Paper Menagerie
There are so many things to like about Owl Paper Lamps from Portugal. In themselves, these illuminated animals are just terrifically cute in their own right.
Following the steps of Carlotta Barnabe
This is only the second season for Carlota Barnabe, and once again their collection is exclusively made of very soft 100% cotton muslin. Three colors this fall : green amazonite, Black onyx and Pink cinnabar inspired by the minerals.
Learning About Sexual Stereotypes
Girls rock! I'm partial of course, as I have two daughters. Our eldest, twelve, has just returned from a class at school about sexual stereotypes - from the simple, seemingly innocent (little girls play with dolls, little boys play with cars, etc), to the more
Gap Year Gambit
Pirouette readers are parents with a sense of adventure. As we’ve often read in these pages, that can mean literal adventure, with families taking time out to hit the road and discover new lands. This blog preaches to the converted when it comes to upending routine to deepen…
Analog Animals
Last summer we stumbled upon an unlikely relic, the Tado Ivanausko Zoologijos museum in Kaunas Lithuania. Here is a splendidly preserved time capsule of a natural history museum. It seemed like the entire animal kingdom in taxidermy, hidden away in a cabinet of curiosities that…
Sunday Video: Samurai Smartphone Parade
This one’s probably more for the parents, but kids too will appreciate these Samurai words of warning. Beware the dangers of mobile multi-tasking!
Carrots, not sticks – book review
Bee Wilson’s book First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, is required reading for parents. We are not born knowing what to eat. We all have to learn it as children sitting expectantly at a table. For our diets to change, we need to relearn the food experiences that first shaped us. It…
Sunday Video: Frozen Soap Bubbles
We're thinking about our friends who are snowed in this weekend, wherever you may be.
Kid Robot : About Artificial Intelligence and the Future of our Kids
Robots will replace us. We’re facing an uncertain future of Artificial Intelligence which at best, will render whole swathes of humanity redundant. At worst, AI will subsume our consciousness and make homo sapiens extinct, much as we in turn have consigned earlier species to the…
Where the wild things are
When was the last time - or indeed, the first time - that you went some place really wild with your kids? Not just off-road, but truly wild. Where there are no roads. A place that you might encounter an unfamiliar face. Perhaps the closest we've come to visiting a place that…
100 Questions: Family Edition
Last month, London's School of Life launched 100 Questions: Family Edition - a toolkit designed to bring families closer together. Good conversation can be the key to building strong connections between generations. It's not always easy to kickstart a truly enriching…
Water, water, everywhere
What young parent has not found themselves wondering what their child will be when they grow up? (Some of us may still be wondering ourselves, "what do I want to be when I grow up?"). Coding classes, Chinese lessons, Business Skills for youngsters... We're all trying to second…