The Joy Journal

Foreword by Fearne Cotton.

The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play by Laura Brand showcases fifty engaging activities for creative, everyday playtime to encourage a connection to nature, sense of joy and bonding with your kids, while nurturing your own inner child too.

The activities are mindful, creative and, crucially, very easy things to make and do with children that you will enjoy as much as they will. From moon sand to flower soup and nature wands there are short, long, loud and quiet activities to take you from morning to evening – each with a focus on the risk factors: volume of effort vs child engagement and mess. Laura Brand has been testing these while writing and raising her two-under-two, and shares the happy accidents and road blocks she’s hit along the way in honest, open and often funny introductions to each of the exercises.

This beautiful handbook will help you to inject fun, mindfulness and craft into bath-times, rainy afternoons, long journeys and play dates and to resist (as much as possible!) the temptation to succumb to screen time. Chapters take you through the seasons, with indoor, outdoor and on-the-go activities that are easy and fun every day.

The Joy Journal will arm you with a variety of fun, focussed activities made with store cupboard and easily foraged supplies that you can turn to time and again.

About the Author

Laura Brand is an illustrator and mum of two. She shares her crafty experiments and creative ideas for everyday play on her platform The Joy Journal and has led workshops for children and adults at Fearne Cotton's Happy Place Festival, Port Elliot and others. Laura lives in the countryside with her husband, their two daughters, two dogs, two cats and chickens. Home is a place of muddy boots, abundant jars of play dough and hand-painted 'welcome' banners above the doors. With chaos and calm in equal measure, Laura aspires to guide her children in the joy of play as well as mindfulness.