition the following day!

However, their common bond is not only their talent and work ethic, it’s how much they love and enjoy working with children. They are passionate about helping children develop the Perform 4 Cs and this really shows in the classes.

As it is our end of term, I’m watching a different presentation  every afternoon at the moment. And I must confess, I’m not just proud of all the brilliant Perform children, I’m also thrilled at the most fantastically talented and caring teachers that teach them at Perform. A big thank you to you all.

And if you know anyone who might be an amazing Perform Teacher, please ask them to send us their CV. We’d love to hear from them.

The Magician’s Chamber party features famous witch Lucia Magica training the children to become real witches and wizards by putting them through Wizard School. Their tasks include tongue-twisting spells, dancing The Broomstick Flick, flying off on a magical improvisation to save the world and lots more fun and lively games.

If you are planning a Halloween celebration, you’ll find loads of great resources online to help you with recipes, decorations and making masks and costumes. But, if you want some really spooky fun and excitement, drama is the answer -  nothing gets children as involved as believing they really are a witch’s black cat or a whizz-kid magician caught in an adventure.

At Perform, we rarely use props. Children get so much visual stimulation from TV and computers and we’ve always found that it’s far more powerful to get children to describe an invisible owl rather than see a toy version of one. However, we do believe in using music to help create the environment so music plays a huge part in all our games and exercises. After all, where would Jaws be without the soundtrack?

The first rule of creating a mood is using a great soundtrack and my favourite source is The Carnival of the Animals by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The different pieces of music are all brilliantly atmospheric but, in my view, The Aquarium lends itself most perfectly to spooky improvisations and the following games you might like to try.

Magic Cauldron

This is a classic Perform game – we don’t just play it at Halloween either.

• Introduce yourself as a Witch or Wizard.  Don’t hold back with your character – make it larger than life with a cackling laugh and lots of heightened drama.
• Tell the children that you need some help make a special potion which can turn people into any animal they wish to be. Ask them what animals they’d like to turn into.
• Ask them to make a circle around your imaginary Magic Cauldron and kneel down.
• Make up a magical spell word together and repeat it a few times.
• Then, one at a time, each child puts an ingredient into the cauldron and say the magic spell word.
• The ingredient can be anything from a frog’s eye to a unicorn’s hair to some smelly socks. The important thing is that they each choose something themselves.
• When everyone has put their word in, you notice some crystal goblets are lowering from the ceiling above you.
• Everyone takes their goblet, drinks some of the potion and waits to see what happens.
• Suddenly, their feet start to wiggle. After a while, this infects the whole of the body.
• At this point, you can announce that the spell has worked and that all the children have become rabbits.
• Finish off by calling out different animals and watch the children running around acting them out.

Magic Chair

• Tell the children that you have a magic chair.
• Show it to them.  It should be just an ordinary chair though – nothing special to look at.
• Tell them that every time someone sits in it, something magical happens and it makes you do something.
• Sit in it and pretend that it has become a Giggling Chair (do lots of giggling).  Repeat a few more times and make it into a Jumping Chair, a Crying Chair and an Itchy Chair.
• Ask the children to close their eyes and think of what type of chair they want it to be and how they can show it.
• Choose volunteers to sit on the chair one at a time while the rest of the group guesses what sort of chair it is.

Halloween Crazy

• Ask the children to tell you all the different types of creatures you might find at Halloween? For example:  Witches, wizards, ghosts, cats,  owls, frogs, bats etc.
• Give them a gesture or movement for each character.

• Put some lively music on and call out the different characters. Make it easy at first but faster and more difficult as they get more familiar with the characters and associated actions.

Magic Tongue Twisters

I’m a big tongue-twister fan. Not only do the children have a blast trying to do them, but it really helps develop diction and articulation too. Have a go at the following:

Ten Little Witches
One little, two little,three little witches,
Four little, five little, six little witches,
Seven little, eight little, nine little witches
Ten little wicked witches!

I could go on for pages with more activity ideas but I’m sure that these will keep your guests entertained for 20-30 minutes or so. Try them out and let me know how you get on.

Have a spooktacular party!

She says that sometimes she has only one hour to get to know a child before they have a major procedure and that the best way to get to know them is to simply start playing with them straight away.  This enables her to make almost immediate decisions about their personality so she can work out how to support them in whatever they are about to go through.

