• Milky Way Cars
• Jelly Shots
• Mini Hot Dogs and Mini Hamburgers
• Individual Lunch Boxes

For this age group I have a personal preference for having activities for the kids rather than games. Sharing and turn taking for 2 to 3 year olds is a developing skill. Expecting co-operation for intricate games in the exciting setting of a birthday party is a big ask. It is certainly possible, but I have lent towards activity based parties where the kids can create and move about with greater freedom.

For Babaganouski’s 3rd birthday party the theme was loosely based on construction and I had three key activities through out the 1.5 hour duration of the party.

Construction

This was the first activity for kids to do upon arrival. I went to the fabulous Reverse Art Truck and purchased a large garbage bag full of odds and ends for the kids to construct with. If you aren’t familiar with the Reverse Art Truck it is located in Ringwood (Melbourne) and is a non profit organization which collects rejects, seconds and factory offcuts for distribution to schools, early learning centres, community groups and individuals.

The biggest hit by far was the foam shapes with sticky backing. The kids just had to peel off the back and stick them on to the cardboard off cuts They could stick them together like bricks and made all sorts of buildings etc. The first photo at the top was taken after the party and shows only the remnants of what was left of this popular material.

Hammering

Thankfully the rain held off, so we could then go outside for the next activity. (Some kids chose to stay inside and kept working on their constructions which was also fine.) When our kids have turned two they have all received their own mini toolbox, complete with real hammer, nails, screwdrivers, screws, nuts and bolts. I used these hammers and bought a couple of extra small hammers from the $2 shop.

You can see that the object that they are hammering into is and part of an old tree stump. I had three of these, all of which have been weathered, so are very easy surfaces to hammer into. The nail that we used are called Clouts. They have a very large head, so make it easier for the little ones to hit.

Just in case you were wondering, there were 6 hammers and there were no accidents!

Chalk Drawing and Water Painting

As we had more children than hammers and wood, I also had chalk for the children to draw on the bricks with. I had along side this set up 3 buckets of water and numerous paint brushes (also from $2 shop). The kids could either paint off their chalk drawings or just use the water to paint the bricks.

After this it was back inside for their individual lunch boxes and honeycomb ice cream birthday cake. I think 1.5 hours is definitely long enough for a three year old birthday party - especially for mum!

Technorati Tags: Children's Activities, children's birthday party, parenting

It is incredibly true that time flies when you are having fun! We are now half way through 2009 and almost half way through the first year of our new baby’s life (he is 5 months already!). So it is time to review what I have been doing and what I want to do. This month, I have done a quick monthly review and then will post close after my half yearly review looking at the bigger picture with our family goals for the year.

Review of Key Tasks For June

1. Review My Priorities.

I would have to say that this is still a work in progress. I still am trying to squeeze too much in to the available time I have, so need to become more self disciplined about the extra activities that I take on board.

2. Make it to the gym 3 times a week.

Achieved for June. I already had 2 set sessions that I would go to and had one floating. I found that the floating session never happened. That session is now either Tue morning or Tue evening depending on the needs of the baby.

3. Audit and restock the pantry.

Completed. (Will probably need to be restocked again after school holidays though!)

4. Visit the Art Gallery with the children.

We did finally go and see the John Brack exhibition (I wrote about it here if you are interested.)

Key Tasks For July

1. School Craft Group

I have recently become responsible for co-ordinating the school craft school for the end of the year and next year’s school fair. I am not a particularly good crafter. (My very dear friend Cath at mobblegobble is and she helps me a lot on my personal crafty stuff.) But this role is more about co-ordination and organisation, which I am pretty comfortable with !

At my children’s school there is an established group of very clever crafters, who will be leaving the school in the next year or two. My aim is to develop the skills of people like myself by co-ordinating and running some “MasterCrafter” sessions, so they can teach us their stuff! (My husband has delicately pointed out to me, that this new task is in direct opposition to trying to slow things down and keep my priorities balanced - I do struggle with this.)

2. Use the massage voucher that I have.

This was a lovely Christmas gift from my in-laws and it will expire soon if I do not use it.

3. Begin my Christmas in July preparations.

Last year in July I began doing some preliminary planning for Christmas. The key task was making homemade gifts. The end of the year is an incredibly busy time for us - two birthdays, end of school, Christmas functions etc, so it was fantastic when December rolled around last year and I had a stock pile of goodies already made. This July I intend to do the same.

