A Mother's Heart
A Teacher's Mind
A Writer's Hand
It’s Bird Week! I don’t really need an excuse to take my kids birdwatching because it’s my favourite weekend activity – but I realise it’s not a usual outing for most families. If you like the idea of birding but don’t really know how to tackle it with kids, here are some tips to help you out. Continue reading
Goodbye Brisbane
Once again blogging has taken a back seat to real life, as we farewell our hometown of Brisbane. Relocating a family is a huge undertaking! We have spent the last few weeks in a whirlwind of cleaning, clearing, decluttering, and gumtree-ing in order to sell our home. At the same time, we’ve also been flying down to Sydney to find a suburb that will work for our family, and then lining up new home and school. Oh, and in between, catching up “just one more time” with all of our beautiful friends here in Brisbane. Continue reading
Bamboo Panflutes
We have bamboo in our backyard that goes wild after good rain. Out of nowhere the spears shoot up, rising way past the top of our 6ft fence, before sprouting leaves. It provides great screening, but often needs serious pruning! The kids have used the pruned bamboo spears in their play in the past. Recently we tried something new. Continue reading
Holiday Free Play
Here’s the thing about free play: it requires very, very little. Children who are good at free play know how to make their own fun. They don’t need an adult to provide them with toys. They don’t need an adult to outline the rules. They don’t need an adult to explain the process. They don’t need an adult at all really! Free play can happen any time, any where, with whatever is around. Continue reading
Childhood is Risky Business
I have previously shared some thoughts about children and risk, both here on the blog and on air. And when my daughter knocked herself out by falling while tree climbing – my opinion was challenged, but ultimately unchanged.
While I am happy to share my perspective as an educator and a mother, I am not a child psychologist myself, so I was delighted to be able to interview Dr Paula Barrett about this topic. Here are her thoughts on the risky business of childhood. Continue reading
Tin Can Play and MILO Giveaway
I’m very pleased to be an ambassador for the MILO Play Movement in 2012. Play is a child’s work, and the importance of play in children’s development cannot be underestimated.
MILO sent the SquiggleKids a fantastic play kit (final photo) to use in the backyard – and I’ve got one play kit to give away to a lucky SquiggleMum reader as well! The kit contains soccer nets, cones, a selection of different balls and even a ball pump for your kids to use outside, plus a couple of tins of MILO. Continue reading
Scientific Literacy
As a keen birdwatcher, Miss 5 knows the scientific names of a few of her favourite species. The first one she learned was Trichoglossus haematodus – the scientific name for a Rainbow Lorikeet. The second was the closely related Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus, or Scaly-breasted Lorikeet. From this early introduction to scientific names, my daughter discovered that: Continue reading
Watching Nature Unfold
Miss 5: MUM! You have to see this. It’s weird. And cool. M-U-M!
Me: I think that’s a cicada nymph. Can you see the shell underneath? We sometimes find empty cicada shells, don’t we? It looks like this little guy didn’t quite make it out. Continue reading
Playscapes – Front Page News
In case you don’t live in Brisbane’s northern suburbs, and in case you missed the pics on facebook and twitter… yes, my kids were on the front page of the local paper. I might be slightly biased but I think it’s a great photo. Not just because they’re both smiling and looking at the camera, but because they are swinging from a rope ladder in our backyard.
Rice Play
What do you do when you open a new bag of rice from the supermarket, only to find it has bugs in it?
A. Throw it out
B. Take it back to the supermarket and demand a refund.
C. Colour it and play with it! Continue reading