Chatting to her made me think of my favourite quote -  “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” (by Plato apparently). And wow, I really believe that. It’s basically the whole ethos behind Perform – our major emphasis is on play. We spend all our time playing drama, dance and singing based games with the children and, as teachers, this helps us to get to know them really quickly so we can get onto the useful business of helping them develop.

I was outside a class last week and one of our brilliant teachers stepped out to  prepare himself to enter in character as Boss the Head of the Monkey Village. Just before he went in, he said “Can you believe this is our job?” And I know just what he meant.  Sometimes you have to convince yourself that you are working when your job is spent jumping in and out of different characters, playing silly word games and singing songs at the top of your voice.

But, despite appearances,  it is serious fun and serious play and whilst it may seem like we are all “monkeying around” for an hour, we are able to really get to know a child and work out how to make a difference. By playing our now famous Toy Shop game, we can work out which children need to help with their focusing skills. With our Word in One game, we can see which children need their confidence building with solo-speaking exercises.

Parents often comment on the Feedback Forms written by Perform teachers for every child every ten weeks. One of the most frequent remarks is that it is more detailed than their end of term report from school – a pretty flattering considering we  spend a maximum of 90 minutes with the children each week. But, if Plato was right (and I think he was), it’s through play not conversation that we can get to the real heart and essence of our children.

So here’s to lots of playing and lots of serious fun. And here’s to using fun for all sorts of purposes. One of my favourites is the Mary Poppins purpose. Serious Fun was  the way that Mary Poppins got her charges to clean the nursery by making a boring activity a fun game. And if it’s good enough for Mary Poppins, it’s good enough for me.

Does that sound familiar to you? Have you ever said it to your own child? I know I have!

I’ve always been passionate about helping children make eye contact, especially when they meet new people or talk to adults. I think it is such an important skill to have. You only have to do an internet search for “Looking people in the eye” and you’ll find hundreds of pages about how hard people find eye contact. There are forums and websites completely dedicated to the subject so it is obviously a big problem out there.

Closer to home, eye contact is something we get asked about frequently when we talk to parents whose children come to Perform. Looking into someone’s eyes when you talk to them demonstrates confidence and we all want our children to be confident and to show this to the outside world. Eye contact is crucial for good communication skills and, if taught early, it can be with you for life.

Because of this, a big part of the Listen, Speak & Sing section at Perform is focused on developing eye contact skills. However,  of course the last thing you want to say to a child is “Today we are going to look at how to develop your eye contact skills”. You can imagine how well that would go down! What we try to do with all our games and exercises is to ensure that  the children learn what we want them to learn but also make it such fun that they think they are playing the most brilliant game ever. We spend about 3-5 minutes each week on a different eye contact game and it definitely works because the feedback we get from parents is always so positive.

So here’s just such a game for any parent or teacher who feels that their child or class needs to improve their eye contact. Normally, I make up the Perform games but this one was devised in class by Jamie, one of our teachers, about 8 years ago and it has been a hit ever since.

At Perform, we play it in a large circle as there are lots of us but I do it at home with my husband and two children and it works really well too. Try experimenting with different voices for the pizza and monkey voices as it really makes them laugh.

Hey! You smell like a Pizza

• Sitting in a circle, tell the children that you want to have a chat with one particular child and select them.

• Start chatting, but don’t give the child any eye contact

• Ask the children what you were doing wrong. Establish that you weren’t looking into their eyes and how important that is when talking to someone

• Tell them that you are going to test them

• Say to the child next to you in a loud voice while giving them perfect eye contact “Hey! You smell like a pizza!”

• Ask the child to look back at you and say “Oh, you cheeky monkey”

• Go around the circle until each child has had a turn. Make sure that each makes good eye contact before you move on

I hope you have fun playing it. Let me know your thoughts via the comments.

Yes, I realised that not everyone was the all singing-all dancing type like most of my friends, but it was still a bit of a shock to me that there were clever and articulate adults out there who were frightened to speak out on their own. We’d go around the circle asking for contributions and it was amazing how quietly people spoke. I remember one course when an attendee actually left half way through the session because she found it too intimidating.

The trouble is that virtually all of us will have to stand up in front an audience and speak at some point in our lives.  Whether it’s representing a defendant, delivering a Best Man’s Speech, making a point in a meeting or simply thanking everybody for coming, we can’t avoid the fact that there will come a time when we will literally have to stand up and make ourselves heard.