4. Rest and have fun in the school holidays.

I am one of those mums that love school holidays. I love the more leisurely pace of the mornings, love that I don’t have to continually wake the baby to do school pick ups and that I don’t have to run around the suburbs 4 out of 5 afternoons for after school activities. So I am looking forward to resting a bit more and having some fun with the kids

Technorati Tags: family budget, goals, review

June Review - Family’s Goals for 2009

1. Smooth transition adding our newest family member.

This actually went better than I could have imagined. Not only does the baby bring me the most amazing joy and satisfaction, but he brings immense happiness to his siblings. There are however moments when there are extreme acts of neediness from the 3 year old, for example wanting me to pick him up and carry him, when he can quite clearly see that I am carrying the baby, but they are infrequent and he is happy just to be sitting right next (read almost on top of) me when I am breastfeeding him.


2. Ensure Possum’s first school year is a positive experience.

Possum loves school and in the last few weeks of term 2, you could really see a learning explosion for her. In the last few weeks of term 2 you could also see extreme tiredness in the little one as well. The second last Friday of term, she fell asleep on her bed at 5pm and slept through until 7am the next morning.

I will need to continue to work on keeping her well rested on week ends, so that she has the energy to learn and enjoy herself at school. I also need to continue supporting her early literacy and numeracy achievements at school with informal, fun reinforcement at home.


3. Complete my project.

At this stage, I think I will struggle to have it completed by the end of the year. Mr I and I are currently looking at him taking small bursts of leave and being the primary carer during the day, so I can spend more extended hours on the project.

4. Encourage further (age appropriate) independence in my children.

This has been going along quite well. I have been posting the key achievements in increasing the kids independence through out the year. The 3 year old however is going through a stage where having mastered the task of dressing himself, he no longer cares to do it. Experience with my other kids has shown that this phase does pass, but we will keep working with him on it.

Some of the things that I would like to work on over the second half of the year are:

• Possum to learn to tie bows.
• Thinker to learn a new meal.
• Little Rascal to learn to stack and unstack the dishwasher.
• Babaganouski to learn to set the table.
5. Maintain my health and fitness.

I have started gradually building up the intensity of the exercise that I am doing. My key issue is to cut out a lot of the junk that I am eating. My main down fall is chocolate and also that when I am tired, I often confuse this with being hungry and eat instead of sleep (because sleep isn’t always possible!).

6. Support Mr I’s chosen sporting events, so he can maintain his health and fitness.

Mr I is still carrying an injury from last year’s football season, so he has been limited in what sporting endeavours he can do. Cycling is the main thing at the moment - unfortunately for me this is actually quite time consuming! An 80km bike ride does take up quite a few hours on a Sunday morning, but it is an enjoyable outlet for him.


7. See at least one live music event a quarter.

I have seen no live music this year yet. Really need to work on this one as I love going to a gig.

8. Adhere to the family budget.

First quarter of 2009 was balanced, but the second quarter was in deficit. I will need to be more strategic with my expenditure in the next quarter.

9. Achieve a balance of fun and learning activities for the children.

Overall I would say this is going along okay. I do wish that I was spending more time individually with each child though. I need to remind self though that this does happen when you have a new baby. I am running on less sleep and breast feeding on demand which does alter your ability to do as much as you would like with each child in a one on one format.

10. To grow this blog to become a greater resource for families.

I haven’t executed any of the ideas I had around this task. I would love to renovate the blog and reformat it to be more user friendly, but the task above takes priority and I really just don’t have the time.

To summarise, I have probably achieved about 75% of what I aimed to at this point in the year. I think the reason for non achievement of goals lies in the fact that I was too ambitious with what I set for myself. In a year which I have a new born baby, I probably underestimated the time factor this would take up. As I want to enjoy my beautiful little boy and all the children) I am going to make the following changes to the family goals for 2009:

• Complete my project, will now become 75% completion of the project.
• To grow this blog to become a greater resource for families, will now become top priority for 2010.

Did you set yourself goals for 2009? How are you tracking on them? Like me have you needed to make changes to your goals?

Technorati Tags: family budget, family goals, family review

As the end of a term comes, I find the kids are tired, which leads to them being more emotional and looking for a break from the morning school routines (so is mum ).

Again with this list of things to do at home, we would not do all the activities. During the school holidays my kids need less structured activities, allowing them time simply to wind down at their own pace and play/read etc but choose to spend their time doing what interests them.

