Treasure Island

Today R and I joined our friends from Little Explorers and went to see Treasure Island at The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts centre.  All the characters from the book were played by just 2 actors with lots of costume changes. R got a bit scared by this skeleton prop and the ghost voices and refused to come down to the stage afterwards to meet the pirates.

I Am Four

Today was L's 4th birthday. Here are some pictures of her opening her presents.

All ready for our camping trip

R got one too

R made this card on the computer

Additive free, fail-safe birthday cake

Garden Project - Evaluating and pH

Today we carried on with our garden plans by adding some colour and a key.

By R

By L

We used this pH meter to take readings across the garden to find out what type of soil we have. We marked the pH's on an overlay on top of our maps. We found we have a slightly acid soil from pH 6.9 - 6.2. We will later look up the type of plants that like this soil. We also marked on our overlays where we have shady areas.

We talked about what we use the garden for and we made a graph to show the different uses and how often the garden is used per week. We discussed what we needed to keep in our garden design so that we could still do all these activities. Unfortunately for some, the tarmacking of the whole site for a bike track would mean that we wouldn't be able to do many other things.

Garden uses by L 

Garden uses by R

Garden Project - Measuring And Weeding

Spring seems to be arriving, so today we began planning our garden. Firstly the children and I made a sketch map of the garden and measured all the distances along the house, around the fences and along the paths and beds.

Sketch plan

Next I helped R to plot the map and measurements onto graph paper to make a scale plan; 1cm = 1m on the ground. The garden has quite a slope to it so we roughly indicated that too. We will use this plan as a base for designing our garden and planning where to put plants etc.

Scale plan of the garden

Our square foot garden was looking rather neglected so the children helped to remove all the dead plants, harvest what remained and dig the soil over ready for planting. We got rid of lot of snails  after we'd had a good look and scream at them.

A very neglected veggie patch

Removing flowered lettuce

Getting rid of flowering lettuce

Harvesting spring onions

Celery and spring onions from the veggie patch

Digging the soil over

All ready for replanting

We transplanted some flowers from the square foot garden into a pot as they seemed to have some life still in them.

Filling the pot with soil

Planted up ready to grow

We have lots of plans for the garden so watch this space.

Cockatoo Island

L and R for scale

Today we went to check out Cockatoo Island in Sydney harbour. The island has a long history from being a home for convicts to a centre for ship building. Today you can visit the island and even camp there. We followed the audio trail around the island to view its many rusting cranes and industrial buildings.

Tunnels cut through the rocky centre of the island

The Biennale of Sydney was also showing on the island. Most of the artworks were frankly a load of rubbish with the exception of these few.

Reduction Print People

For the last two days we have been working on lino print portraits. You can read about the materials and technique in this previous post. Here are the results:

By L

By L

By R

By R

By Mum

By Mum