The Great Library Tour: Arana Hills Library

May 27, 2013Library Tourbooks, Exploring South East Queensland, libraries, moreton bay region librariessubversivereader One comment

The Great Library Tour

We’re back! Trips to libraries were getting a bit difficult with Squirm’s ‘interesting’ nap schedule and his aversion to the car. But with those things dealt with, we were finally ready to head out again to another library.

I’ve always thought of the Arana Hills Library as a bit tricky to get to. Although part of the Moreton Bay Region, it’s really to the west of Brisbane (and just points out how sprawling the Moreton Bay Region is!) But we were dropping some books off to my cousin who has just moved into the area, so it made all kind of sense to drop by Arana Hills (which wasn’t as out of the way as I thought it was!)

This library feels almost hidden away, tucked into the hillside next to a park. It’s a bit of a sprawling library, extending from the non fiction area, through the checkout and computers, with the children’s section to one side. Then down to fiction, young adult and local history.

The children’s section is cosy and welcoming, with a lot of open space, outward facing shelves for display books and low shelves for the rest of the picture books. The board books are in more low shelves, but to the side, inviting browsers to sit and have a read. A real winner was the activity block – with a wire bead puzzle on top and all sorts of activities on the sides – Squirm adored the gears on one side and spent a good amount of time getting them moving. There’s also a lovely couch in the corner – perfect for curling up with a good book. The children’s non-fiction and novels are just around a corner, but have their own space which is nice for older children.

Although I usually focus on the children’s sections in these posts, I have to highlight the young adult section at Arana Hills. The young adult section is a room which steps out from the main library. There’s a tonne of natural light and lots of bright colours and the books are displayed beautifully. As a teenager I would have adored it – it would have been difficult to get me out! There’s also a little enclosed outside area attached.

There’s been a lot of recent work on the outdoor patio recently. Although it’s not completely finished – they need a non slip surface put down and then furniture added – it’s really lovely how it opens out to the park, and it’s going to be gorgeous when it’s finished. The park is just a quick run down the hill – and there’s no bark chip!!!!

The staff were wonderfully friendly and showed a lot of pride in their library. They were really excited to talk about the young adults section and the patio and what they’re looking forward to. As always, I’m reminded no matter how beautiful a library is, it is nothing without a wonderful, dedicated staff!

So, it turns out Arana Hills isn’t as far away or as out of the way as I thought it was – so I’m definitely going to have to make a return trip!

The best parts of Arana Hills Library

The cosy, welcoming children’s area
The amazing young adult section
The friendly staff
The buzz in the library – this is a library that people are happy to use!

The Young Adult section at Arana Hills Library

The Young Adults section at Arana Hills Library

Important Information about Arana Hills Library

63 Cobbity Crescent, Narellan Park,
ARANA HILLS, QLD 4054

Website

Open Monday to Saturday

Parking is available off the street around the library. There’s parent parking right out the front

Looking down to the park

When Governments Bully Children and Parents

May 19, 2013Education, Opinion and Other Random Thingssubversivereader One comment

Governments Bullying Parents and Children

There’s a lot of news about disgusting behaviour in Federal politics at the moment, most of it aimed at other politicians. But I want to take a moment to bring your attention to something at a Queensland state level – the disgusting act of an Education Minister criticising the parenting of people he is supposed to serve – using his power and position to bully them.

The Queensland State Government, under Campbell Newman, recently made a decision that they would close 9 schools in Queensland. Some of these decisions simply don’t make sense. Fortitude Valley, just outside of Brisbane City, is a small school, but right in the middle of a massive growth area with the building of apartments nearby. Furthermore, the 2 nearby schools which the students will be expected to go to – New Farm and Brisbane Central – are both at capacity. Brisbane Central (where I went as a child) simply does not have any more room for students, while there’s talk that temporary classrooms will be put in at New Farm (another growth area) to house the numbers.

So these kids have nowhere to go, they’re in a school growing in numbers, but they’re told that their school is going to close.

I’m not sure if it’s the same in every school, but in my experience, children can be pretty protective of their schools. I remember the hard work students did in student councils to improve their school facilities. I remember the pride of a child when I let him know I went to the same school as him, and he told me about recent refurbishments. Children care about what happens in their schools. So when they’re told that their school is closing, they would be likely to want to do something.

So yesterday, the Fortitude Valley P and C organised a protest outside the school. It was held on a wide footpath, with plenty of parents and adults around as well as the children who are facing losing their school. It was a great example of teaching children about democracy and civic values – that we have the right to protest peacefully in this country.

