Holiday Play with Miss Five

Miss Five - our Grand Daughter is more than ready for school.
Keeping her occupied and captivated becomes harder and harder.
Yesterday, an impromptu visit with her Nanna  had me racking my brain for an activity we  had never done before and was challenging enough for a five year old.
Here is what I came up with.

1.  Choose the primary colours from a box of colour pencils or crayons etc.
2.  The eldest person in the room holds out the pencils.
3.  The youngest person in the room closes his/her eyes and chooses one colour pencil/crayon etc.
4.  Everybody then goes on a hunt to find as many items as possible in that chosen colour only.
5.  We made some rules about what we would classify as being okay to choose.  For example, it had to be safe (not heavy, not too big, not up high).   Set your rules as you see fit.  Don't overload children with rules.  If you don't want certain items or rooms touched exclude these.  For example if you don't want plants shredded, exclude plants (or the entire garden).
6.  Set a time limit - we searched for about 5-10 minutes but we were just two.  If five people are searching you will collect many more items in the same time. (In actual fact we ran out of items to collect and this is why I suggest using only primary colours from your pencil box).
7.  Allocate a spot to place collected items.
8.  On a sheet of large white paper arrange all items into a pattern.  (We used our blackboard table top because it was available).
9.  The youngest person/s take photographs of the arranged items.  If more than one child is doing this activity allow them to have turns, starting from the youngest up, allowing each to take say 3 or 4 photographs each.  I allowed our Grand Daughter to use our Canon Supershot under supervision and set it on an anti blur setting.  She had unlimited shots to take but she took about forty photographs before she lost steam.  More than half of these were in no way related to our activity! and she wandered off into the garden to take photos of lots of other things.  So if you have more than one child taking photographs...set boundaries and then if they wish to take more photos later make that another activity.
10. Print out small prints of the photographs and make mini cards.  On one sheet of A4 paper we were able to print out 8 photographs.  I used a matte paper (heavyweight) which is cheaper than photographic paper and provides a quality print. The photos were adhered to the front of folded mini cards.  Miss Five will now use these to write thank you notes to people who gave her gifts over Christmas.

The above photographs are cropped photos from originals taken by Miss Five and used to complete her thank you cards.  (But I must admit...the little feet and knees at the bottom of the photographs did look cute!)

Sorry we don't have photos of the cards to show you...Mum arrived before they were ready!

Day 343/366

Today was the last Crop and Swap for the year.

At Crop and Swap there is a "Share Barrow" - "For things you're happy to give away".

This is the Share Barrow at the beginning of the morning.

The Share Barrow quickly fills up during the morning and is almost empty again by the time we're all ready to leave for home.

From the Share Barrow, today I took home a magazine called Organic Growing and a potted Jerusalem artichoke.

I left a bunch of lemon grass stems, and a bunch of thyme as well as an empty egg carton.

Day 330/366

Is that a month to Christmas?

As promised here is another picture of Sydney...approaching the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The pylons, Mr Honey Pie informed me, are just for show.  

But they do house various tourist outlets.

The pylons are 89 m (292 ft) high, made from concrete and clad with granite.

They were designed by Thomas Tait, a Scottish architect.

Day 325/366

Today was the first day of the new me.

That is, I've decided to use a daily planner to make better use of  my time.

I quickly learnt that the best laid plans don't always go to plan!

My car battery died, my 12 noon appointment never showed and I never made it into the garden to try and capture the amazing bird life that's been visiting lately.

So...here's plan b...an edited close up of the pendant in the Queen Street Gallery.

As I said earlier, it's made from discarded plastic bottles.

Remember the 3 Rs

Reduce, Recycle,Reuse.

Hope you've had a fun day!

Day 323/366

Without intending to, I ended up in Woollahra today; Queen Street to be exact, right slap bang in the middle of Woollahra Festival.

My Daughter, Youngest Sister, Grand Daughter, Mr Honey Pie and I had parked our cars not far from Centennial Park to walk to Crown Street in Surry Hills. (I know, I know, it's a long way and why would you park the car there if you want to go to Crown Street - but it's a long story, a really long story).

Anyway, what we actually did is walk from Ocean Street, along Queen Street to Oxford Street and then caught the bus to Crown Street.

We meet up with extended family at our favourite vegetarian restaurant Yullis for lunch to celebrate three family birthdays.

I wish I had lots of photos to show everyone but in all honesty, not only did I not take many photos, but what I did take weren't all that good.

As part of the Woolhara Festival  retail outlets and residents partook of the festivities by displaying their wares on the foot path or in their front gardens.