But if you aren’t naturally an extrovert and haven’t had any public speaking experience or a drama training, it stands to reason why this might not come naturally to you. After all, speaking in public can be scary. Not only are you judged on what you say but also the way in which you say it. And we all know how the adrenalin from being nervous can make your voice and body react in unexpected ways – making matters even worse.

All of which explains why there are so many presentation skills companies who work with corporate employees specifically helping people learn the skill of speaking clearly and confidently in front of an audience. And it’s true: public-speaking is just another skill that can be learned and improved with technique and practise. But, like most skills, public-speaking is much easier and quicker to learn when young.

I was the sort of child that was too frightened to put my hand up in the class. I knew the answer was right, but I was too scared to talk on my own in front of my friends. Luckily for me, my parents sent me to drama classes. These transformed me because drama is all about talking in front of people, so the continuous practise  means that you gain the confidence to do it in other situations too.

And my experience is far from unusual. There are loads and loads of children out there who feel the same as I did. I know that because I hear it almost daily from parents who speak to me at Perform. Happily, I also hear about the positive results the classes are having. In fact, one of the nicest compliments  I’ve received recently came the other week from a Perform Dad who runs a very successful presentation skills company. He said to me that, if every child went to Perform, his company would be redundant.

I’m not quite sure about that (!) but developing key communication skills was certainly one of the main reasons I set up Perform. I’ve always believed that solo speaking is one of the most valuable abilities you can possess and that, if you learn it at an early age, you have it forever. So, I wanted to create a class where, with a teacher’s encouragement and help, children could come and learn to speak clearly and confidently in front of their peers. I also wanted to deliver an environment where children weren’t put on the spot and could develop without feeling the competitive pressure inherent in the auditions and castings of  many other drama and stage schools .

If you have a child that you think needs help in developing their speaking skills, this is a really good exercise to play with them at home. It’s called “The Detective Game” and I normally play it in the car with my own children. Its name comes from the fact that you learn different clues about your child every time you play it. This is how it works:

• As The Detective, ask your child to say their name, their age, answer a question which could be something like “What’s your favourite colour” and explain why they gave that answer. For example: “My name is Tom, I’m 4 years old, my favourite colour is blue because it reminds me of the sea”.

• What they aren’t allowed to say is “Tom, 4, blue, just like it”. You can give them a minute to practice in their head and then they must recite their answer in a clear and confident voice.

• The best way to explain how the game works is to play it yourself first so that they have a good example to learn from. I sometimes mess around and say my answer in a quiet voice, and ask my children to say what they thought was wrong with the way in which I did it.

This is only one game of many you can play, but it is a really key one, and by playing it every week, you will see a real difference in how your child speaks.

Please have a go and let me know how you get on.

I was bullied a bit at school when I was a child. Not obviously and not aggressively. I never had lunch money taken but there were a few bigger girls in the class who picked on me by leaving me out of games and playdates and teased me because I was smaller than them.

I was a quiet little girl and not particularly confident and I found it hard standing up for myself.  People who know me now find it hard to believe but, when I was 6 years old, it was a daily occurrence and, as anyone who has been in the same position will know, being bullied is a horrible lonely experience that can make you miserable 24/7.

I used to be so happy on Friday afternoons knowing that I wouldn’t have to see the bullies until Monday. But on Sunday, the sense of dread would come back to me and I’d feel sick on Sunday nights. And, because they weren’t putting my head down the loo or stealing from me, I didn’t feel that I could tell anyone. I guess I didn’t really realise that I was being bullied.

Of course, these days, you can’t open a glossy magazine without reading how some celebrity or other had a terrible time at school – apparently Tom Cruise was bullied because of his dyslexia, Kate Middleton quit her first public school for being too ‘skinny and meek’ and Kate Winslet was bullied for being overweight. Some of these articles seem to suggest that the bullying is a reason for the subject’s subsequent success -  “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” often appears to be the unspoken moral behind these inspirational stories. But hindsight is a wonderful thing (especially in celeb articles) and it’s undoubtedly true that, for every Tom Cruise or Kate Winslet, there are many more adults who aren’t able to look back smugly and have the last laugh at their less-successful tormentors before boarding their private jet to Hollywood. For many children, bullying can have long-term damaging effects and it’s essential that it is nipped in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

A few years ago, a mum of one of the little girls I teach told me that her daughter was being bullied at school and, because of my personal experience, my heart went out to her.  The mum said that Sarah was finding it difficult in standing up to certain “influential” children in the class. They were trying to make her do “stuff that was naughty” and she wanted her daughter to feel able to resist the peer pressure without coming under attack.