It is also important that they do not become reliant upon me always providing entertainment for them. The oldest of our four children are all at ages where they are capable of finding ways to entertain themselves (3 year old may need some guidance at times though).

So our school holidays in June/July will be made up of a couple key outings, a couple of key projects/activities at home and plenty of time for the kids to relax and follow their own interests. So I manage to catch with friends I usually try an d combine the outings with friends, so that we still have plenty of down time for the kids to recharge before they head back to school.

1. Make Lemonade

A traditional favourite with my kids and in Australia lemons are in season in June and July, so even if you don’t have your own lemon tree, you can pick them up cheaply at the market.

If you are after some instructions for your little ones to follow, itty bitty love has a lovely photo tutorial.

2. Reverse Finger Painting

Hopefully for the water reserves in Melbourne there will be some rain over these school holidays. Rain however does usually mean being copped inside the house, so I loved this painting idea by Kate that SquiggleMum posted about earlier this month. As the paint is confined to the tray, there is much less mess than conventional painting, so easier to do inside the house.

3. Story Theatre

Red Bird Crafts has a beautiful tutorial on how to make your own story theatre. In the tutorial Emily uses cut out pictures, but you could just as easily let your child be the artist and have them draw the characters for their play.

4. Mandalas

Inspired by the Mandala Post on Let’s Explore I bookmarked some sites that provide free mandala print outs for children to colour in. These would be perfect for the kids to colour in on a rainy day.

Mandala is the Sanskrit word for “sacred circle.” Native American, Hindu, and Buddhist Tantric practices have use Mandalas for thousands of years to express illuminated states of consciousness and for healing the body, mind, and spirit. Paper Mandalas

• Basic Mandalas
• Advanced Mandalas

5. Chalk Drawing And Water Painting

We have a paved brick area at the back of our house. It provides a perfect large canvas for the kids to draw with chalk. We generally combine this activity with small buckets of water and large paintbrushes. They can then paint away the chalk if they wish, or paint the brick wall with water.

6. Camping Inside

My kids love camping and we don’t get to do it anywhere near as often as we would like. This holidays as we are not going away and it is in the middle of winter, we will have a camping night inside. We get out the sleeping bags, light the fire (which we rarely do) toast some marshmallows and sleep all the children can sleep together in the sitting room.

7. Giant Cardboard Construction

At Filthy Wizardry they show you how you can build an enormous cardboard rocket ship which as illustrated above is impressive! On the other hand you just allow for a more free form project. Collect boxes from markets, supermarkets etc and let the children’s imagination run wild

8. Make A Movie

The majority of the earlier activities are more suitable for children 6 and under. This activity and the next couple are aimed at those over six. Get the kids to write a script that they can then turn into a movie, using props, costumes what ever they can find! Having a Mac makes it then very easy to teach them how to edit it using iMovie.

9. Balloon Volleyball

Rig up some string across a room and allow the kids to play a game of balloon volley ball. This keeps my older boys amused for ages.

10. Cook A Meal

Allowing the kids to plan the meal, create a shopping list, make the selections at the supermarket and then cook a meal for the family.

What will your kids be up to at home?

Technorati Tags: children, parenting, School holidays

Easy Lemon Slice Recipe

I made lemon slice last week and thought I would post the recipe. It is a very easy slice to make with the bonus that it is also very tasty. My kids love it and lemon slice also presents nicely to take along to a morning tea for the adults.

Ingredients:

Base

• 100 grams butter
• approx 3/4 can of condensed milk (this equates to 296.25 grams to be precise!)
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind (1 add a little bit more as I like it quite it zesty.)
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 packet Marie biscuits

Icing

• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 3/4 cup coconut
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• You may wish to increase these quantities if you prefer a thinker icing on top. (I did slightly.)

Instructions:

1. Crush biscuits until they are like a breadcrumb consistency. I put them in a plastic bag and crush using the wooden rolling pin and then pour into a medium sized bowl.
2. Add coconut, and lemon rind to the biscuit mix.
3. On a low heat melt butter and condensed milk.
4. Pour the condensed milk and butter into the biscuit mix and combine well.
5. Press this mixture into a lined baking tray.
6. Place into fridge for approx an hour (when in a hurry, I have put it in the freezer for 10 - 15 minutes and this has also worked).
7. To make the icing, mix all the ingredients together and then spread onto the set biscuit base. Refrigerate again until the icing has set.
8. Once set cut the slice into fingers.
9. Lemon slice keeps best in the fridge and if I need to layer it, I use baking paper to prevent them from sticking together.