The above very colourful 'pendant' caught my eye outside the Queen Street Gallery.

It is made from discarded plastic bottles and it rather appealed to me.

Lunch celebrations lasted for over three hours and then my Daughter, Sisters and Nieces went off to the Coldplay concert in Sydney. 

Other members of the family rode their bikes home.  Mr Honey Pie, our Grand Daughter and I went across the road to the park so that our GD could burn off some energy before walking down the big hill that is Foveaux Street, hopping on the train, and heading for home. 

  

Day 250/366

Cleveland Street Intensive English High School

Surry Hills Sydney

Founded 1856

Architect G A Mansfield

In the Gothic Revival Style

Day 245/366

First day of spring and the sun shone.

The sun shone even though it snowed last night.

The sky gleamed blue, the wind slowed to a breeze and the sun shone some more.

We slept longer than usual then drank coffee made with freshly roasted and ground beans.

We visited the growers’ markets, purchased fresh fruit, newly harvested vegetables, spring lamb and organic poultry from local farmers.

We marvelled at the splendid lemon scented gums and sat with Daughter and Grand Daughter and drank more coffee.

We planted shrubs in the garden while the sun continued to shine.

When the sun retired we dined on succulent roast chicken, savoury roast vegetables and finished off the meal with our favourite vanilla ice cream.

How did you celebrate the first day of Spring?

Day 194/366

Cleveland House 1823

Surry Hills

This could be the oldest still standing house in Sydney.

A Regency style gentleman's residence.

Built by Daniel Cooper.

Designed by Francis Greenway.

Both Cooper (business man) and Greenway (architect) were deported to New South Wales as convicts, later to be emancipated and become successful in their own right.

The gardens were refurbished around 2008 if I remember rightly.

There used to be a port wine magnolia in the garden bed at the front of the far corner of the verandah.

This has been removed and replaced with a less fragrant plant with which I'm not familiar.

The New South Wales government is currently repairing the verandah wall and sandstone flagging.  

14.7.12 I found this article from 2010 referring to the above property.

Repairs Ordered On Sydney's Oldest House.

Day 193/366

Mr Honey Pie and I were surprised at breakfast by a visit from a flock of birds.

This is less than half of the total number of birds that perched themselves outside our front windows.

I have learned by experience that the moment you put up a camera before a wild bird, that is the same moment the bird flies away.

Being so unprepared, I opted for the point and shoot camera. Nor did I even bother to venture outside onto the verandah.

So, this photograph is opportunistic, taken through a window and it is cropped and highly edited.

But I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed the visit.

(By the way, I've no idea what these birds are called...a native dove or pigeon me thinks.  Their visits are very seasonal, we see them for a few weeks each year and then that's it, they're gone.  Never have we seen so many in one go ... eight?)

Day 188/366

On the days that I commute to work, I look out the train window and watch the sun's effects on the world outside.

This week, there have been some spectacular sunrises.

I love it most when the mist is rising from the valleys.

It pains me though, that I can't find a vantage point to photograph the heavenly scenes before me because I'm in the train.

This morning, I couldn't resist and took pot luck through the train window.

Yes, yes, I know...I should get up earlier and take photos before catching my train. 

As it is, I set my alarm for six o'clock to catch the seven twenty four train.

Here's the bottom line: I'm not a morning person!

 Witnessing the sunrise these past few weeks has triggered flashbacks to the months we spent on the road, two years ago, and waking to the wonderful variety of sunrises as we travelled around Australia.

Most mornings, this is what urged me out of bed before my usual hour.

I'm thinking we're overdue for a camping holiday!

Seriously.

Day 180/366

Have you heard of yarn bombing?

It is the new 'urban art', an 'acceptable' form of graffiti. (But still illegal?)

Said to have originated in the Netherlands in 2004, yarn bombing, guerrilla knitting, yarn storming, or urban knitting, has since spread internationally.

I found this colourfully decorated tree across the street from my office in Surry Hills, Sydney. 

Yarn bombing does not only involve trees but any structure that it's possible to wrap in knitted, crocheted, or wrapped yarn.

Day 173/366

I didn't manage to take any photos today.

The weather was dreary, work is crazy, and I'm feeling down.

So here a photo of last night's sunset to cheer everybody up.

I took this out of our upstairs loft studio window as our little house sits on the side of a hill.  The sunsets have moved a bit to the north-west and there's no good vantage point from our verandah. 

This is an unedited photograph taken on a point and shoot camera.

Day 34/366

Mr Honey Pie received a birthday present from Eldest son...A Canon Supershot extremely compact camera.

I took the above photograph with it.

Another, grey, wet, miserable day by the way.