Except if you’re a child, obviously. Because the Education Minister of Queensland – John-Paul Langbroek came out and said that he didn’t think it was ‘appropriate’ for children to be protesting for something which directly affects them. He says they are ‘consulting’, but it’s pretty clear from his dismissal of children, that he’s not interesting in ‘consulting’ with them – making sure that they have to protest to be heard. He went on to criticise the parents of these children for involving them, dismissing it as ‘union-led hysteria’. (Watch the ABC clip here)

As a minister, John-Paul Langbroek is in a position of power. And to use that power to criticise someone else’s parenting – to effectively ask them to shut up and sit down, and for goodness sakes don’t let anyone know that there are children involved – is bullying. Putting someone else down and trying to curtail their political rights – even when they’re a child – is bullying.

The parents of Fortitude Valley State School are good parents. They’re standing up for their rights and teaching their children that they can be involved in society – that they can be informed, interested people. The children of Fortitude Valley are active and interested. They have the right to be heard. Don’t let the government bully them – go and Like their Facebook Page, add your message of support, share the information so others can get behind them.

Good parents deserve good community support.

I Have Too Many Books . . .

May 17, 2013Books and Reading, Home and Organisationbooks, Cleaning, Housesubversivereader View all 3 comments

Not my actual book pile, but very similar . . .

This is a tough post to write. As an avowed book lover, I like to think that there’s no such thing as too many books. But the sad truth is, that we have limited space and too many books.

Sure, I could get rid of other things. But apparently, it’s kind of important to keep baby related things, and Mr Pilot won’t let me keep books in the shower. (I just did a Google image search for books in the shower and was sadly disappointed by the internet. Sure book shaped tiles and book shower curtains are nice, but where are the innovative storage ideas?)

So, it’s time to start getting rid of book. Or more accurately, packing them up and giving them away to other people.

Some books are easy to get rid of. You’ve picked them up for cheap, never got into them (or never opened them) and don’t really care where they end up. Others are harder because you paid good money for them and you really wanted to like them, but you’ve never gotten past the first page.

Then there’s the books you bought and liked, but haven’t read in years and years. You need to find a good home for those ones; you need to know they’ll be in good hands.

Then there’s some books that will never leave my hands, no matter how good the home or how long its been since I’ve read them. Those are the books that have stories other than the stories held in the pages. Those are the special books.

So how am I going so far? Well my plan was to find 50 books to give away today. It’s 9.21 am and I’ve found 52 . . . I’m doing better than I thought I would 🙂

Do you have too many books? How do you deal with that?

Adventures in Play Dough: The First Try

May 15, 2013Craft, Education, Playart, baby play, craft, exploring art, play, play dough, play matterssubversivereader Leave a comment

Adventures in Play Dough: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

One of my fond memories from my own childhood is my mother making play dough for us. She must have cooked it, since I remember it it being warm when we played with it. It always had a nice, heavy feel in our hands, and the possibilities of a fresh ball of play dough seemed endless.

Squirm and I have just had our very first experience making and playing with play dough. After our experience with paint and other art, I knew we needed to go slow when I introduced it. I also knew that we needed to make sure it was non toxic – more than likely it would go in the mouth.

As it turned out, Squirm didn’t try to taste it at all, which really surprised me. He didn’t really want to interact with it, except when I put little shapes of play dough on the brick he was exploring. There he moved it, pressing his fingers into it and explored it a little more. We’ll play with it over the next couple of days to get him more used to it – but for a dollar or so of materials, I’m not real worried if he doesn’t get that into it.

Making the Play Dough

I started off using this recipe. (I didn’t want the bother of cooking play dough this time, so non cook was the best option) Since I wasn’t sure how it would turn out or how Squirm would react to it, I halved most the recipe, but added a little more than half the oil. I also used hot water. When I was adding the water, I added a little bit at a time to try and get the best mix. Having some extra flour around would be good in case you use too much water, though.

The best tip I have is to put the spoon down once you start adding water and knead it together by hand. You can get a much better feel for the play dough that way and you’re more likely to get what you want.

I also held off on adding the food colour. When I had the play dough to the consistency I wanted, I divided it into four small balls. I then put a couple of drops of yellow colouring in the middle of one, and that was what we played with today. When we came back inside I coloured the others for later play.

When we came back in I did notice the dough left out on the bench was a little dry. It moistened up as soon as I started playing with it, and it might keep better now that I have it in a container. I’ll keep an eye on it over the next couple of days and report back.