Family Menu Plan For The Week

Baking: White Chocolate Chip Muffins

Monday: Pasta Carbonara

Tuesday: Pumpkin Soup

Wednesday: Chicken Korma

Thursday: Beef Stroganoff

Friday: Left Overs

Saturday: Tacos

Sunday: Chicken Wings, Baked Potatoes and Corn

If you like the look of this family menu plan, then you might like to use The Planning With Kids Free Menu Planner. With the menu planner you can select your meals for the week and print our your own shopping list.

If you would like to have one of your recipes added to the menu planner database, just be one of the first two people to leave a link or actual recipe in the comments section on my regular Menu Plan Monday Post. I will add it to the database and then email to let you know it has been included.

For more menu planning ideas head on over to Laura’s place at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“.

Technorati Tags: family menu plan, lemon slice, Recipes

A couple of years ago a friend (MC) told me about how at a party she went to, they served up the children’s food in individual lunch boxes. I thought that this was a great idea and have been using it as the main way to serve food at my children’s birthday parties ever since.

I have found that since serving their food in individual lunch boxes, the kids eat more and less is wasted. If the party is in the cooler weather, I clear a room and spread picnic blankets on the floor and have the children sit down to eat. If it is summer we take the picnic outside.

The children sit focused for a considerable amount of time as they investigate their lunch box and eat their way through the contents.

Unfortunately I took the photo before I put the mini hot dog in. But you can see there was enough room to add a mini hot dog for the kids.

Clean up is also easy, as you can just pick up the boxes, place food scraps in the bin and the boxes and juice bottles into the recycling.

I picked up these boxes (unmade) from Lombards, but imagine that you can purchase them from any party/catering type store. From memory they were only about 12 cents each.

EDIT: Recipes for the other treats in the lunch boxes:

• Milky Way Cars
• Jelly Shots

Technorati Tags: children's birthday party, food

Image by Crimfants

My History With The Cat Napping Baby

With the exception of our first son, once our babies reached four months old, their sleeping during the day turned into cat napping. By cat napping, I mean that they sleep for somewhere between 30 - 45 minutes then wake up.

Those of you who have little ones with most likely be familiar with the sleep cycle of babies. Babies sleeping at this age consists of alternating active and quiet sleep periods of 20–50 minutes each. When baby wakes between these cycles, sometimes they can’t go back to sleep.

(Check out these websites if you are after more information on sleep cycles Raising Children and Baby Centre. )

As I noted at the start Thinker our first baby didn’t fall into the cat napping category. After an initial steep learning curve, we got to know each other and he soon worked himself into a routine of 4 hourly feeds with at least 2 hour sleeps between them. He also started sleeping through from 3 months and never really woke over night again.

So when Little Rascal, our second son came along and at about 3 months starting waking every 45 minutes during the day, I found this a bit of a shock and a little frustrating. At 4 months he started sleeping though at night, but during the day he was still waking at 45 minutes, tired and unhappy.

From when he was 4 months old, each time he would wake, I would sit by his cot, patting, gently rocking him, just placing my hands on him, etc - anything really to try and get him to go back to sleep. I tried for long periods of time and then would eventually give up and carry him around until it was time for another feed.

Not long after he turned 6 months, Little Rascal started sleeping for longer periods and most importantly it would be over the golden hour, so I knew he had made it through a sleep cycle. These sleeps gradually built up to over 1.5 hours twice a day and I started to feel a little more sane. Having a baby with you almost constantly during the day is exhausting and doesn’t allow for a lot of work to be done.

Then when our daughter came along and she slept well for the first three months, I thought we might be spared the cat napping. But it was not to be. You could almost set a clock by her 40 minute wake times. This time I was determined not to be so obsessed about sleeping. When she woke, I would go to her and would try for a 5 -10 minutes and see if she would go to sleep. I could usually tell if she would and if it looked like she wouldn’t then I would just get her up and start over.

By the time 6 months had come around, Possum also started sleeping longer and fell into two decent sleeps a day. It did take her until about 7 months until she slept through at night, but she fed quickly over night and would go back to sleep without any problems.

