the gruffalo - live at dunstan playhouse

A musical adaptation of the award-winning picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, The Gruffalo, is being staged at Dunstan Playhouse this week.

Suitable for children aged 3 and up, the stage show is running from 12-17 April. Tickets cost $25 for adults and $20 for children, and can be purchased through BASS. See here for a video preview of the show.

Image via modernhood

semaphore to fort glanville steam railway

If you've run out of ideas for how to entertain the kiddies during school holidays, here's a great outdoor activity to check out (despite the grey clouds this weekend, next week is meant to bring back the sunshine).

Operated by the National Railway Museum, the 457mm gauge railway departs from the Semaphore jetty and runs for 2km, adjacent to The Esplanade and through the sand dunes, before arriving at the historic Fort Glanville.

The railway operates daily during school holidays and on weekends, from the commencement of the September school holidays until the end of the April school holidays. A steam locomotive operates on the railway between 11am and 4pm and departs roughly on the hour every hour, depending on demand.

Prices are as follows:
Adults $6
Children $4 (3 years to 15 years old)
Family $18 (2 adults with 2 children)

Further information can be obtained from the website.

Image via National Railway Museum

button art

I'm currently a little obsessed with the blog Made By Joel (you may recall my recent post about Dress Up Drawings). Joel Henriques is an American artist and his blog is full of fabulous arts and crafts projects that he has come up with for his two young children.

Here's another one to try out ... art using buttons. A great way to use up random buttons that I seem to constantly collect from newly purchased garments but never end up needing to use!

Images from Made By Joel

more easter crafts

Wow, I've actually managed to log onto the computer twice today (that's twice more than in the last two weeks!!). Obviously this has left me very excited and I'm trying to blog as much as I can, as who knows when the next opportunity will arise.

Anyhoo, if you're after some more fabulous Easter crafts for the weekend, head on over to Kids Craft Weekly for some cute and simple projects, including the miniature Easter buckets pictured above.

Image from Kids Craft Weekly

Easter crafts

If you're not heading away for Easter this weekend, and are looking for crafty activities to keep the little ones occupied, here are a few I've found in blog-land:

Bunny masks by Khali at little.lovely (found at Bloesem Kids)

Easter egg rocks from This Little Project

Paper mache eggs and Easter bonnets from Lottie Lulu

Images from little.lovely, This Little Project and Lottie Lulu

juice box boats

I'm loving this juice box boats craft project from gorgeous blog inchmark. I can just imagine making these and then floating them in our wading pool.

Image from inchmark

dress-up drawings

I found this cute art activity over at Made By Joel. It makes a nice alternative to the usual drawing and colouring, and if you're anything like me, you'll have plenty of fabric scraps to use from all your sewing projects! If you don't have anything handy, the fat flats available from quilting stores or Spotlight are an inexpensive way to purchase the necessary fabric.

Images from Made By Joel

abc for kids online - the playground

Have you discovered The Playground on the ABC for Kids website yet? I'd been meaning to try it for a while, but only finally checked it out last week when I was looking for something new to do with a toddler who had been incredibly patient with me feeding my newborn and deserved a treat!

This website is a great introduction to computers for young children, and is also a wonderful resource for parents. The website contains games and activities associated with a lot of the shows and characters featured on ABC for Kids, as well as characters created specifically for The Playground. Games vary in complexity and there are lots of downloads such as colouring in pages and party packs! It also has links to parenting information.

Our current favourite pages are Play School, Olivia, the Wot Wots and Chuggington.

Image from ABC Kids

another painting idea - string painting

Image from A Magical Childhood

As you would have guessed by now, given my frequent posts about painting, I am constantly looking for new and inspiring ways to entertain my toddler with painting activities. Here's another one from A Magical Childhood - string painting.

heart hand stamps craft project

I had grand plans to make one of these with my toddler for hubby this Valentine's Day. However, I think I'd underestimated how time poor I would be having a newborn and toddler at home, and unfortunately didn't get to undertake this project from Khali at Little.Lovely via Bloesem Kids. These Heart Hand Stamps are so simple, yet so effective ... think we'll have to make one soon "just because".

another painting idea - stamping with erasers

I saw this post over at a small bite of mondo cherry about stamping wrapping paper using old erasers and a fork! It got me to thinking - why stop at making wrapping paper? You could really get the kids to go to town with creating interesting artwork if you cut out all sorts of different designs from old erasers.

