Cr#p my kid makes…

I have been having something of an existential crisis, again. I went to an art school years ago and have a zillion ideas. Recently I went to a gallery and it had an exhibition of the finalists in The Wallace award. I am arrogant enough (confident in my ideas and of my ability to execute…

Watching Tv

We are soooo tried, I’ve hardly slept!  I’m so tired, we NEED to watch TV (accompanied by some over the top acting ) Mummy? Of course I say “er NO” leading to foot stamping and complaining. How there isn’t anything else to do, really there isn’t. So her friend and I start a game of…

When a holiday programme is school

I really like the holiday programme I’m involved in. It’s how I think school should work… we have but three rules. Respect yourself and others. Respect our environment and equipment Respect play Aka the playcentre ‘rules’ which cover everything from going to the loo, keeping warm, staying inside the cones (boundary), saws, games, not being…

Lolly maths

I hate lollies, not so much them but the whole performance. The asking, begging, deciding what to have (at our old dairy it was mostly OK as Jitish would tease the kids and get them to work out what they could get, he seemed to get the whole process) then there is the weight on…

“The road of life…”

Initially this was just a road for a remote controlled car, actually the ramp was made first which led to the road being made. They called it “the track of life” which led on to more ideas and more building… This became one of life’s “challenges”. This is an “obstacle”. A hard bit… This is…

going on Trips

Recently we have been on a few organised trips/events? Things where there is some other adult telling you stuff and being the person who knows. Other people have organised these and there were 3 in one week. We have done 1: Stream Care: This is a model of a water catchment. Helena was most proud…

Life is good

So we volunteered for DoC for a week. We had to collect campground fees for two camp sites in the late afternoon and evenings but most of the days were ours so what did we do? Hiking and biking… well we had to drop the truck off in the morning and walk back to our…

Look at that…

We brought some clear tubing today and it fitted perfectly on some glass bottles that I put food colouring in -initially just to pour down the tube but when the hose fitted so sungly into the bottles the game changed…. so there is 2 meters of tube with a bottle at each end with a…

the great loquat war

This is hours of work….. First there was the walk with a stool, as you do, up the road to raid the low hanging branches of a loquat tree (as identified by a child) that hangs over the footpath. This required conversations about baskets, relitive size of baskets – big scale negotiations, which soft toys…

Long term projects…

I hate them… Well not all of them, and it’s more the deciding which are the ones to follow through with. We are doing the KCC 30 challenges. KCC is the Kids Conservation Club and the challenges are due to it being the 30th anniversary of Forest and Bird. The challenge in question is the…