Baby number 4 followed almost the exact same path as baby number 3. This time I anticipated that from 4 - 6 months, there would be little great sleeping in the day, so when it happened, there was not the frustration that I experienced with baby number 2.

Our beautiful baby number 5, has inherited the cat napping gene too, but he has been waking at erratic time intervals from 30 - 50 minutes. Another difference with him is that with a small pat for 5 minutes or so, he is actually going back to sleep most of the time - not always though!. This week we have even had sleeps exceeding 1.5 hours without waking which is truly exciting. In terms of night sleep, he is regularly making it from 7pm until 5am or 6am if a I am really lucky.

Strategies For Coping With A Baby That Cat Naps

As my experience has grown with the cat napping baby, I have created a few strategies for myself so that I can cope and not go crazy with a baby that is awake a lot during the day:

Feed, Play, Sleep With Flexibility

I am a firm believer in the feed, play, sleep routine for babies, but trying to follow the feed, play, sleep routine for babies in a large family is difficult.

Baby number 5 can wake at 6am and should really be going back to sleep at around 7.45 - 8.00am, but that is the time that we head off to school. We walk to school, but he is generally so excited by so much to see and all the kids, that he doesn’t drop off until the way home and may have 30 minutes in the pram.

Alternatively we may have been out all morning and baby gets little to no sleep, so as soon as I start the feed, he falls off to sleep. I let him feed like this for a while then place in the cot asleep. Not desirable, but it happens frequently and there is no point stressing about it.

Accepting That The Baby Is A Cat Napper

My first experience with a cat napper as I noted above, was with our second child. I was determined that I could “make him” go back to sleep. This didn’t happen for me and it really just left me feeling exhausted and frustrated. Since that experience when I start to see the signs that the baby is cat napping, I accept that for the next couple of months that there may not be much consistent day sleep.

I have decided not to spend hours trying to get babies to go back to sleep, I will try for a short time, listen to their cry and determine whether or not they are likely to go back to sleep and if not, get them up and move on. We are generally both happier with this.

Preparation Before They Go To Sleep

If I need to complete a task that is difficult to do with baby around then I try to prepare in advance as much as I can. For example, I can generally cook our family meal in 30 - 45 minutes. So while baby is up, I will set everything up so that once he has fallen to sleep, I can quickly get to cooking it, so I can maximise my time whilst he is asleep.

Use A Baby Sling / Carrier

Often our baby is still very tired after his quick 30 minute nap and thankfully he likes being placed in the baby carrier. I will go about my business (eg vacuuming, doing the washing etc) with him in it and quite often he will get another short nap in. This really helps as he will then feed better next time round.

Get Out And About

I will come home after school drop off in the mornings, put baby to sleep and see what happens. If he has a short sleep and won’t go back to sleep, I will use this time to go out and run errands if there is any to be done. Days can seem very long with a wakeful baby, if I don’t break it up with outings.

Stop And Enjoy

It is easy to keep working through the day, so taking the opportunity to just sit on th floor with the little ones and playing can be a great way to recharge.

This Is What Some Babies Do

Babies sleeping can sometimes seem a competitive sport amongst mothers and it is easy to become obsessed by it like I did with my second child. But I like to remind myself of a quote from Robyn Barker’s fantastic baby bible “Baby Love”:

During the first six month’s of a baby’s life a routine is more for adult convenience rather than something that is essential for a baby’s well being.

As long as baby is happy and I am happy all is okay. And it is always helpful to tell myself “That this too will pass!”. When enduring this stage of my babies life it can seem never ending, but they do grow up so quickly and it will eventually be over.

Did your baby cat nap? How did you cope with the short sleeps?

Technorati Tags: babies, cat napping, sleep

Access to the NGV is free but the Brack’s exhibition itself does have an admission fee. (Adult: $15, Concession: $12, Children: $7.50 (Ages 5–15), Family: $42, NGV Member Adult: $7.50, NGV Member Family: $21). We were lucky enough to be given a family membership for Christmas last year, so the exhibition only cost us $21, which is great value.

We picked up some of the booklets provided for the kids and walked around the exhibition looking at “What John Brack saw…:”. The exhibition spanned his work from the 50’s right through until the 90’s.

My kids found Brack’s work engaging and accessible. The booklet gave us some information on key paintings and questions to get the kids really looking at the art work.

There are distinct differences in Brack’s style through the decades and it was interesting to see the preferences of the children.

