“Engineers’ Week is a week long programme of nationwide events with the aim of celebrating the world of engineering in Ireland. The aim of the week is to create a positive awareness and spark enthusiasm about the engineering profession to people of various ages with little or no engineering background.”

There are many events being run throughout the country aimed at a range of ages. From primary school kids to third level students, families and the general public, there should be something to interest and suit all.

My older children are particularly interested in the “CEIA Lego Robot Competition Finals” which are being held in the Maryborough House Hotel in Douglas, Cork on the 17 Feb 2011 from 5:30 to 8pm. In Cork, there appear to be many events taking place in Blackrock Castle Observatory and the Lifetime lab.

The Engineers Week website has the full schedule of events and a search filter to tailor your choice according to county, date or  audience age. Worth checking out I reckon.

Lately real life has gotten in the way of blogging. I hope everyone had a lovely festive season. Our children are still off school but we’ve returned to Bandon after visiting Kilkenny and Cavan, both of which were without running water at times due to the icy weather and its effects. Definitely glad to return to hot running water!

In the post recently I received the following notifications which I thought may be of interest.

The first is the CTYI taster day  for 8 to 12 year olds to be held in DCU and UCC on the 15th of January 2011.

This is a one day event to give children a “taste” of what it is like to attend a course at one of our centres. It is to give potential students an idea of what happens on our Saturday and summer program and helps give these students an idea whether they would enjoy coming. It also gives students who already come a chance to try out new subjects.
DCU: 10.00 – 12.15pm or 1.00 to 3.15pm
UCC: 1.00 – 3.15pm
Cost is €10 per child for morning or afternoon or €20 for both DCU sessions.

Two subjects will be studied on the day and there is a good range to choose from including:

• forensics and vet science
• film studies and creative writing
• computer animation  and science in space
• architecture and astronomy

I would definitely recommend these CTYI days. Our eldest son thoroughly enjoys attending and learning about a wide variety of subjects. For further information, please contact Eleanor Cooke at eleanor.cooke@dcu.ie or 01 7008977.

The second is a free trial day at the Gaiety School of Acting.

CHILDRENS TRY FOR FREE

Have you a Saoirse Ronan or a Jaden Smith in your house? A child pestering you to let them go to drama. Here’s you chance to bring them along and see what’s what. This term we’re running our TRY FOR FREE classes in Temple Bar, Bray, Wexford and Castleblayney.

Classes will run on Saturday 8th Jan.

Call us on (01) 6799277 for the scheduled times and to guarantee your place. Alternatively just call down on the day.

Gaiety School of Acting, Temple Bar – 4 years old – 18 years old

Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray – 7 years old – 18 years old

Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford – 6 years old – 13 years old

Iontas Arts Centre, Castleblayney – 6 years old – 13 years old

Again, I would recommend these days too as one of our children did a Saturday course in Cork with the Gaiety School of Acting a year or so ago and enjoyed it.

I love blackcurrants and my kids are big fans of fruit juice. They really enjoyed both flavours of this juice. They thought it tasted great and was thirst quenching and refreshing. I was happy to note the lack of additives, no added sugar, preservatives etc.  Each carton contains pure fruit juice and apparently 1 carton counts as 1 of your 5 a day. All good news.

I can see these cartons being really handy to have in the bag when we head on days out to the beach, zoo, parks etc.

Unfortunately as they appear to retail at 99c each according to the Tesco website, they are too costly for me to use for the children’s everyday lunch drink: 99c x 5 children x 5 days = €24.75/week. The packaging and marketing remind me of Innocent smoothies and I presume Ribena Juiced Up! will compete rather well with these. But like the smoothies, I will probably hold off purchasing until I notice them in the supermarket at discounted prices or on offer.

Oscar has just completed this summer camp and is raving about how good it was and how much he enjoyed it. It took place on Garrettstown beach. We were fortunate that the weather was relatively good this week and there were some waves. All equipment was supplied by the surf school. The children were kitted out with wetsuits, booties, boards etc.

So from  10am to 3pm, Monday to Friday himself and 15 other kids aged 8 to 12 years old had a blast on the beach. They had great fun learning to surf, kayaking, coasteering and cliff jumping. The instructors were excellent, I had no worries regarding Oscar’s safety. He was taught safety procedure, what to do if in trouble and good surfing rules and etiquette. After this camp he is now at the stage of being able to judge the waves and get up to standing on the surfboard.

