Jump! Mag

Home, Health & Style

How Much Sleep Do Kids Need?

Julianne Robertson investigates the world of snoozes, forty winks, cat naps and snoring. What is SLEEP, why do we need it, and how much sleep do kids need?

A couple of nights ago I was feeling really, really tired, so I went to bed early. I slept soundly, without even dreaming, until about 5am, when I woke up. It felt like I’d only been sleeping for about 5 minutes! After that, I fell back to sleep but had lots of vivid dreams and when I woke up a couple of hours later, it felt like I’d been asleep for a long time. After all that I still felt well-rested and was ready for the day.

All this made me wonder – what IS sleep? Why is it that some nights we feel like we’ve had a really good nights’ sleep, while other nights we still feel tired when we wake up in the morning? Here’s what I’ve discovered about sleep…

Art & History

Early English – The Latin Alphabet

In our last post, we discovered the runic alphabet and the Futhorc, and now we are going to look at what came next. The Latin alphabet.

The Futhorc was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet. However, it seems that the Latin alphabet was not perfectly suited to represent English, which contained sounds that did not exist in Latin, and so people adapted it with the addition of a few runes: thorn to represent ‘th’ and wynn to represent ‘w’, as well as a few adaptations in usage of the already existing Latin letters in order to make them better suited to representing English sounds.

Home, Health & Style

Be a Good Communicator

Have you ever said something that was misunderstood by the person you were talking to? Do you know anyone who sometimes says things in a way that seems rude and abrupt? It is not always the words used, but the way in which they are used.

Good communication is very important. Carolyn Ward explains what it is and how to be a better communicator.

Toys and Games

What is Geocaching?

What is Geocaching? It’s like a real-life treasure hunt and is a great way to make a walk in the woods just a bit more interesting!

Julianne Robertson explains what it is and how to do it.

What is it?

Players use a handheld GPS device or a smartphone to look for a set of co-ordinates near to wherever they are and find the geocache (or treasure!) hidden at that location. These are usually a small container of some kind with a logbook and ‘treasure’ inside – this can be anything, like a little toy, some stickers, a badge, a pretty stone – basically anything small enough to fit inside and be worth finding!

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Sounds good! How do I get started?

Go to the website www.geocaching.com and register – it’s free to sign up. Then you put in your postcode and you should see a list of all the geocaches near to where you live. Choose one and you’ll get the co-ordinates you need to put into the GPS, as well as a description of the area and clues about how to find the cache.

Are geocaches always hidden in the woods?

No – there are geocaches all over the world and they are usually put in places which are important to the person hiding them. Some are hidden in forest areas, others are in local parks, or city streets – even underwater! There are also different sizes of geocache and a range of difficulty – you should probably start with one that’s easy, at least to begin with!

What do I do when I find one – can I keep the treasure?!

Yes, but you should replace anything you keep with something of equal or greater value. You should also write about your find in the logbook and when you get home log your experience on the website too, so that others know the cache is still active.

Can I hide my own cache for others to find?

Yes, once you’ve found a few caches you’ll know what makes a good geocache and hiding place, and you might want to create your own! There are lots of guidelines on the website about how to do it.

Now you know about geocaching – go and try it! It’s a great activity to do with your family or a group of friends. Once you’ve found one, you’ll want to find more!

Julianne Robertson is a freelance journalist, based in Dundee. Her background is radio news, and she now writes features and reviews, specialising in parenting, faith and religion, events and lifestyle issues.

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Food and Recipes

Get Your Bake On!

Have you been inspired by the Great British Bake Off?

We are BIG fans of 17 year old Martha, and love that she has shown Britain that kids can bake just as well (if not better!) than adults. After leaving the show, Martha said “I wanted to show that young people can do it and you don’t need hundreds of years of experience”.

A lot of you probably have already done a bit of baking with parents or grandparents, but moving on to baking independently can be a bit daunting.

To help you get your bake on, we’ve some tips on getting started, and simple recipe ideas that will make you feel like you’ve baked a showstopper. So, move aside, mums and dads, this is all about baking for kids!

On Your Marks, Get Set… BAKE!

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Before you start to bake, get all your ingredients out and put them on the worktop. This prevents you getting halfway through the recipe and then noticing that you’ve run out of something really vital, like eggs!