Curious Minds Blog

There are four generalised types of free play – Object Play, Pretend Play, Physical/ Rough and Tumble Play and Guided Play, let’s take a look these in a little more detail:

A dark sky is a location, usually very rural, where there is zero light pollution, and the night sky can be observed with such clarity that a myriad of stars & galaxies are clearly visible. Dark sky sites, such as the Dark Sky Theatre on the Isle of Gigha, are proving increasingly popular destinations for amateur astronomists around the world.

While this love for nature may be an innate human feeling that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t require work and care just like any other form of love. Through learning outdoors and learning about the living world children will become more appreciative and caring towards nature. A quality we desperately need future generations to have and nurture.

Alongside the religious festival of Easter comes many associations such as the Easter Bunny, Easter egg hunts, chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies, and we can’t forget – the dyeing of eggs. Now, two words came up a lot there, bunnies and eggs so let’s find out why.

In fact, we’d go as far as to say grandparents can make better teachers-through-play than parents, and we’d like to see more grandparents being encouraged to step into the role of teacher & experimenter with their grandchildren and here’s why.

Stay young in mind and heart, nurture your curious mind, always learning always questioning, never grow up!

When you place an online order with us, the gifts & kits you choose are picked from the shelves, in our rather beautiful shop, by one of the enthusiastic and knowledgeable members of the CuriousMinds team

Our cyanotype sun print paper is a simple form of photographic paper that is great fun and can be used to make some stunning 'sun art' using hands, feet, leaves, flowers, shells or any other object you choose. The object or objects are placed on the photo-sensitive paper and left in place in the sun for a few minutes. Remove the objects and rinse the paper in water to 'fix' it.

Crooke's Solar Radiometers were used to demonstrate how solar radiation is converted to kinetic energy. Invented by Sir William Crooke in the 1700's, they're now make popular gifts for science enthusiasts.

We first met Maleeka after she won a Microsoft sponsored science competition. Conversations about science and the purchases Maleeka had made from o...

Here's an easy experiment to do from home to understand how some microbes are super important to us. The microbe we use to make bread is called yeast.

Kids love writing secret messages to each other and we think it's a lot of fun to make your own invisible ink using lemon juice. It's also a great way to introduce your children to some fun chemistry experimentation, whilst practising their handwriting at the same time. Who knew handwriting practice could be so much fun!