This really is a nice way to start playing with play dough. I’ll be very interested to see if Squirm becomes more interactive with it over the week, as well as if he’ll keep up his record of putting everything in his mouth . . . I bet the salt of the play dough will be a bit of a shock!

A Subversive Reader’s Guide to Taking NAPLAN

May 13, 2013Educationchildren, education, learning, NAPLANsubversivereader View all 6 comments

This week is NAPLAN week in Australia, and students in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be undertaking tests in reading, writing, maths, spelling and grammar and punctuation. With standardised testing becoming more high stakes in Australia – for schools, teachers and students – the stress can easily build up – especially for those students undertaking them for the first time.

This is the first year since NAPLAN started that I have not taught a class taking the test. So I know a fair bit about the test and how students handle it. Newspapers have had ‘how to deal with NAPLAN’ articles which basically just repeat parts of the test, while matching them with scare stories about nightmares and schools hiding students in closets so they can’t take the test (I made up the last bit, but give it time . . . )

So, here’s my take on NAPLAN.

The Subversive Reader Guide to Taking NAPLAN

1. Read the questions.

I cannot stress this one enough. NAPLAN is, for all purposes, a reading test. It might be a maths problem in front of you, but it is still a reading test. The more attention you pay to the words in the test, the better you will do at the test. There are only so many ways you can make a multiple choice test ‘tricky’ (to find those students who are achieving at the higher levels) – one of them is using potentially misleading wording. Last year I co-supervised with a maths teacher. We were looking through the Year 7 maths test booklets and I said that I thought it was pretty easy. She said that there was a question she couldn’t answer . . . until I pointed out a little sentence quirk. Reading is the absolute key to doing well in NAPLAN

2. Plan and Take Your Time

This is mostly for older students – it’s way too much to think of for the younger ones. NAPLAN can really rush you on time, especially the maths tests, the reading comprehension and the writing. Have a rough idea of how much time you will need to devote to each question. Remember that if a question is too hard to solve in a reasonable amount of time skip it and come back! It won’t disappear when you’re not looking, and the break from the question might help you solve it better. Plus you’re not missing potential marks on questions because you didn’t get to them

3. Eat a good breakfast

Everyone knows the good night sleep/good breakfast combo. Sleep can be a harder thing, but a good breakfast is more easily achieved. It doesn’t have to be a special breakfast, but trying to do the test on an empty stomach is not a good idea.

4. Don’t cram for the tests

At this stage, there’s not much you can do to cram more information in before the tests. Use time at home to relax – get outside for a play, read a book to your child, put on some music and have a dance party. The more relaxed and comfortable they are about the test and the time around it, the better.

5. The test is not that important

I cannot stress this one enough. This is a point in time test. Even if private schools are asking for the test, they will not ignore years of good reports and focus on one bad NAPLAN mark (and if they do, it’s probably not the best school for you). Teachers will not be fired because your child forgot how to spell ‘whimsical’. The test is a point in time test which provides some helpful information to teachers and schools and gives education ministers something to talk about, because it’s too much work for them to actually understand what goes on in a school.

No one is going to care how you did in NAPLAN when you finish high school, no one is going to look up your NAPLAN test result when you apply for a job. Relax. Breathe. Read the test carefully. Try and include a joke in the written section for the poor markers. Have a good time. Smile at your teacher when you finish.

Do you know someone doing NAPLAN this year? Or what is your best advice for someone doing a standardised test?

Learning About Learning: Where are we now?

May 9, 2013Education, Family, Opinion and Other Random ThingsEarly Childhood, Early Childhood Education, education, Educational Philosophies, School Pressure, Schools, squirm, Testingsubversivereader View all 9 comments

Learning about Learning: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

For a long time now, one of my interests has been educational philosophies. Obviously this isn’t terribly interesting to most people, and there are probably some who feel that time could be better spent learning about eyebrow shaping or penguin wrangling (my eyebrows are awful and Sea World keeps a close eye on their penguins whenever I’m nearby), but it’s something that really fascinates me – especially how we can create the best learning experiences for children.

Obviously this was useful to me when I was a teacher. I was able to implement changes in the way my classroom was set up, the way I worked with students, the types of lessons we had, even some of the topics we approached, thanks to the reading I did. But since Squirm’s birth, I’ve become more and more interested in Early Childhood learning and learning environments. I worked, primarily, with middle and upper primary, then lower secondary students, so learning about early childhood is a totally new ball game for me. I have been fortunate, though, that I have some brilliant early childhood/lower primary school teachers as very good friends, who have shown me just how good early childhood teaching can be.

