Five Things To Do With Your Family This Weekend

EVENT, RECIPE, MAKE, LEARN SPRING WORSHIP

This month is packed with religious festivals. Vaisakhi falls on Thursday 14 April and is the Hindu and Sikh solar new year, as well as a spring harvest festival for many Indians. Find out more about it here and Vaisakhi recipes – including sweet kesar phirni – here. There’s also a huge Vaisakhi party on May 1 in Southall Park. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan is also in full swing; find out more about it here, join the fun at the Taste Ramadan festival on Thursday on Liverpool Pier, or try these Ramadan-inspired crafts (we love the moon phase story reels and star-shaped crayons. And next week is Christian Easter. Find out more about the festival here, visit Trafalgar Square on April 15 to see the free Passion Play or try these super-stylish crafts.



MAKE NATURAL EGGS

Talking of crafts, why not go all-natural with your Easter makes this year? You’ll find all you need to dye eggs in your store cupboards – red cabbage, turmeric, onion skins and more – pro tip, try to track down some white eggs. If you’re feeling a little more creative, you might try making imprints using leaves on your eggs. Or pick up materials on your walks to make a sweet bird nest, perhaps you might even put it into a tree or onto your window sill and see if anyone makes it a home. Find more ideas for Easter fun and rituals here.



EVENT, MAKE, LEARN SPRINGING BACK!

April is a month filled with nature, with flowers coming into bloom, bees and butterflies blinking into the light and migrant birds filling our skies. Find out more about the wildlife party here and learn how to make a swift nest box, spot bats and puffins, listen to the dawn chorus, find out about cannibal caterpillars, and – maybe the cutest thing ever – create a sunbed for a slow worm!



EVENT MARI-TIME FOR FUN

Celebrate Black history at the National Maritime Museum this Saturday. From free silhouette cutting classes, group singing, printing sessions, games and quadrille dancing workshops, to music and dance performances on the Great Map, it’ll be a vibrant day that celebrates the fusion of cultures from Africa, the Caribbean and Britain. Free, but tickets must be booked in advance.

1. EVENT GAMES REVOLUTION
   The Turner Gallery in Margate is a light-filled space with expansive views over the ocean, and is slap-bang in the middle of one of the most lively holiday spot in the UK. This holiday, as well as eye-popping, optimistic exhibitions such as Nice To Meet You, a collaborative art project between Joy C Martindale and five Slovak and Czech women and Sirens, there are a series of Gamescapes workshops, drop-in events where participants create a collaborative landscape of characters and objects that are animated. Free. More here

   BONUS GAMING FUN: Interested in gaming as a force for democracy? Now Play This, the festival of experimental game design, returns to Somerset House this week. Play games that examine the political process at the venue and online, or join games including Rainmaking, in which participants created giant cats cradle with rope and their bodies, find out how to use noises to provoke connection and play between strangers, or chat about revolution! Find the programme here
   
   WHAT WE’RE READING: I’ve just become a mum – where is the writing about parenting for my generation?: “For Berry, the Republic of Motherhood is “a wild queendom”, and, though I feel her words deeply, I wanted this series to include fathers, and families of all shapes and sizes. Hence: parenthood. I also chose the name semi-ironically, for though parenthood may feel like a separate state to some, we are all, ultimately, part of a collective, a community. It seems to be that problems arise when we fail to acknowledge the role parents play in that and – vice versa – the part played by those who are childless and child-free (two slightly different things, as I will come to explore). So I hope this series speaks, too, to non-parents, and helps to foster solidarity between us all, whatever our choices.” Read more here
   
   WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Our Family And Autism: Paddy McGuinness and his wife Christine have three children: eight-year-old twins Leo and Penelope, and five-year-old Felicity. All three have been diagnosed with autism. This raw and intimate documentary follows Paddy and Christine at home and as they meet other parents, experts and people on the autism spectrum. Watch on the iPlayer here