Image from a small bite of mondo cherry

letter and mail crafts

I don't know about you other mums out there, but my toddler loves collecting the mail from our letterbox, and posting letters into the postbox at Kindergym. Rather than forking out for yet another toy that will no doubt be out of favour within a few months, I was fortunate enough to stumble across these crafts at Kids Craft Weekly, including instructions for how to make your own play mailbox and letterbox.

Images courtesy of  Kids Craft Weekly

"the parent's guide to play"

I have been meaning to write about this book for a while now, especially over the Summer, where the heat often prohibits too much outdoor playtime but parents are still looking for activities to stimulate the little ones! Gymboree - The Parent's Guide To Play is filled with over 170 activities to stimulate imaginations, expand vocabularies and build physical and mental skills. The book is organised by age groups (eg, 3 months and up, 6 months and up etc) and has provided me with lots of new activities to undertake with my growing boy. Almost all of the activities utilise materials or toys that you will probably already have around the house, and there are explanations as to how each activity develops a particular skill.

I bought my copy from Big W, but it is also available from Amazon.com.

australia day crafts for kids

Australian Flag Collage from Activity Village

Fingerprint sheep from Activity Village

Happy Australia Day! Just thought I'd post some links to sites featuring Australia Day kids' crafts for those of you who don't have many plans for the public holiday ...

• Activity Sheets for Kids from Australia Day Council of NSW
• Line drawings for colouring from National Australia Day Council
• Australia Day crafts from Activity Village

Wooden spoon crocodile from Activity Village

Line drawing for colouring from National Australia Day Council

crafty use for old magazines from "a small bite of mondo cherry"

Image courtesy of A small bite of mondo cherry

The weather forecast for tomorrow in Adelaide ... 38 degrees! This will no doubt mean a day spent indoors searching for interesting activities to keep the littlies occupied. Crafty blog A small bite of mondo cherry recently posted this threading activity using magazines. If you're anything like me, you'll have a lot of old mags lying around waiting to be sent to the recycling bin, and the only other items you'll need are string/wool/pipecleaner and some stickytape. Cheap AND cheerful!

how to make a beach collage

Wondering what to do with all those shells and pieces of cuttlefish collected by the kiddies during strolls along the beach? Don't just throw them out en route back to the car ... take them home and create a beach collage using these instructions from Kids Nature Spot.

I think that this is a great way to commemorate summer exploration, and will provide you with an indoor activity when it's just too hot to still be playing outside.

painting projects

With most regular activities on hold over school holidays, I've been searching for inspiring projects to do with my toddler to keep him entertained - this is especially important on the hot days when we can't be outside all day. Here are my current favourite painting projects sourced from other blogs:

Water colour resist painting from BloesemKids

Animal portrait from BloesemKids

Glue prints from The Adventures of Bear

Vegetable printing from Domesticali (pictured above), Make-Stuff and BloesemKids (pictured below)

I also adapted the methods for vegetable printing to make my Christmas wrapping paper this year by using household sponges cut into shapes as prints. Here was the result:

After an afternoon of painting yesterday, I have the following tips for keeping it as mess-free as possible (I emphasise "possible", as painting with a toddler will inevitably involve some mess, make no mistake!):

• lay down plastic tablecloth over the surface on which you are going to be painting - if you are sitting over carpet, I also suggest putting something protective over the carpet as well. Spotlight sells plastic tablecloth material cut to measure in an assortment of colours and patterns, as well as clear/colourless;
• blue tac or sticky-tape the paint pots or plates (I use old yoghurt and butter containers) to the table/surface on which you are painting. This will prevent them from falling over everytime a paintbrush or stamp is placed into them (usually with a large amount of vigor!);
• keep a wet chux/kitchen sponge handy to wipe up any spills as they occur - this will save you heavy handed scrubbing at the end of the activity;
• I highly recommend purchasing a painting smock from Ikea - these are the only ones I've found that have adjustable arm lengths and therefore can be made to fit even young toddlers.