In the garden...

Sometimes I curse having such a large yard.  We haven't gotten around to much of the landscaping we'd planned when we first bought the house 5 years ago, and often it just looks like a weedy mess.  But it never ceases to provide things to explore, explain and play with.

Geekling talking to a praying mantis we caught and kept for a 'sleep over'.  Any bugs we catch have a maximum one night stay.

Here's a little more about our bug catcher and other bugs we've had visit

Feeling a snail crawling on the skin

 Dancing with a "ribbon leaf" (lemongrass) on the trampoline

Eggs from our very own chickens

Other garden delights include:

• blowing gently on a spider on his web to make him 'dance'
• finding the odd brightly coloured gum leaf in our mostly non-deciduous yard
• picking flowers and leaves and using them in crafts or in the bath
• smelling and tasting herbs and vegies from our vegie patch
• playing fetch with our dog
• weeding and feeding the weeds to the chickens
• watering plants
• painting the fence with water... the list goes on!

GoMA "Obliteration Room" and "We Miss You Magic Land" exhibits

GoMA has a couple of fantastic kids exhibits on at the moment, and best of all they are FREE!

First we saw "The Obliteration Room" by Yayoi Kusama - a home environment painted bright white, with children and adults given a sheet of coloured circle stickers and invited to place them wherever they wished.

 "Stick!"

The exhibit included a working piano!

You can see more of the dramatic transformation here.

The "We Miss You Magic Land!" exhibit was adorable but a bit 'old' for Geekling, as it was quite detailed and delicate, and he wasn't allowed to touch it.

 One of the scenes

Geekling did enjoy the computer program - you can create an online scene like the ones in the exhibit, including photographs of yourself as a character in it.

What Geekling loved most about this exhibit was jumping on the big pillows and on his daddy.

These exhibits are on until 12 March 2012.

Free family day out - Southbank

A couple of weeks ago during the Brisbane Festival we took a lovely family trip to the city and South Bank.  Aside from dinner, all our activities were free!

We parked at my work in the CBD and walked over the Victoria Bridge to South Bank.

... where visited the museum...

 The touch parts had seen better days but Geekling still loved them

One Cute-a-sauras and Daddy-rex

Geekling loved the ocean room, and the taxidermied animals.  There was a possum at the enquiries counter that the attendant even took out of the perspex box to let him pet until he tried to pull its tail!  He declared it was a "cat" and was thoroughly delighted to touch it.

We then had another look at the Liquid Interactive Light Scope, before taking a Citycat back over the river.

We went to dinner at Little Singapore, where Geekling enjoyed eating noodles from chopsticks and more or less inhaled my roti.

Then it was back over the river to South Bank for gelato followed by the Santos City of Lights show.  Geekling was absolutely enthralled at the start of the light show but had lost interest by the end.

Sadly, the Liquid Interactive Light Scope and Santos Light Show are both over (I just hadn't gotten around to posting this earlier as I had to find my camera cable to upload the photos), but I am sure there will be another festival or cultural celebration soon that we can make a day or an evening of.

Brisbane Festival Liquid Interactive Light Scope Tunnel

As part of the Brisbane Festival running at the moment, a psychadelic liquid interactive light scope tunnel has been set up at South Bank near the Cultural Centre and QPAC.  It uses a number of xbox Kinect devices, mirrored roof and floor and is rather like being inside a kalidescope!  Geekling and his friend Lumpy visited recently during a play-date at South Bank and absolutely loved it!

Special thank you to Lumpy's mum for allowing me to use her photographs - they are a refreshing change from the phone camera photos I usually post!

Its free to visit but if you want to catch it you had better hurry - its last day is this Sunday 24 September 2011!  It is open from 9am - 9:30pm.

Update: Lumpy's mum has started her own blog - visit her at http://mylumpydays.blogspot.com/ for fun and frugal toddler activities

Feeding ducks (and swans, and eels, and turtles...)

