A toddler from the Southern Highlands, Australia, had to endure a three hour wait to be rescued by emergency services after getting his finger trapped in a bath plug hole.

The worried parents of the 15-month-old raised the alarm after the child caught his finger in the plug hole while the bath was being drained.

As well as a plumber, the police, State Emergency Service and a rescue helicopter, all played a part in the release of the youngster.

The careful operation took over three hours to free the child from his captive state. The rescue team eventually resorted to ripping the concrete out from the bathroom to free the boy’s trapped digit.

In order to keep him calm during the process he was given a mild sedative while the team worked around him.

Afterwards, his parents praised the all those who helped to deliver their little boy unharmed. They did however comment that the bathroom was left understandable worse for wear.

While accidents such as this in the bathroom rarely happen, it is a good idea to promote safety where children are concerned. For range of tips on how to make your bathroom a safer place, visit the BestBathrooms.com blog.

About BestBathrooms.com

At BestBathrooms.com, we supply luxury bathroom and home heating products direct to the consumer and, since we manage the whole journey from design through to delivery at your door, with no costly showrooms, we are able to supply our high quality products at unbeatable prices.

Based in Lancashire, UK, BestBathrooms.com has been built upon 30 years of experience in bathroom and home heating product design, manufacture and sales. Our product experts have used that wealth of experience to assemble exciting ranges at BestBathrooms.com that enable our customers to create the perfect bathroom and home heating system, at an affordable price.

With soaring petrol prices you may be less than tempted to get out with the kids this Easter holidays. But why should that stop you or the kids enjoying the spring break?

Instead seek adventure and excitement from your local surroundings, parks, leisure centres and even your own back garden offer ample opportunities to entertain.

Getting out on the bike is not only an ever increasingly popular form of transport; it’s also a good old fashion way to keep active for free.

If the weather stays fine why not host a garden party or BBQ? Great for adults and children outdoor living provides an instant means of making the most of sunny days in spring and summer.

For grown-ups there’s an excuse to socialise with friends, and while you’re keeping an eye on the kids they can play together. Sand pits and children’s garden furniture are the perfect way of encouraging youngsters to have fun outside.

Another great way to create a sense of escapism while at home is to organise an outdoor sleepover. Simply pitch up a tent in the garden. You can even throw in some camping gear such as lanterns and fold away furniture to enhance the effect.

For a range of outdoor furniture and leisure equipment, Trueshopping.co.uk is the ideal place to visit. You’ll find a range of garden items for seating, cooking and dining, plus children’s play furniture and camping items, all at affordable prices.

Whatever you do this half term get creative. The kids will thank you for it!

About Trueshopping.co.uk:

Trueshopping is a UK based online retailer dedicated to helping ‘everyone afford luxury’. That’s why we ensure high quality home and lifestyle products at competitive prices. Our departments include Bathroom, Heating, Plumbing, DIY & Tools and Garden & Outdoors.

At Trueshopping our exceptional product ranges are backed by our unrivalled customer service, with fast, reliable delivery and 100% secure shopping.

Swipea, a Gamebit Labs brand that specializes in educational children activity books and eBook apps has recently released The Dream, World Explorer Edition, a premium activity storybook that is the first in its World Explorer series, which will encompass several titles that will allow children to explore the world from their iOS devices. At the same time, children will also learn about moral values and world culture understanding through fun and entertaining popular stories, each taken from the country it represents. Offering kids and parents an engaging story that encompasses several interactive elements, The Dream tells the tale of Ahmad, a poor and honest good-hearted, hardworking man from Baghdad who journeys far away from home and family in order to seek his fortune due to a dream he had. The tale also shows the hardships and constancy that lead him to eventually achieve his goals.