One thing which deeply worries me is the pressure for younger students to be doing more academically. There are schools in my area who won’t take students into Prep unless they can write their full names – not nicknames, which might be easier for 4 or 5 year olds to write, but their full names. There’s an awful lot of pressure on children to be reading and writing by the end of Prep, so they don’t ‘fall behind’, so they’re ready for Year Three when the NAPLAN testing begins.

As this pressure moves further down – from Prep to Kindergartens which now have to incorporate phonics lessons into their program – it’s not hard to see the pressure moving further down again. If Kindergarten aged children (4 and 5 year olds) need to be able to sit still and learn sounds, then we’d better make sure that 3 and 4 year olds know what the alphabet looks like. And if 3 and 4 year olds need to know what the alphabet looks like, we’d better make sure that 2 and 3 year olds can sing the alphabet song. Suddenly early childhood learning becomes less about about discovery and invention, and more about making sure we tick all the academic boxes. And I don’t think this is coming from the educators – it’s hard to miss the pressure being applied from politicians and ‘experts’ who believe that atandardised testing is the cure-all for all educational woes (or the companies making money from them).

The focus and pressure on Standardised testing has worried me for a long time now. This is actually the first year I haven’t ‘done’ NAPLAN since it began – I’ve always had Year 5 or Year 7 classes, so I’ve had a lot of experience with it. I must admit, I’ve been able to use class results to highlight areas where I could improve my teaching, though I’m sure a low-stakes test would have given me the same information. But instead of low stakes and low pressure testing, we’ve continued to push our students through testing which has left them in tears (the break between maths tests for Year 7s was almost always guaranteed to have tears), left them physically ill, left them not wanting to come to school, made them feel cynical and tired of learning (in 2011, my students started to refer to NAPLAN as ‘That which must not be named’ to avoid the NAPLAN saturation which had overtaken the school) and then, given parents almost no information about how their child has actually performed. The tests are heavily bell curved, meaning that only so many students can achieve the top levels, and parents are left with little more than a dot on a line.

So how do we prevent this NAPLAN mania, this drive for ‘academic achievement’ from moving further and further down to our youngest children? Should we just ‘suck it up’ and join the conveyor belt, buying NAPLAN materials for our toddlers to ensure that they aren’t ‘left behind’? Or is there a different way to approach early childhood education, or a different way to approach education altogether?

Or most importantly for me – how can I make sure that learning is a joy for my child? How can I make sure that he wants to learn all his life? How can I make sure that he’ll be curious about the world, that he’ll question what he sees, that he’ll participate?

That’s why I continue to read about Educational Philosophies. That’s why I’ll continue to debate the use and methods associated with NAPLAN and other standardised testing. That’s why I’ll continue to share my thoughts on education here.

Painting with a 9 Month Old

May 8, 2013Family, Playbaby play, children, family, squirmsubversivereader Leave a comment

For a while now, I’ve been trying to attempt art activities with Squirm. I’ve gazed enviously at babies who create spattered masterpieces, who stick things onto sticky surfaces, who wield art equipment with ease. Alas, until now our art activities have been failures.

You see, Squirm is very interested in art equipment – as long as he can eat it. Everything – paint, crayons, pencils, paper – goes in his mouth. And because he’s got a little collection of teeth, we end up with crayon tips being bitten off, paper torn to shreds and not a piece of art to show for it.

Until yesterday . . . . Inspired by reading An Everyday Story (which is a seriously beautiful blog worth checking out), I rethought my ideas about ‘doing art’ with Squirm. The finished product wasn’t important, it was the doing that I should focus on. So, for that to be successful, I needed to change two thing – 1) Stop worrying about mess and 2) Remove the paper

Stop Worrying About Mess

This was probably the biggest challenge for me. Although I’m not a neat person (I have a lot of clutter) I really like the idea of things being neat and clean. And as a messy person, I’ve constantly heard the message that ‘clean is best’. Great when talking about a kitchen before you go to bed, not so good for play.