One of my fondest childhood memories was going to the "Bats and Swans" park in Melbourne in an afternoon, where we'd feed black swans and then head home when the bats came out to play.  We've taken Geekling to feed ducks at Caboolture a few times before, but I cannot describe how embarrassingly excited I was when feeding ducks at North Lakes and some black swans appeared to join the fun!

We were also joined by some turtles and eels...

And of course Geekling couldn't pass up a turn on the swing...

We watched some people sail remote controlled boats...

and practiced climbing stairs...

We went back again this weekend and not only did the swans join us, but they were accompanied by their adorable fluffy cygnets!

Geekling's favourite book "What are you?" shows a cygnet transforming to a swan, and we also have the classic "Ugly Duckling" story, so I made sure to include these in our bedtime reading.

Free activity sheets & Montessori materials online in Australia

I came across Bright Tomato Learning on How We Montessori, and although the materials are not cheap (most Montessori materials are either expensive or shipping them from where they are would be), I am thrilled to find an Aussie web based supplier.  They do have some very reasonably priced items though, and I note they also sell the touch tablets I have previously posted about.

They also have a fabulous page of free printable downloads - activity sheets, matching activities and traceable alphabet.  Geekling is a little young for these - I can't wait to engage him with these things one day.

8 Terrific Toddler Activities

Somewhere in my Blog reading I came across a link to this fabulous post from Money Saving Mom (my sincerest apologies for not crediting the Blog I found it from).  It features 8 terrific toddler activities - my personal favourite is the peanut butter playdough (external link from the bottom idea)!  As the recipe is similar to the one I use for peanut butter cookies, I am thinking I might try to make a hybrid recipe that Geekling can play with, then we can bake!  Will let you know how it goes!

Local Library Trip

I love public libraries, mostly because I love books and love saving money by borrowing them free instead of paying for them.  Geekling also loves books (in fact that is something of an understatement!), and of course loves exploring new places and the library had moved and renovated since our last visit so a trip the the local public library was a perfect way to spend some time on a Sunday afternoon.

Their kids area is fabulous, Geekling enjoyed toddling over to the shelves and grabbing a book then toddling back to a nice open spot on the floor to 'read'.  They also had a few old-school bead on a wire toys (as seen behind Geekling, above), lots of kid sized furniture and a station for colouring in.  There was a little kids nook full of pillows but I think Hubby enjoyed flopping in the pillows more than Geekling!

The library also had a couple of toddler-sized computers, which Geekling enjoyed most of all!  They were loaded with some kind of educational software which included information about cats - it was a big hit as Geekling is near-obsessed with cats!

GoMA 21st Century Kids Exhibit - Geekling's first Museum trip!

Hubby has been on holidays this week, and while he still hasn't uploaded some gorgeous photos of Little G that I wish to decorate this blog with he DID take Geekling on his first museum trip yesterday.

The Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane is running a 21st Century Kids exhibit until 26 April 2011 - it looks like so much fun!  I desperately wanted to take Geekling myself, but had to sit back and let Hubby have this experience as I have well and truly had my share and it was high time they got to do something together, just the boys.  Most the exhibits are interactive to some degree, but a little too 'old' for Geekling.  He loved looking around at the museum, and enjoyed trying to get involved although some of the exhibits like the ribbon wall (with pins) and Lego city (small parts he kept trying to put in his mouth) weren't really appropriate.

They did enjoy an interactive exhibit where you put a camera device atop your child's head which records things from their point of view while they crawl or run about.  Sadly, the software that allows you to then email that footage home to yourself (or to a jealous mummy at work) wasn't working.

There is also an exhibit that is basically a room full of balloons - Hubby was running short of time so they didn't make it to this part, which is a shame because Geekling would have LOVED it.  But that's ok, it's a good excuse for Mumma to take him back again!

GoMA is generally free, including this exhibit.  They also normally have a toddler/kiddies art section downstairs but I think it is still damaged from the January floods.

Hubby didn't capture any pictures but here are a couple of blogs and sites that have:

21st Century Kids Exhibit Photos at www.abc.net.au