Lego celebrated its 80th birthday in South Korea by unveiling the world’s tallest lego tower.
The tower built by 4,000 children, using 500,000 lego bricks and measuring a dizzying 31.9 metres, which is equivalent to the length of three London double decker buses.
The structure, which stands in front of Seoul’s Olympic Stadium beats the previous record, set in France last October, by just 30 centimetres.
We love this short film directed by Amanda Boyle for the NSPCC
Little Rean Carter has been to the barber for his very first haircut but not until it took five years, grew 18 inches and cost his parents £4,200 in shampoo, conditioner and detangling spray.
After being mistaken for a girl and called Rapunzel, five-year-old Rean Carter put his foot down and insisted on a haircut.
He went to his uncle’s hairdressing salon, named Fellaz in Sunderland, to ask for a short back and sides because he was being teased at school.
His mother, party organiser Leanne Smith, said it was ‘heart-breaking to watch the long and beautiful curls being cut off.’
‘I was so upset,’ she said. ‘He’s had that hair for five years. There’s no putting it back now.’
‘He’s over the moon. What’s more, he had the best night’s sleep.
‘Usually, I tie it back with a bobble but during the night it gets in his face. After getting his hair cut he slept like a log.’
Rean, who is donating the money he raised for having his hair cut to Sunderland Royal Hospital children’s unit, said: ‘I’m so pleased. My hair looks great. My teachers will recognise me.’
Matters came to a head when Rean returned home from school and told his mother, a party organiser, that he had been teased at school for looking like a girl.
His hair was so long it tumbled below the line of his belt and had to be tied up at school for health and safety reasons.
Miss Smith, a mother-of-two, said her son inherited his curls from her partner, Neil Carter, 48, a painter and decorator who once sported a pink Mohican.
Now she faces another dilemma – should she let her other son, two-year-old Regan, grow his hair or head back to the barber’s shop?
Five year old Rean Carter is set to have his hair cut for the very first time. His long golden locks tumbles down his waist, leaving him frequently being mistaken as a girl. Rean’s school has forced him to wear his hair in a (girly) ponytail and his friends are now too embarrassed to play with him. This left Rean finally insisting on a hair cut from his reluctant mother, who will be sad to see it go.
His mother Leeanne said: ‘When Rean was born he had a lovely little curl of golden hair at the back of his head. ‘I just could never bear to get it cut, not even his fringe. I’ve already cried at the thought of him having it cut, and will cry again when it actually happens. Now it flows all the way down his back to his bottom and is very beautiful and soft. When we go out he is often mistaken for a little girl. People say, “Isn’t she gorgeous”, but it has never bothered him. He just laughs.
Rean intends to kill two birds with one stoen by raising money for charity whilst having his hair cut, and he has already collected £82 from relatives, friends and classmates. The money will be donated to Sunderland Royal Hospital children’s unit, where Rean spent a week and a half in 2010, suffering from skin infection impetigo. Leanne says the detached hair would then be donated to a cancer charity for use in wigs.
A 65ft-high church built from Lego reconstuctions for the Grenswerk Festival, in the Dutch town of Enschede has been revealed.
The striking multi-colour building is called Abondantus Gigantus and featues concrete blocks painted as Legos features our favourite colours from the Olympics, as seen in our short film True Colours.
This Olympic inspired short film was made for Film Nation Shorts – True Colours is now available to watch online. The concept was written and Directed by 24 year old artist filmmaker Sarah Peace and it looks like the crew had an amazingly fun time in the process. The theme of the film is Truce. Please go to the Film Nation website to watch and vote for it.
Asrim Sener
Ami Kimber
Julia Boreyko
Yoanna Dukanova
Sammia Powell
Destiny Dalby
Schooldchildren from across London are being invited to Selfridges – not to shop, but for reading lessons with a difference.
The department store has transformed part of its lower ground-floor Ultralounge into a free pop-up 15,000-book library to inspire a love of literature in adults and children alike.
Storyteller Rachel Rose Reid is teaching children to find the “joy” in reading – even those who are daunted by it – with a loud, interactive live performance.
Pupils at St Mary’s Primary School in Battersea, at the heart of the Get London Reading campaign, were among the first to visit this week, which is National Storytelling Week. A group of 40, aged six to eight, sang, acted and provided sound effects to much-loved children’s stories.
Ms Reid said storytelling can inspire children who have problems with reading to love words, and ultimately to pick up a book. She said: “When you hear or tell a story you realise that words are the tools you need to get what you want across to the world.
“It is a way of engaging with language. It improves cognition, listening skills and imagination and it increases the vocabularies of children.
“It reminds you of why you might want to pick up a book – and it gives children with dyslexia a way to feel equal.” Nicola Byrne, associate headteacher at St Mary’s said: “It is a joy for the children to hear stories told so well and to be involved in them.”
The session started with the pupils singing I’m Being Eaten By A Boa Constrictor, before Ms Reid told the Ghanaian folk tale Too Much Talk, about a yam that can speak. The story, traditionally told aloud, lets children join in with speaking and actions, including the response “Aiyee!” at the end of each line. Lizzie Boafo, aged seven, said: “I really enjoyed it. I love being read stories. When someone tells you a story it really makes it come alive.”
Charlie Burridge whose son Alfie, six, was in the group, said: “The children were learning and their confidence was growing as they took part.” Selfridges has also helped to fund a new school library for St Mary’s, visited by Prime Minister David Cameron last month.
The in-store library is part of Selfridges’ Words Words Words campaign, which is promoting literacy and runs all this month. Events include free grammar lessons, handwriting analysis, and more of Ms Reid’s classes. The store wants to hear from other schools interested in a storytelling lesson.
Ms Byrne added: “It is a lovely opportunity to have a literacy lesson outside the classroom. The language is very rich and we hope the children will pick up some vocabulary. A lot of them had not heard of Selfridges or been inside the store before. They were very excited to see it, as it is so imposing.
Headteacher Jared Brading said: “The lesson was really engaging. The children loved putting actions to words, and the sequences and repetition.”
Lily Robinson knows a giraffe when she sees one. The 3-year-old was shopping with her parents in Sainsbury’s supermarket when she spotted a loaf of bread labeled ‘Tiger Bread’ but on closer inspection, Lily insisted that the markings on the loaf were more like a giraffe’s than a tigers’. She then wrote a letter to Sainsburys stating the fact.
She received a reply two weeks later from customer manager Chris King who wrote: ‘I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea.
‘It looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t it?’
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Lily’s letter and the supermarket’s reply has now gone viral eight months later with over 150,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook after her mother posted them online.
Sainsbury’s last night said it had given in to popular demand and started selling the new loaves from yesterday.
Disenchanted
A trailer for an up and coming short film! What do you think??
How to make African crafts
