Going on an Alphabet Hunt

So you already know how much the girls and I like to step out for a daily walk to enjoy our surrounding neighbourhood and mixing it up ocassionally has seemed to be the key to help keep our walks fun and interesting. Sometimes we just walk and sometimes Miss M takes her scooter for a ride along the tracks. Sometimes I try and run for a little while (and I mean little - I'm getting there!) and sometimes we play games.

Recently Miss M has shown a great interest in words. She likes to know what they say, what letter they begin with and has started trying to write a few of them. I thought I'd follow this interest up so on our last walk we played a game of Alphabet Hunt. You know the game you play in the car on long, long trips! It's also great for little Miss H to get in on the action and hear words being tossed around. It's a whole lot of fun for all of us!

We started our hunt at the letter A which we found nearby on a For Sale sign. From there we checked out letter boxes, street + road signs, car registration plates and tags and community billboards as we made our way through the alphabet. For each letter we found, we talked about words that started with it.

We worked together as a team which was great and almost got to the end of our hunt. Our walk was long enough that we found everything up to the letter Y but rain began to fall softly and there was no way we were going inside if we hadn't found the letter Z (No one here is competitive!! He he he!!).

We did a quick check in our letterbox and what did we find? A local newspaper, so we quickly searched through its pages and it wasn't long before we found the letter Z. Our hunt was complete and we'd had a great time doing it.

Do you have some games to play as you walk and talk with your kids? What are they? Let's share some ideas.

Fun and Free - Queen's Park is the Place to Be!

After a week of rain and sickness we have been keen to get out of the house and into some sunshine. This journey took us a little away from home to the City of Ipswich where we enjoyed a morning at Queen's Park. I've blogged about Queen's Park before but not every aspect of it. So much of Queen's Park is great that's it's hard to talk about all of it at once!

There's a bigger than big playground with equipment to suit all ages and stages of gross motor capabilities as well as a wonderful cafe with a huge deck overlooking the park lands. Today however I want to talk about the incredible Nature Centre.

Ipswich is about half an hour out from the western suburbs of Brisbane and you'll find Queen's Park just off Brisbane Rd, in Goleby Ave, as you nearer the heart of Ipswich. The Centre is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9am - 3.45pm, Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays from 9am - 4.30pm and it's closed on Christmas Day.

To see the animals in the Nature Centre is absolutely free but the opportunity for a donation to be given to keep the exhibit happening is available at the entrance. All the animals are cared for daily by wonderful wildlife carers. The tracks in the centre lead you past cockatoos, swans, wallabies, lizards, emus, kangaroos, dingos, wombats and snakes, just to name a few animals.

I absolutely love the wombats! It's a pretty special thing if you see them out walking around rather than sleeping as they are often doing. I guess they're allowed to! The spotted quoll and bilbys are also a sight to see. The bilbys are a newish addition to the Nature Centre and they can be found in their dark cave home.

The animal list doesn't stop there. As you make your way around the tracks there's a huge bird avery to walk inside, just follow the track around. And to finish off the walk you'll discover a barnyard of baby farm animals which are fed at 11.30 and 3.00pm. This time on our visit we saw a calf, some chicks and geese but at other times we have seen cute little piglets and a kid (baby goat) too.

We almost did everything on our trip to Queen's Park during this visit. We enjoyed a lovely morning tea together, saw the animals, had lunch at the cafe and finished off with a big play in the playground. This park never lets us get bored - there's a lot to see and do! If you live in Brisbane, treat yourself and take a trek out to Ipswich to see the Queen's Park Nature Centre.

Going on a Photo Hunt

Since being at our new house we have enjoyed going for walks most days. Just down the end of our street is a parkland with a bike track winding around it which leads into the neighbouring suburbs. We live in an area with beautiful old queenslanders and post war homes as well as striking new modern homes. If you go to the end of our street and take the bike track you'll find yourself walking beside a field with "our" two friendly horses in it. Not that we own them, I think by the amount of visits they get from the community everyone probably thinks they own them! I bet they have lots of different names!

We never have to walk the same way as there are lots of ways to walk and many lovely things to see. Go one way and you'll end up at the train station and shops. Go another and you'll see beautiful tree lined streets. I LOVE where we live so much!

Walking brings a lot of joy to the girls and I and we really only need ourselves, the double pram, walking shoes, hat and sunscreen for us to have a great time. Yesterday however, to add to the fun we did a photo hunt. Miss M (3) packed her camera which is a $20 digital camera we picked up from Target for Christmas and I asked her to take photos of anything interesting she saw along the way. She spent the walk stopping the pram to take many pictures. So here's some of our walk through Miss M's eyes.

If your child doesn't have a kiddy camera you can certainly still do this activity. Take your own camera along and work on taking photos together with your kids. The beauty of photography today is that you can click click click as much as you like and see the photos almost straight away once they've been put on the computer.

To extend this activity you could....

• Print out the photos for a cutting and gluing experience
• Keep a scrapbook with all the photos in it. Collect some each time you go for a walk.
• Ask the child to look for houses, colours, animals, flowers or shapes - be specific and narrow down the hunt.

What interesting things do you and your kids like to see in your neighbourhood?

Pumpkin Soup

A little bit of soup can be perfect, especially with all the rain we've been getting here in Brisbane. The winner in our house is pumpkin soup. It's definitely a favourite for me because it's packed with flavour, it takes little effort to cook and makes heaps so there's always leftovers to stick in the freezer for another no effort meal or two. Let me share our very simple recipe with you....

Pumpkin Soup

You will need...

1 onion
2 potatoes
1 pumpkin - medium size
2 litres chicken stock

Cut up the pumpkin - you can either keep skin on or off but be sure to wash the skin if you're keeping it.

Peel and roughly chop the potatoes.

Peel and roughly chop the onions.

Put all the vegetables into a large pot with the lid.

Cook on the stove top on high heat until the vegetables are soft.

Take off the heat and cool.

Wizz the vegetables and stock in a blender until smooth.

The soup will be delicious at this stage but if you want to be a little bit naughty you can add about 1/2 a cup of cream.

Tastes even better when you serve it with crusty or garlic/ herb bread.

Here's our little pumpkin after she has eaten a bowl of her favourite, Mum's pumpkin soup. As you can see, it really is delicious!

When There's Nothing Left......

......in the brain that is! (or the resources) Sometimes on a day like today when we are stuck inside because of wet weather, it's just nice to be able to fall back on some old favourite regular art activities. If you're a reader of BBM you would know that the girls and I enjoy doing art activities of all kinds but today I really couldn't think of a single activity to do so we enjoyed some collage together. The great thing about collage is that it can be so different every time you do it. There are so many interesting textures and shapes of things that can be included. Check out www.artfulparent@typepad.com for some great collage ideas.




Some art activities I like to have available for the girls are...

• drawing - chalk, crayons, thick + thin felt pens, pencils, paper, envelopes, coloured paper, paper plates
• cutting
• glueing
• play dough - great to have some in the fridge
• threading

My ultimate goal however is to have a collage trolley so the girls can access the art items easily but that can wait a little until Miss H is older. For now though, the next thing I'd like to achieve is a "useful box' so I can add box construction to the list. Watch out for that blog!

What are the ready to go, always available, creative activities you have for your kids to do? It would be great to share some ideas here on BusyBrissyMum.