It was an action packed week,  he was exhausted most evenings. He made some good friends and most importantly had a really fun time. There was a good mix of boys and girls participating in the camp. Would thoroughly recommend it. The SuperSea camp cost €150 which initially did seem expensive. But after seeing what he got out of the week, I reckon it was good value for money.

He is now talking about saving to buy his own wetsuit and surfboard as he intends to  continue surfing.

It was held in the Bandon Grammar school grounds which was great as in addition to outdoor running track and facilities, there was access to indoor halls should the weather turn inclement.

The three aged 5, 6 and 8 years old had a brilliant week. They really enjoyed the range of activities which included:

• sprints
• long jump
• high jump
• relays
• javelin
• hammer throw
• discus
• shot putt

The camp cost €65 for the first child and €50 for each subsequent sibling which I rate as good value for money. It ran from 10am to 2pm, Monday to Friday. I found it really well run. There was  plenty of supervision and coaching. Each child recieved a certificate of attendance and a medal on the last day. They were chuffed.

Would definitely recommend.

* This was Fionn’s query when his older brother suggested he attend the summer camp for running training

photo credit: Tomorrow Never Knows

I came across this blogpost. A must read for all parents and anyone who loves the beach, lake or pool.

A few points that really struck home with me:

Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help.

Drowning people cannot wave for help.

Children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

Whilst we are all looking forward to a wonderful summer on the beach and in the water, it is no harm to keep the following in mind.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level
• Head tilted back with mouth open
• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
• Eyes closed
• Hair over forehead or eyes
• Not using legs – Vertical
• Hyperventilating or gasping
• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
• Trying to roll over on the back
• Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.

I, for one, shall be revisiting Mario’s blog when he uploads a short video along with a pool safety checklist next week.

From The Dressing Up Box which is book 2 in the series.

From Book 8, the child reads the whole story with the adult providing help and support if needed. These books explore material that is often taught during a child’s second or even third year at school.

From Late Night at the Zoo which is book 10 in the series.

Fun stories, beautifully illustrated, she loves reading them together. Whats not to like? Would thoroughly recommend for any children learning to read. Good stuff.

* Couldn’t resist using a Bill Hicks line as currently listening to the Kermode/Mayo film review podcast of American: the Bill Hicks Story.

As a parent of 5 kids that has travelled by air abroad on holidays, I have had to deal with the expense and hassle on arrival of hiring extra booster seats for the children in the hired car. This in addition with each child needing a rucksack to carry onboard to store their bits and pieces during the flight. The Boostapak is a spacious, hand-luggage approved rucksack which doubles as a booster seat.

Its benefits include ergonomic design to protect growing spines and encourage better posture, durable hard plastic shell construction, removable cleanable cover, hi-visibility horns and reflective trim and fold-out seat belt guides.

It looks quite straightforward to use and I can definitely see it being useful and handy when out and about in restaurants/cinema or when bringing extra school pals home for playdates.

My only concern would be its weight, am hoping its relatively lightweight for children to carry on their backs. Its due for release Spring 2010 and retail price on the website is approximately £40. Very much looking forward to trying it out when its released.

This 31in guitar has 6 real steel guitar strings and comes complete with a powerful stage amplifier, a sing along microphone, a hands free headset and an adjustable stand so you can rock the stage just like Hannah.

To be fair, it is what it says in the blurb above. She had brilliant fun over the Christmas holidays with her cousins doing thrash metal versions of the carols. The sound was loud and she loved the hands free mic. She was a rock chick. Trés cool.

However alas within a few days one of the wires from the standing microphone to the amp had broken. A few days later, the headset mic also broke. To be honest she hasn’t really played with it much since. I think for someone of her age, it was important to be able to sing with a mic at the same time as playing the guitar.

From a parent’s point of view, I would have preferred if the amp could have been plugged in rather than totally reliant on batteries. It also would have been a nice idea to have some guitar musical instructions on how to play some of Hannah’s songs perhaps. A built in tuner would have been very helpful too.

Overall, this is definitely more of a roleplay or make believe toy rather than a musical instrument set. It needs to be improved from a quality perspective in manufacture to make it more robust. Wires and headsets should be made to last a bit longer than a few days. Available from approximately €40 from Amazon or Argos. Could do better. ;-(

Do you have the brains, brawn, stamina and strength to reach the summit and conquer The Mountain?

Are you into science adventure?

Can you prove which fruit conducts electricity?

Can you predict the outcome of explosive stunts?

Given the materials, Can you build a catapult or slingshot which will accurately fling eggs at a target?

Closing date for applications is this Friday, 5th of March so get your skates on and head over to the RTE website for further details and forms if you’re interested. Sounds like it should be entertaining and fun.