One of the things that we really concentrate on at Perform is confidence and, it seems to me, that confidence really is the key to preventing bullying. Bullies are often cowards who work in groups and are finely attuned to those who seem weaker or less self-assured than themselves. My view is that, if you can rehearse a child standing up for themselves in a safe non-confrontational role-play environment, you can prepare them to do the same when faced with a real bully.

So I devised a game called “Just say No”. It’s a drama role-play exercise which can be played with children as young as 4 to help them understand how they can stand up to people who try and make them do things that they don’t want to.

It’s very simple and can be played with a whole class or just one to one with your child at home. The aims are to get children to articulate why they don’t want to do something and give reasons strongly and clearly. We always get excellent feedback after playing this game with Perform children and I’m posting it below for you to play either at home or at school (if you are a classroom teacher).

Just say NO
• Choose who is going to be Child A (the bully) and Child B (the person being bullied).
• Ask Child A to try to persuade Child B to do something which is ‘naughty’. For example, making a face at a teacher, taking someone’s pencil without asking’ or standing on a  table
• Child B explains why they don’t want to do it
• This should lead to a conversation where Child A tries and tries and tries to get Child B to do something
• Child B must be resolute and keep reiterating why they don’t want to
• The game continues until Child A backs down.

Please let me know if you get chance to play it and what you think.

Bullying is a serious problem and, it goes without saying that, if you know or suspect that your child is being bullied, you should speak to somebody at the school about it immediately. For more information as a starting point, see my article Dealing With Bullying.

My first experience of working with a child with autism did not go smoothly – largely because the parents hadn’t told me  he was autistic (something which is more common that you might expect).  They desperately wanted him to do drama but were worried that I would not want to have him in the class after he had been judged as too disruptive by several other schools.

This little boy would not listen to any instructions, would not make any eye contact with me and  simply ran around and shouted out all the time. Since he didn’t respond to any of my normal techniques and wouldn’t stay within “class boundaries”, I knew that something was up. I had many conversations with his parents giving them every opportunity to be open with me but it was a few painful weeks before they finally told me that he was autistic.

Once I knew this, I did some research, spoke to his school teacher and we started to make real progress. For example, he found making eye contact extremely difficult but this improved enormously when he was pretending to be someone else and in ‘character’.

These days, parents with children on the autism spectrum are often encouraged to bring their children to drama classes as it can really help to develop their social skills. While the field of Drama Therapy for autism is still quite new and there are very few experts,  those that I have spoken to all believe that mainstream drama teachers have many of the skills required to help.

In particular, I have seen drama games be very effective at helping autistic children:

• Improve self confidence
• Recognise emotions in others
• Identify their own emotions
• Work as part of a group
• Follow directions and instructions.

Often, autists are verbal but don’t have the skills to speak and interact socially. Sometimes, they repeat other people’s words verbatim and children with autism can often recite speeches and dialogue in exactly the same way as the original. Drama can give verbal individuals a safe setting for developing these skills and this is what we do in every Perform session.

I remember one little girl I taught who had very poor communication with her peers and teachers. Her parents brought her to my class with a written report into her background, how she reacted to different situations and how best to deal with her effectively.  Despite this comprehensive  document, nobody had mentioned that she was an incredible singer.  Once she was singing in character, she could communicate beautifully. We decided to work intensively with her on this and, bit by bit, her daily life at school and with her family started to improve.

I know from talking to parents that having an autistic child can be challenging and emotional but, in my view, the most important thing a parent can do is to be open, honest and transparent about their abilities and difficulties as early as possible.  My first experience was so hard because I didn’t know that the child was autistic and my reactions to his behaviour were wrong. Once I knew, I was able to use different and more suitable approaches which were much more successful.

Not all autistic children are suitable for mainstream drama classes like Perform of course, but by seeking advice at the earliest opportunity and by being open with the teachers, the child stands the best chance of getting the support and opportunities they deserve. If you know or care for an autistic child, you might also consider our small group or one-on-one classes  Private Perform which can be specially designed around the needs of an individual child or group.

So holidays with children…can they really be called holidays? Certainly, the travelling part with my children can sometimes be…..well, challenging.