The first thing I needed to prepare was Squirm himself. I knew the paint I would use was washable, but I still didn’t want his good clothes getting messy. So I popped him into a onesie that I’m not fussed on, and he was ready to go. I also dressed myself in old clothes. I took us outside onto the concrete in the back yard to paint, which meant that cleaning would be easy (there’s a tap and sink right nearby) and had the added benefit of a nice mix of sun and shade to play in. I also made sure the paint was non toxic, which meant that the inevitable tasting wouldn’t be dangerous. (As it turned out, Squirm tasted it once, and that was it)

Remove the Paper

Squirm loves paper. Only, he loves to rip it and to eat it. Whenever we used paper for art, there was little chance of anything else getting a look in while he was busy with the paper. So I took the paper away. Instead we used two other items – bubble wrap and a white plastic platter. The bubble wrap was a bit of a bust – I think it scared him a bit, but the platter was magnificent. I put some different coloured paints on it, and let him go (with a little demonstrating). He loved moving it around the platter, and mixed it all together.

Recording the Fun

Although I took a few pictures, I mostly kept the camera safely out of the action (we were covered in paint by the end). I did bring some paper down with us, though, and used to to ‘print’ what Squirm had done on the platter – pressing it down on the paint. Squirm then embellished it a bit (a bit of fingerpainting) leaving us with a lovely art work for the fridge.

What did We Learn

I learned that it’s ok to get messy, and the clean up can be great fun (I poured water over the concrete area at the end, which Squirm ended up playing in – also removing some of the paint from him!) I learned that it is more about the process – touching the paint, mixing the colours, looking at how moving your hands in different ways give different results – than actually creating something. And I learned that it doesn’t really take that long to organise and ‘do’ art. We’ll definitely make sure to build art into our week, and I don’t feel like an ‘art failure’ anymore!

The Con of ‘Certified’ Infant Sleep Trainers

April 28, 2013Family, Opinion and Other Random Thingschildren, Reflectionsubversivereader

The Con of Certified Sleep Trainers - You'e inviting this person to 'fix' your baby - what training have they really had?

Last week, the Courier Mail wrote a gushing advertisement for a sleep training service. This seems to be one of those bread and butter topics for mainstream media, there’s a pretty steady stream of articles and segments touting one ‘baby whisperer’ or another, filled with language about ‘manipulative’ or ‘wrong’ babies that need to be ‘fixed’.

What particularly struck me about this fairly mundane article, was the mention of the ‘training’ the sleep trainer went through. She wasn’t involved in a paediatric health field, (or any health field) before becoming a sleep trainer. Instead she ‘retrained’ to become one.

There’s nothing wrong with retraining. I did a post graduate degree in teaching, so was surrounded by others ‘retraining’ to become teachers. We all had 3 or 4 year degrees in our past (one of my friends had a PhD in Chemistry) and then completed 2 more years university with around 400 hours of practical teaching (and most of us would have liked more). I was then allowed to teach in a classroom on my own, but had to complete more hours to become a ‘full’ teacher, both under the Queensland College of Teachers (a regulatory body, overseen by the government) and Education Queensland (my employer).

With that in my background, I was really interested to see what kind of training would be required to become an Infant Sleep Trainer – particularly since these people often offer advice on mental and medical issues babies might be having.

So far, I’ve found three different training courses. One from the Maternity Institute (which I think might be like the Ponds Institute) is called the IMI Maternity & Child Sleep Consultant Certification program. This is a 12 week online course which covers a range of sleep related topics, as well as “The Business Basics Of Sleep: What is involved and what you need to get started” and “an in-depth look at green and eco-friendly sleep practices” (Eco-friendly sleep practices? What is eco-unfriendly about sleeping?) This course is the cheapest at a sale price of $1550 (American), though there are additional add ons you can pay for.

The next course comes from the Family Sleep Institute and is the FSI Child Sleep Consultant Certification. This course, which involves a 4 week pre course and then a 12 week course, with 70+ hours of teaching material, “allows our certifying graduates to confidently run their own private and independent child sleep consulting practices as soon as they graduate.” (No probationary period here). This course, which entitles you to free promotion of your business, includes lessons in “Business Aspects: Website Design, Database Management, Marketing, Pricing” This course will cost you around $3000 (American)

Finally there was the Gentle Sleep Coach (though I could find no information on her ‘gentle’ sleep coaching practices) and the Gentle Sleep Coach Training and Certification Program. This course touts itself as being the most comprehensive training course around, so possibly closer to the kind of training you would expect from other professionals (teachers or doctors) working with children? Or 80+ hours of training. And what do you pay for the 80+ hours? $4995 for the additional program, plus $1000 a year to be certified. (By the way, my yearly teacher certification cost about $60. A professional engineer in Australia would pay around $600) Parting with that $1000 a year allows you benefits, including “use of the GSC logo and business resources”

Wait a minute. Doesn’t that sound awfully like a franchise? So are people actually paying for these programs to become trained health or counseling professionals? Or are they paying to be part of a franchise?

