Wees, Xmas Trees, Crochet and Cubs

Today there was (from end to start)

Me exhausted, at the end of a long day, cleaning up a mega wee accident (it was even going in the hair dryer!), and bathing small Bowerbird, a tired and grumpy Bowerbird mumma missing the help of Bowerbird dad who is away. Must tell him I appreciate him more and apologise for my crankiness to the kids in the morning.

A Cub Scouts performance and end of year celebration, a small fire, cute little faces singing Christmas carols, and beautiful hand made instruments and props.

A mega craft day. I learnt how to crochet (well began to) with Christine at a wonderful crafting morning with her and vegie growing friend Beth - see below my first attempt with wonky stitches that took me most of the day to produce, Christine was a wonderful teacher and very patient. Not only that, she treated us to divine home made bread and an amazing raspberry clafoutis. Beth made some beautiful toys that were great to watch take shape and Christine whipped up gorgeous Hessian decorations.

Christmas Joy. Our elf on the shelf greeted the children this morning hanging from Xmas lights.  The children are besotted with this magical creature who comes alive at night and gets up to mischief.  Little Bowerbird is playing with him in her dolls house and middle Bowerbird wants a video camera set up to see what he gets up to.

 We finally got our tree dressed and other decorations up this weekend.

 
Our pine tree is a weedy wild specimen.  Each year we like to go on a family hunt for the perfect weedy pine to chop down for our Christmas tree.  They're free and good to take out of our bushland. This one was huge and took a lot of chopping to be small enough to fit inside. We have a very eclectic mix of decorations - vintage, Indonesian, hand crafted and new.

I'm a sucker for a Xmas light - these are solar and come on when it gets dark.

Big Bowerbird daughter and I got a Blue Bowerbird twig tree happening, and she made a blue angel decoration for it.  Note our matching twiggy vase.

Christine at Slow Living Essentials has made a lovely twig wishing tree.  We got a big tree happening to make wishes on at school but I like the idea of doing Christmas wishes at home too.

The gourmet jelly beans hiding in here are a huge hit, and the old cracker jokes still get a bit of a laugh.  Today there was instructions to look under the tree - there were 3 new decorations to add to the Christmas tree (see felted creations above) - bought from a lovely fair trade shop in Sunbury that makes you feel good about spending.

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner, I'd love to start December again and do it slowly, more making less buying.  Perhaps a new years resolution for next year.

Cubs, Wildflowers, and The List

I volunteered to do a sunset wildflower walk with around 50 cubs on Monday - my daughter joined our local group about a year ago.  First I went and checked out the site, it's a great year for wildflowers, and they were in abundance.  Then I started wondering how I was going to point things out, and engage 50 kids and their accompanying volunteers. The bush is a big space and kids like to roam and wander - a worthwhile activity in itself but not exactly the evenings objective.

Then I had the small genius of giving them a little list, and telling them to be bush detectives. There were no accompanying pictures.

The list

Bracken

Trigger Plant

Moss

Mushrooms

Yam Daisy

Sundews

Milk Maids

Purple Flax Lily

Happy Wanderer

Blue Bells

Gum nuts

Spider web

Chocolate Lily

Wattle Mat Rush

Wallaby Grass

Cherry Ballart

Those little bits of paper worked! The kids really got into marking everything off and wanted to know what everything was. So they were asking questions of me rather than me trying to convey information to a moving crowd. They had no pencils but were folding or punching a hole by the name with a stick. I had no idea how determined they would become - Wallaby Grass of all things proved evasive until we found some right outside the scout Hall. They really tested my plant identification skills! On the list were a few easy things to make the task achievable, a few things kids might know, and then some things most children wouldn't recognise.  By the end the kids were pointing at things and telling me the names, and the adults seemed to really enjoy the flower hunt too.  It really stopped the group from surging forward in a hurry. The only thing I would change, would be to add a few more things to the list, as some kids were a bit disappointed when they found something new and it wasn't there to tick off.  By the end of the day I felt like I'd achieved the Scout motto -

For more great ideas of things to do with kids visit

Charcoal Leaf Rubbings

Grab charcoal (the free from the fireplace kind), paper and leaves.

Big group of cubs took to it with relish, writing the names of the plants in charcoal next to the leaf.  The cubs were working towards their naturalist badge.

There is something infinitely more pleasurable in using raw charcoal rather than crayons or pencils for this activity.  The charcoal needs rubbing until smooth on one side so it doesn't catch on the paper.  It's also good for rubbing on faces as war paint.  Great way to learn about different leaf shapes,textures and looking closely at plants.

The children also learnt about seeds and had a great time blowing artichoke seeds to see who could keep theirs in the air the longest, and throwing maple leaf seeds and watching them spin like helicopters.