The Big Rocking Horse

By Bec,

In the Adelaide Hills we have The Big Rocking Horse. You can climb the horse (for a minimal cost of $2), and see the animals (bags of food also $2). There are picnic areas so you can bring your own food, or purchase from the cafe!  Such a wonderful family outing!

Books books and more books!

By Bec,

A favourite activity in our household is reading together.

We have LOTS of books.

Along with the bookcase full, my son has a small bookcase in his room full of books and my daughter has about 20 or so books always in her room.  On top of what we own, we are regular library visitors.  At our latest library visit (last Saturday) we borrowed 21, yes that's right 21 books.

You have got to love the library.  It's a great outing.  We have a routine, choose our DVDs, choose our toys, then our books.  Once we have chosen our books we sit down and read them on the comfy couches before borrowing (we didn't read all 21 on our latest visit!!).

Of course they have their favourites - my daughter's (2 year old) favourites at the moment are:

• Tiger in a Pink Hat
• Best Friend for Fofa
• Koala Lou
• Boo to a Goose, and
• The Wheels on the Bus

My son's (nearly 5) favourites are:

• Engelbert Sneem and his Dream Vaccuum Cleaner
• Dr Seuses books
• Aussie Bites and Aussie Nibbles

He has just started getting into the shorter chapter books.

Reading out loud to kids has so many benefits.  One of the major ones for me is the bonding time we get.  Every day we are home I will get asked a few times by each child to "read me this book".  We sit together and have some cuddles whilst reading.  Savannah gets around 5-6 books before bed each night, Hunter would get a few less as his are longer! 

Mem Fox (a well known Australian Children's author) has given some tips to reading aloud.

Mem Fox’s Ten Read Aloud Commandments

1. Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud.

2. Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read.

3. Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.

4. Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.

5. Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time.

6. Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games.

7. Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.

8. Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.

9. Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books.

10. Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.
(source http://www.memfox.com.au/)

How often do you read to your kids?

Cupcake decorating

By Bec

So you have seen us making cakes, now its time to see our cupcake decorating!  We had some friends around and decided to make a sweet mess!  I made up 6 different colours of icing and we got lots of lollies and made lots of exciting cupcakes!  I'm going to leave you with a series of pictures to see how much fun it was!

Just a note - if you don't like mess - then this activity is NOT for you!!

Extra curricular activities

By Bec

Savannah practising her ballet!

It’s a commonly asked question – how many planned/extra curricular activities should our kids do? These days there are so many choices for our kids, music, sport, craft, languages. And once you can decide on a type, there are then so many choices and companies within – piano, guitar, singing, dancing, karate, AFL, kindergym, soccer, swimming, French and the list goes on.

We all want the best for our children, and often feel they get the most out of life by having more experiences. I think sometimes we can go too far. Kids need to be kids, and they learn just as much by being with us (their parents), playing and exploring.

I realised one Friday morning, when I was trying to rush my children to get ready so we could go out for yet another planned activity (can’t remember what this actual activity was), that the kids just want some time to chill and play with their toys. My son was being un-cooperative and was just playing with his toys. My kids are in childcare/kindy 4 days per week, so doesn’t leave much time for just chilling!! I’ve avoided after childcare/kindy activities so far, but I’m sure there will be a few more sneak in when my son starts school.

My children now have 1 extra curricular activity each. I feel it’s important they do something they really enjoy, so we stopped swimming. My son wasn’t enjoying it. My son currently participates in Get Active Sports and my daughter does Bebe Ballet.

Get Active Sports is fantastic as it’s a 6 week program – plenty long enough for my son – and they do a different sport each term. 6 weeks is long enough to work out if you like a sport, but not too long that if you don’t like it you are doing it forever. This year he has done tennis (not his thing), AFL (he enjoyed this) and next term starts soccer. He gets a free racquet/ball at the first class of each term.

I started my daughter in ballet as a replacement activity for KinderGym. She was really enjoying KinderGym, but my work schedules meant I wasn’t available on KinderGym days. Bebe Ballet was one which took girls as young as 18 months. We started when she was around 21 months in term 1 this year. The progression she has made in these 2 terms is amazing. I was ready to take her out after the first term as she didn’t pay much attention – I’m glad I didn’t, as now, just a term later she is doing great. She loves walking on her tippy toes (they are practicing tight rope walking for the concert) and practices at home.

How many extra curricular activities do your children do a week and what are they?

Amazing Drumming Monkeys

By Bec

We have had the pleasure of checking out the Amazing Drumming Monkeys on numerous occassions - we have even travelled to country South Australia to see them.  Most recently we saw them last weekend when they had a performance in the Adelaide mall.  My kids absolutely loved them!  They are drumming puppet monkeys - Congo and Bongo and provide messages of sustainability in a fun, entertaining way!  They get you up and dancing and just having fun!

Their songs are so catchy, even I enjoy listening to them.  At the end of the show my 4 year old asked for a DVD, so we ended up buying the DVD and CD.  It's a CD I enjoy listening to in the car! 

Check out their website to see some of their songs and to see where they will be performing.  If they aren't going to be near you anytime soon, you can always purchase a DVD!!

Amazing Drumming Monkeys

Here is us doing the Monky dance!!

CARS Truck Tour 2011

By Bec

With the movie Cars 2 due to be released soon my hubby and 4 year old are bursting out of their boots. They loved the first Cars movie (hubby more so than my son I think) and are both very excited to see the second one.  With that in mind we were all very excited when we heard that MACK the Transporter was going on a Truck Tour.

We got there just after 12 noon when they opened, and lined up to get in.  Once we were in, there were different activities to do.  First we lined up to drive the slot cars.  Savannah decided not to do this, but Hunter had fun. 

Slot cars with Dad.

Next they had a 3 minute ride on the go karts.  These were great, they had stop signs, give-way signs, red/green lights and roads to follow.  The kids stopped at the appropriate times, so gave them an idea of road rules.  The little legs found it hard to reach the pedals so needed a parent to push. Savannah made it difficult as she was steering all over the place (but of course wouldn't let Mummy help steer).  Hunter could reach the pedals so he was good on his own.


Savannah - go kart

Hunter - go kart

And they got a photo with the piston cup!  

The piston cup - brother, sister and cousin!

There was also a colouring in tent - where there were lots of CARS related colouring sheets.  Hunter did one in the tent and we took one of each home and Hunter spent the afternoon at home colouring.  One of them involved making a piston cup, so involved colouring, cutting and sticking.  Hunter really enjoyed this one at home.  And for the older kids, you could line up to get on MACK and play a playstation game.  All these activities were free of charge.

If you wanted to spend money, you could get your photo taken with a CARS theme background, and they had a merchandise stand with show bags and CARS plush toys.  I was quite happy that we walked away without spending any money!!!

It was definitely worth a trip.  We were there about an hour all up - but an enjoyable hour. 

The truck tour is still happening in various places around Australia, so to find out more about the truck tour and to see if there is one near you click here.