Before I went, the journalist Rosie Millard published a book called ‘Bonne Vacances: A Crazy Family Adventure in the French Territories’. Although I packed it in suitcase, I confess that I have still yet to read it (strangely the flight was not as good an good opportunity as I hoped…..) but I did see her interviewed about her trip and she struck me as a very brave woman! Her idea was to set out on a tour of the French Overseas Departments and Territories (the Dom-Toms ) with her husband and four young children to show the children it is possible to survive twelve weeks without Hannah Montana. During the interview she explained how they took very little with them, and her advice for in flight entertainment? Just a pad of paper and a pencil! I wish. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure my two little ones would not be kept entertained for a flight with so little.

I really love the idea of travelling light though I always seem weighed down with bags, duty free, books and magazines. So this time I was determined to pack smart but also be prepared with everything required to deal with whinges from the kids. Even if you’re only doing a short 2 1/2 hour flight, there’s still the journey to the airport, hanging around at the airport and possible delays, so I always feel much better if I am armed with various activities and little tricks up my sleeve.

Here are my suggestions for a happier flight:

• Make up a ‘travel treat bag’ which is only given and opened after take off! This could contain colouring books, crayons, mini jigsaws, small travelling toys, small ‘sports style’ water bottles, carby treats and dried fruit (as opposed to sweets).
• Books
• Ipod or Ipad
• Game boy.
• Sweets for them to suck to stop ears popping, but beware it doesn’t make them too hyper.
• “I spy” type games
• Sticker books- especially ones that feature travel or different countries
• If you have an iphone, download mini vidoes from Itunes (cost around £1.30) and last 30 minutes.
• Wrap familiar toys in lots of different wrapping paper a la pass the parcel.
• For slightly older kids- a scrapbook that can be filled with tickets, post cards & mementos collected from the holiday (perfect for return flight)

You don’t need all of the above (and probably don’t have the space in your carry-on either!). Just choose a few and produce tactically throughout the journey. Hold a small special toy/present back, and produce with a flourish at the point a child’s behaviour begins to wobble.

One final point: before I left,  I was keen to get some more ideas  from one of my seasoned traveller friends who recently spent some time travelling with a new born and a 3 year old. Six months of long haul flights. Crazy! I asked him what activities he used to keep his kids under control at 30,000 feet. His response was a roll of the eyes, a big sigh and the words “no toys or games in the world will keep a 3 year old happy on a plane for 12 hours”.

Whatever your views, I think one thing is for certain. We should never expect our children to be adults, especially when flying. Their movement is restricted, there is very limited stimulation around and they’re expected to stay quiet and still for long periods of time. So do be realistic and  forgiving and everything will be a lot calmer…and more of a holiday!

Anyone else got suggestions for young children and air travel?

So here are my top favourite ‘rainy day’ activities purloined from the Perform Book Of Brilliant Things To Do. Some of them might seem a bit sketchy but they’ve all been tried and tested and anyway the simplest ideas are often the best.  Quite a few involve music  so have an ipod/ CD player and a few different CDs to hand.

Potion Play

All children love playing with water and I’m sure that yours are no exception. This activity needs close supervision but can be a lot of fun and great for stimulating imaginations.

Tell your children that you are all going to be magicians who have to make up some magic potions. Get together some clear plastic tumblers, put them in a washing up bowl and put them on a table your children can sit at. First of all, you have to make sure that all the equipment is really clean so show them how to wash and dry everything up beautifully (also useful for the future!).

Now part-fill the tumblers with water and put a drop of different coloured food colouring (the stuff you use for icing cakes) in each. Now challenge them to make up different potions according to their own recipes. It’s amazing how much they love adding the different colours to see what happens.  For every potion they create, they must give it a name and say what it is for.

Walking in different environments

This game is a really good way of helping children letting off steam (especially good if you can’t get out because of the rain!).

Ask your children to walk around the room as if they are walking in mud. Then ask them to walk around the room as if they are walking on the moon. When they have got the hang of this, turn on a piece of music (upbeat classical is the best) and get them to do it again in different environments. Some of my favourites are:  deep snow, quicksand, hot coals, a bath of slugs, a blizzard, on crocodile heads, a bouncy castle. You can chop and change environments as much as you like which is also great for encouraging concentration and listening.  Eventually, you can get them to make up their own environments, the crazier the better.