The 5 and 3 year old were definitely more drawn to his earlier work like The car (1955) and Subdivision (1954). Myself, the 10 and 8 year old were fascinated by his work in the 1980’s, in which he used pencils as a representation of people. We spent quite a bit of time (as much as the 3 year old could tolerate!) examining The battle (1981-83).

A free drop in Artcart activity is offered between 12pm - 4pm on Sundays. We missed out on the John Brack activity which finished the week end before, but participated in an activity related to a furniture design exhibition that was on. The children made some very cute creations which we took home with us.

We now have the Salvador Dali exhibition to look forward too!

Technorati Tags: art, Children's Activities, ngv

Here are just some of the fantastic school holiday activities that Melbourne has to offer.

1. Puppet Lab

Held at Artplay over the school holidays, professional puppeteers will perform and conduct workshops. Activities run from Saturday 4th July until Friday 10 July. These sessions book out quickly so if you are interested you should call Artplay on (03) 9664 7900 ASAP. Cost for these activities vary but range from free to $35.

EDIT: Artplay sessions book out incredibly quickly. I tried to book a session for August and it was already full, so if you are interested, I recommend booking ASAP.

2. Puppet Animation

More puppet action to coincide with Puppets at Fed Square, ACMI
has “kids in the studio - puppet animation”. These sessions are a great activity for the family to do together. In the free session children can create their own clay puppet to keep and animate their puppet’s story with stop motion animation and modern digital techniques.

It is recommended for children aged 5 to 13 and runs on the following dates:

• Mon 29 Jun to Fri 3 Jul 2009
• Mon 6 Jul to Fri 10 Jul 2009
• Drop in any time between 12pm and 4pm.

3. Around The World To India.

The Immigration Museum Winter school holiday program runs from 27 Jun - 12 Jul 2009. Celebrate the mystique and wonder of India:

Be captivated by amazing stories of journeys to Australia. Pick up an Immigration Adventures booklet and explore the museum in a fun and engaging way.

Construct and decorate a shadow puppet depicting the Hindu gods, Hanuman (Monkey God) and Ganesh (Elephant god).

Dress up as a Hampi local or a visiting archaeologist. Parents: don’t forget to bring your camera!

Cost: Adults $8, Concessions and Children free entry and the Immigration Museum is open daily 10am – 5pm.

4. Footy Forum For Kids.

The Queen Victoria Market will be providing FREE opportunities for kids to meet, talk footy and have autographs signed by some of their favourite AFL Players.

Tuesday 30 June 2009, 11am to 12noon
Matthew Richardson and Player TBC*

Thursday 2 July 2009, 11am to 12noon
Players TBC*

Tuesday 7 July 2009, 11am to 12noon
Players TBC*

Thursday 9 July 2009, 11am to 12noon
Adam Cooney and Daniel Jackson

5. Junior Ranger COME and TRY.

Parks Victoria (PDF) is running school holiday activities from Monday 29 June – Friday 3 Jul at the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

This winter, come along and participate in the park’s Junior Ranger COME and TRY…holiday program of free, fun filled and informative activities. The forest in winter, often cloaked with cool damp fog, becomes a place of mystery and magic and we look forward to seeing you there.

This is a free activities but bookings are required and can be made by calling Parks Victoria on 03 9757 7724.

6. The Melbourne Magic Festival.

The Melbourne Magic Festival runs from June 29 until July 11 at the Northcote Town Hall. They are offering a range of kids (and adult) workshops in the art of magic. Tickets for sessions are only $12 per child and are on sale at Northcote Town Hall and (03) 9481 9500.

7. Sewing and Craft Sessions.

The Thread Den is located in Errol St North Melbourne. Classes cost between $30 - $60 per child.

The kids school holiday program will return for two great weeks of sewing and craft, with classes suitable for children and teens. Led by local designers and craftspeople, this program has been coordinated with a focus on our responsibility to recycling and purchasing materials locally.

8. Circus Sports And Cue Sports.

The National Sports Museum will be running its school holiay program from Monday June 29 - Friday July 3 and Monday July 6 - Friday July 10.

Juggle, spin, balance- experience the thrills and spills of our ‘circus skills’ workshop when the circus comes to the National Sports Museum during the school holidays.

Learn more about the ‘sport of courts’, discover the tricks with billiards world champion, Robby Foldvari and, back by popular demand, is Sam Starr for another round of fun and frivolity.

