This is the Little Sardines Blog.

Teaching the alphabet is one of the most fundamental and essential skills a parent can pass on to their kids. Start from a young age, take pleasure in seeing them off on their life-long journey of learning and communication – oh, and don’t forget to make it fun for them too!
 
 1)    Rubbings & Tracings
Cut out [...]

Speech Development is currently a very 'hot topic'. The Government have even appointing a "champion of communication" (very Government sounding title, I know!) to seek improvements in this area.
With this in mind we have pulled together some tips for getting your child speaking like Shakespeare (well, sort of!) as soon as possible.
Baby / toddler stage:

Refer [...]

For many the idea of 'traditional toys' seems obsolete - something from the "good old days" but this simply isn't true. There are still plenty of traditional toys out there - old-fashioned wooden blocks, wooden pull toys, rag dolls, and the like. You just have to know where to find them - or how to [...]

 
Well, until now I assumed we all shared the same parenting woes - and the strategies for dealing with them. Then along comes Pamela Druckerman with her new book, "French Children Don't Throw Food: Parenting Secrets from Paris" which seems to suggest a very different approach among our Gallic neighbours.
The book has been hitting the [...]

Interesting study about British kids by Dr Tessa Livingstone (from the BBC's ‘Child of Our Time’ project).
• British kids are the most tested in the world
• 80% of British women with kids under 5 have jobs
• Two thirds of all communication between adults and their children is directive ("William -shoes!")
• The average 10 year old [...]

I really like this article about the ''Ready Fire Aim!' book by Michael Masterson which I've para-phrased below. Well worth a ready for budding entrepreneurs out there! I'd be interested to hear any comments...
"Entrepreneurship is based on selling. You test the market with a product you think will sell well. If it does, you keep [...]

I recently saw some tips from NetMums for sleepless new Mums (eg put potato shavings under the eyes to reduce dark circles - no seriously!) and thought I'd try to redress the balance by publishing our own (highly subjective) list for the Dads - who may be a bit less catered for in mainstream media [...]