Throughout this interactive activity storybook, children are taught the values of patience, persistence and much more, all beautifully portrayed by gorgeous animated artwork and enhanced by realistic sound effects that take the reader from the Sahara desert to the markets in Cairo, letting them explore the Arabian World and its culture at their own pace. In order to make the experience for both parents and kids with The Dream even better, Swipea has performed extensive research and has packed the storybook with eight different educational mini-games, where they will learn over more than 60 fun facts about Arabian historical places, music & instruments, costumes, food ingredients & cuisines and more by helping the story’s main characters. Additionally, this premium World Explorer edition of The Dream comes with free lifetime content update. One very relevant aspect of Swipea’s vision for both The Dream and its future storybooks is the importance of bridging the perennial gap between apps and the real world. In order to do this, Swipea offers both kids and anyone who enjoys The Dream, the opportunity to access a series of Fans-Only DIY Premium Paper Crafts, which will be unlocked once customers Like Swipea’s Facebook page, join the company’s mailing list or rate the app in the App Store. These premiums include:

• Race To Cairo – A four player board game inspired by Ahmad’s travel to Cairo
• The Dream Pop-up Scenes – A set of six paper crafts to inspire kids to explore the exciting world of story-telling
• The Dream Bookmarks – A set of threes printable bookmarks with personal creative spaces

With these, children will be able to bring the world of The Dream to life in a way that is not only fun and educational, but that also helps them develop their manual and social skills, since these types of DIY paper crafts are ideal to enjoy with friends and family.

The importance of this aspect of Swipea’s storybooks is clearly summarized by the storybook’s creator, Benjamin Chong:

“I personally believe in the tremendous value of interactivity, and companies should attempt to bridge the electronic and real world together. This is what I’m trying to do with our World Explorer series.”

About Gamebit Labs Sdn Bhd.
Currently based in Malaysia, Gamebit Labs is a new technology startup founded in Q4, 2011. The company’s mission is to develop children activity books, ebook apps and casual games for mobile devices to help kids learn in a fun and more effective way. Benjamin Chong who has been in the online gaming industry for the past 7 years is the founder and CEO of Gamebit Labs. For more information on Gamebit Labs, visit http://www.swipea.com.

Feather & Black, the leading bedroom furniture retailer, has released its first children’s book, ‘David the Dinosaur’, written by managing director Adam Black. Renowned for producing quality children’s bedroom furniture, Feather & Black is now adding a touch of literary charm to its bedtime range. The story, filled with beautiful illustrations and rhyming verses, is aimed at children 4-8 years old. David’s terrible dietary habits provide a fun and humorous message about healthy eating combined with a sense of adventure that will appeal to boys and girls alike.

David the Dinosaur was inspired by Black’s own young boys who hate bedtime. Of his foray into children’s literature, Black commented “I didn’t expect that my passion for storytelling, characters and fun rhymes would become anything more than a silly story but I’m very excited about the publication of David the Dinosaur. I hope our readers enjoy the story as much as my kids do”.

The book, along with matching ‘Dino’ bed linen and pyjamas, is available now to buy online and in-store, priced £6.99. Feather & Black has a wide range of childrens beds and childrens desks, bed linen and accessories, all designed and selected with one simple message in mind: to offer you exclusive, well-made and safe children’s bedroom furniture that will last the test of time.

Ends

With the announcement of a second wave of Payment by Results (PBR) trial sites, Capita’s 15th National Children’s Centres Conference addresses the key challenges of commissioning and measuring outcomes and expectations.

The Coalition Government’s strong focus on engaging with vulnerable families as well as implementing and championing early intervention is placing Children’s Centres at the forefront of delivering on this agenda.

As organisations are expected to provide improved services on reduced budgets, this timely event covers utilising Payment by Results in the delivery of positive outcomes, implementing successful outreach services to engage disadvantaged families and promoting effective and evidence-based early intervention programmes.

The conference will also address ways of delivering family services through multi-agency teams addressing wider issues around parenting and worklessness and includes a half-day brief which will concentrate on ways to integrate health and children’s centres services.
Attend this conference to hear from the Government departments, key stakeholders and organisations delivering innovative practice in Children’s Centres.

For more information contact: Catherine Kennedy / catherine.kennedy@capita.co.uk / 0207 202 0557

Website: http://www.capitaconferences.co.uk/public-sector-conferences/childrens-services/full-conference/article/childrens-centres-1.html?code=EMMK

Brochure: http://www.capitaconferences.co.uk/pdfgen.html?filename=Children__s_Centres_WOPDF_01.pdf&code=EMMK

Babies can understand the meaning of some basic words from as little as six months old which means that they are smarter than predicted, according to a recent study.

Findings by the University of Pennsylvania in America show that six to nine month old babies can comprehend many words sooner than they actually say them.

The research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, signifies that parents talking to their children on a daily basis may find that they understand some of what they are saying from an earlier anticipated age.

