A Mother's Heart
A Teacher's Mind
A Writer's Hand
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
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
Backyard Lifecycles
We {heart} our nature cubby. Not only does the leafy roof provide shade for the dirt kitchen, but it also provides a home for many garden creatures. The plant is a Monkey Rope Vine (Parsonsia straminea). Monkey Rope is common around Brisbane, and it is an interesting (and fast growing) vine thanks to its adventitious roots. These are roots which come out of the branches and stems of a plant. Monkey Rope is also one of the host plants of the Common Australian Crow (Euploea core) butterfly. Continue reading