Kids of all ages can race against the clock in Game On – netball, Australian football, cricket, cycling and soccer – all this and much more in a ‘hands, feet and bottoms on’ interactive environment where you create your own sporting memories.

Further details of the sessions will be updated on The National Sports Museum Website closer to the date. NSM is open 10.00am – 5.00pm daily and it is $7.50 for adults, $4.00 for kids aged 5 -15 and under 5’s are free.

9. Art Sparks

NGV International’sSalavadar Dali Art Spark sessions for the June/July school holidays will be related to the Salvador Dali Liquid Desire exhibition. Session run Mon 29 Jun – Fri 10 Jul from 10.30am–4pm.

Kids can become artists like Dalí when they join in the special art activities in the NGV Dalí Kids Space. Parent/carer supervision required.

The cost of the art activity is free, but the Dali exhibition itself is not, entry prices for the exhibition are as follows:
Adult: $23
Concession: $18
Child: $11 (ages 5-15)
Family (2 adults + 3 children): $60
NGV Member Adult: $16
NGV Member Family: $40

10. Fairy Park.

Image Fairy Park

Fairy Park is an 1 hour drive from Melbourne CBD. I haven’t been here nor do I know any one who has, so if you have been, I would love to hear your thoughts.

The park includes Fairy Tale Land, Model Trains, Summit Views and Camelot Playground. Cost of entry for the park is as follows:
Children under the age of 3 FREE
Children aged from 3 to 13 years $8.00
Adult prices from 14 years and over $16.00
Admission between 10 am to 4 pm.

The park includes Fairy Tale Land, Model Trains, SUmmit Views and Camelot Playground.

Enjoy the school holidays, what ever you are doing!

Technorati Tags: Children's Activities, Melbourne, School holidays

Although I don’t formally plan lunches for the week, the ingredients required to make a healthy lunch box are added to the weekly fruit and vegetable list. I have been finding it harder recently to think of things to add to the list.

As we are almost through the first month of winter, the variety of fruit and veg that I put in the kids lunch boxes seems to reduce significantly. Gone are the berries and melons of summer, grapes and plums of autumn.

So I have searched for seasonal fruit and vegetables in winter to give me inspiration for the lunch boxes and came up with the following:

Winter Vegetable Ideas For Kids Lunch Boxes

• Avocado (fuerte, hass, sharwill) - Not a particular favourite with my kids, but included it in the list as I know other kids do like to eat it on its own.
• Carrots - Cut up into sticks. At home I serve with dip or salsa, but my kids are not at all keen on taking that to school.
• Celery - Cut up into sticks either by themselves or with strips of cheese.
• Green beans - Trimmed.
• Snow peas - Trimmed.

Winter Fruit Ideas For Kids Lunch Boxes

• Apples (bonza, braeburn, fuji, gala, golden delicious, granny smith, jonagold, jonathan, lady williams, mutso, pink lady, red delicious, snow, sundowner) - As there is not as much fruit available that is appealing to my kids, I have started buying more apples and different varieties and including two apples in the lunch boxes. Favourites combo with my kids at the moment is a pink lady and a granny smith.
• Kiwifruit (early winter) - I cut this in half, wrap in plastic and include a spoon in the lunch box.
• Oranges (navel) - I cut them into quarters and wrap in plastic.
• Pears (beurre bosc, josephine, packham in the early winter) - I have not had much success with pears in the lunch box as they keep coming back home. The kids will eat them at home, but don’t seem to like doing so at school.

I would love to hear any ideas that you have for keeping the fruit and vegetables in the school lunch box interesting. If you want to see what else I put in the kids lunch boxes you can check it out on my post on preparing school lunch boxes.

Family Menu Plan For The Week

Baking: Lemon Slice

Monday: Spaghetti Bolognaise

Tuesday: Homemade Pasties

Wednesday: Beef Stir Fry with Asian Greens

Thursday: Mexibake

Friday: Left Overs

Saturday: Chicken Lasagne

Sunday: Sausages And Steamed Vegetables

If you like the look of this family menu plan, then you might like to use The Planning With Kids Free Menu Planner. With the menu planner you can select your meals for the week and print our your own shopping list.

If you would like to have one of your recipes added to the menu planner database, just be one of the first two people to leave a link or actual recipe in the comments section on my regular Menu Plan Monday Post. I will add it to the database and then email to let you know it has been included.

For more menu planning ideas head on over to Laura’s place at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“.

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