Home Obstacle Course

Empty your biggest room as much as you can. Tell your children that they have one minute to go and fetch some ‘obstacles’. (Cushions, bean bags, chairs, blanket etc).

With these obstacles make your very own obstacle course and help them design a route to complete. You can keep a running commentary going to really inspire their imaginations.

If you want to make it even more exciting, play some “adventure”-type film music while this is going on. Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones, Jaws etc. all work well.

Express

Have about six different tracks of music at hand for this. The music should be variously slow, fast, poppy, classical etc. Just as long as there are lots of different moods and feels.

Ask your children to close their eyes and play about 20 seconds of your first piece of music to them.  Stop the track and tell them that you are going to play it again, but this time they must get up and move to the music in ANY WAY they wish. So, if it is a sad piece of music, you might find them doing slow walks or movements around the room. If it is a happy piece of music, they might run around doing high fives etc.Repeat with different tracks.

The important thing is for them to just move in the way that they feel the music tells them to and everything is acceptable.

Catwalk Rubbish

Give your children boxes, loo rolls, newspapers, magazines, off cuts of wrapping paper etc. and get their creative juices flowing by setting them the challenge of creating their own fashion masterpiece to wear.

Once they’ve done this, set up a catwalk using lengths of ribbon/ masking tape on the floor. Get some pop music to play for when your models start showing off their designs. Hand out big sunglasses for any spectators and there you have your very own fashion show. Your role is, of course, chief photographer.

Café Time

Set up a themed “restaurant” in your kitchen/dining room. For example, you could establish an Italian restaurant called  ”Mamma Mia’s”. Let your children decorate signs and colour in flags. Make a chef hat from cylinders of white card and white tissue paper. Facepaint moustaches and let them create their own pizza using small nan breads, passata, and bowls of ingredients like ham, tuna and olives.

And Action!

Create a cinema in your sitting room. Choose a favourite DVD or a new one for a film premiere. Get the kids to divide microwave popcorn into small bags and fill your living room with cushions or bean bags if you have them. Close the curtains for atmosphere. Sit back and relax! For follow on activities have colouring in sheets that relate to the film or costumes for them to dress up like the characters.

Finally!

I know this might not be very helpful advice right now, but after my childrens’ birthdays, I tend to squirrel a bunch of presents away after they’ve been opened. They get SO many gifts that they don’t notice if a few disappear and they’re perfect to bring out on a rainy day when you need some fresh material!!

So that’s it from me. Please let me know your ‘rainy day’ activities.

The trouble is that sometimes, after a long day at work,  it’s hard to keep it up when entertaining my own children, Tom and Elizabeth (3 and 1).

Bad Mummy alert!

But I’m sure I’m not the only parent who struggles sometimes – right?

Take bedtime stories, for example. Now, I’m a big believer in these – they are a key part of the bedtime routine for my two; and while they love books , when it comes to bedtime, what they really want is a made-up story.

I know, I know – I’ve made something of a rod for my own back with that one! But, if all creativity has been used up at work,  I often feel short on inspiration… So, rather than disappoint, I cheat :)

The idea comes from a Perform game called Imagination Circle. It’s a very simple game – the children sit in a circle and one by one add a line each to create a story. There aren’t any rules – you just go with each contribution and build up the story. As you can imagine, the stories are often pretty bizarre, but it’s fantastic fun and brilliant for building children’s confidence (and of course encouraging them to be imaginative).

So one night, after a particularly exhausting day (it felt like my brain had turned to soup – just sloshing around uselessly in my skull) I figured I could use the Imagination Circle game to get Tom to make up his own bedtime story. It’s a win-win, right? Tom still gets his made up story, but I’ve ‘delegated’ some of the creative work!

I kick off the story with:  “Once upon a time there was a …” and he has to supply the what – e.g.  “a shark”.

I then say “… and the shark’s name was…” and again he’ll make up the name – e.g. “Snappy”.

I then might say something like “Snappy the shark was feeling very upset because…” and again Tom has to give the reason why. And so we’ll continue until we make a story.

It’s wonderful to do this with both of us lying on his bed in the dark – often he’ll actually drop off to sleep mid-way through the story, which feels just magical. It’s also a great game to play on car journeys / planes / trains etc – it’s something the whole family can get involved with.

So – over to you? I’m sure there are many clever ‘cheats’ – which parents use – I’d just love it if you’d care to share some of your own via the comments… Not least of course as it would make me feel a little better about my own cheating!

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