A key discovery from the study is that kids at the young age who aren’t talking or walking are under the surface, putting together everything that they see with the words associated with them.

The results were obtained by analysing 33 babies who were between 6-9 months old and 50 other infants ranging from 10-20 months old. The authors reported that babies at eight and nine months old performed no better than six and seven month-old infants and that no significant improvement was noticed until the child reached about 14 months.

Previous studies of child language development have involved the words ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ whereas the new research looked at more generic words and words that referred to categories, like body parts and food.

So if a baby is learning from an earlier expected age, the soft toys that they play with need to be appropriate to stimulate educational growth.

From birth, children’s toys perform an integral part in the learning curve and Born Gifted has a whole host of baby toys, Christening gifts and baby presents to inspire little ones.

Visit Borngifted.co.uk today to check out the plethora of toys available; they’re not only fun but educational as well.

ENDS

Indoor karting circuit Cannon Raceway has introduced a weekly grand prix starting at 2pm every Saturday.

The event gives people the opportunity to compete in a real Formula 1 styled race lasting around four hours.

The Saturday Mega Prix is an open event for anyone aged 14 or over. Each driver will have the chance to participate in a practice run before competing in five qualifying races.

The top eight drivers with the most points will then go through to the 15 lap grand final. In true Formula 1 style the top three drivers will finally take to the podium to be crowned the ultimate karting drivers of the week.

Drivers that finish first, second or third in any karting event will automatically be invited to the Cannon Raceway Champion of Champions event, where the winner will receive free unlimited kart racing for an entire month.

Tickets to the Saturday Mega Prix cost just £35 per driver and organisers of groups with five or more people will receive free entry.

Adrian Johnson, Race Director at Cannon Raceway says: “The Saturday Mega Prix is a fantastic event. Each and every week we see some fantastic races taking place. The standard of driving ranges from first time karters who fancy a taste of competitive racing, up to regular karters who come for the buzz of racing with people they have never met before in a controlled environment.”

Cannon Raceway is an indoor karting track located in Cosley, West Midlands. The circuit has been specially designed with many international race track features. The team of qualified staff at Cannon Raceway are always on hand to offer advice and are constantly supervising the circuit. They are the only circuit in the Midlands to offer the latest karts designed by BIZ, the leading kart manufacturer in the UK. These karts are race tuned with 270cc engines giving drivers an exhilarating experience. These particular styled karts are ideal for beginner kart drivers, as the ultra lightweight steering and two pedal controls make kart racing both simple and fun.

With the announcement of a second wave of Payment by Results (PBR) trial sites, Capita’s 15th National Children’s Centres Conference addresses the key challenges of commissioning and measuring outcomes and expectations.

The Coalition Government’s strong focus on engaging with vulnerable families as well as implementing and championing early intervention is placing Children’s Centres at the forefront of delivering on this agenda.

As organisations are expected to provide improved services on reduced budgets, this timely event covers utilising Payment by Results in the delivery of positive outcomes, implementing successful outreach services to engage disadvantaged families and promoting effective and evidence-based early intervention programmes.

The conference will also address ways of delivering family services through multi-agency teams addressing wider issues around parenting and worklessness and includes a half-day brief which will concentrate on ways to integrate health and children’s centres services.

Attend this conference to hear from the Government departments, key stakeholders and organisations delivering innovative practice in Children’s Centres.

Children and adults in Great Barr are being invited to put their thoughts into verse in a poetry competition later this year.

It is taking place at Great Barr and Hamstead libraries and both adults and children are being asked to compose poems saying why they love both libraries.

There is a prize of £25 for both the adult and child sections. All entries must be in by June 30 and they can be submitted to either of the libraries.

Sandwell’s historic Haden Hill House Museum is putting on a group of activities for children during the school half-term holiday.

On Tuesday February 14 and Thursday February 16, they will be staging ‘Creature Features’ where children will get the chance to get to know about animals and handle them in safety under supervision.

Sessions will be held at 2pm and 3pm on each day and it will cost £2 for each child that takes part. Booking is essential.

Children will also get the chance to have their faces painted. It is £1.50 per child or £3 for both activities.

On Friday February 17, there will be a series of children’s drop-in animal-themed workshops between 1.30pm to 3.30pm. There will be a cost of 50p for each item made.