The focus on ‘business practices’, the talk of ‘a career you can have when you have kids’, the franchise nature of some of these programs – plus the minimal work you need to put in to be fully certified. More and more, this is sounding like Avon or Tupperware or other products you ‘sell’ to other people. Except we’re not talking about makeup or plastic goods here – we’re talking about babies, and possibly the mental health of parents and their children.

I’ve got no doubt that there are many well meaning sleep trainers out there. There are probably those with additional medical degrees, possibly even ones in mental health. But there is no regulatory body, no government oversight, no place to turn if the advice, routines or procedures turn wrong. And the training available is simply not rigorous enough to allow these people to work with our children. We wouldn’t allow teachers into the classroom after 70 hours of study, even with ‘on the job learning’ there’s simply no way they would be prepared to work with our children.

There’s also the fact that the majority of these courses are online – and then allow you to call yourself a ‘baby whisperer’ or to pose as a ‘sleep expert’. That would be like calling myself an expert on global history, because I’ve taken (an equivalent length) online course. (So if you want to spend $300 to get advise on Global History, drop me a line)

Parents in need of sleep help, of real help, are usually pretty desperate. They don’t have the time to look at the backgrounds, the qualifications, the training of ‘sleep experts’. They don’t have the time to sort the good from the bad. When they see the word ‘certified’ it needs to mean something. Instead, what they’re getting at the moment, if a bunch of certified people who might have taken a 12 week course and is looking to make a quick buck off your distress, or might have 30 years working as a sleep trainer, as well as degrees in nursing, or training as a lactation counsellor. There’s a place for the latter, especially as support for tired parents. There is no place for the former to be working with our children.

There needs to be more government oversight, there needs to be a proper regulatory body, there needs to be acknowledgement that no matter what you might think about sleep training, this is too important to be left to people who don’t have adequate training or who might just be in it to make some money.

Squirm’s Book Reviews: Diary of a Wombat

April 24, 2013Books and ReadingBook Reviews, books, children, Squirm's book reviewssubversivereader View all 2 comments

I’ve decided to spend a little time taking an in depth look at some of the books we read with Squirm. You can find more Squirm Book Reviews Here

Diary of a Wombat

By Jackie French. Illustrated by Bruce Whatley

This is one of my all time favourite books, a book which I first read when I was on my teaching prac. (Word to the wise, read this one to yourself before reading it aloud. I laughed so much I had trouble getting through the book). It tells the story of Mothball the Wombat who happens to live in close proximity to a family. Mothball interacts with the family as she goes about her day, finding ways to get exactly what she wants.

One of the things I really love about Diary of a Wombat is the way it is written in a loose diary style. The sentences are short and succinct, making it perfect for a relatively new reader. It also allows plenty of time for pausing for laughter. Bruce Whatley’s illustrations match this perfectly, giving us little snippets of the action, surrounded by lots of white space. Often too, the joke is in the pictures, and the reader can only ‘get it’ when they read the pictures and the text – a vital skill required as readers move into reading diagrams and graphs and other mediums which mix picture and word.

For such a relatively simple book, there’s an awful lot of ways you can use Diary of a Wombat – it’s one of those books which can influence activities at a lot of ages.

Exploring Diary of a Wombat with Littlies

As well as the reading through the book several times and talking about the pictures with your littlies, there’s a few things you can do to explore the book further. One thing you can do is to look at some pictures and watch some videos of wombats

You could also read another Australian classic picture book – Wombat Stew (by Marcia Kay Vaughn) which has a fabulous rhyming part to it.

If you’re really lucky, you might live close enough to a zoo or a wildlife park where you can see wombats – Mr Pilot and I got to see them at Australia Zoo – including a mum with a baby 🙂

Slightly bigger littlies might enjoy playing in some soft dirt, like Mothball. They could even create their own wombat burrows. Of course, when they were finished, they’d need some carrots to eat.

Exploring Diary of a Wombat with Pre-School and Lower Primary Children

As well as enjoying the book itself, there’s a tonne of great ways you can use the book for children in lower primary and that little bit younger. It’s an excellent launching pad for learning more about wombats, which might then lead into learning more about other Australian animals. This information could be collected and could even be turned into a little reference book for your child to turn back to again and again.

Jackie French has a great account of the inspiration for the book and how she approached it here. The ‘real’ Mothball was actually a rescued animal, which would be a very interesting thing to learn about. You could find information about animal rescuers in your local area, and you might even be able to organise a visit. One of my greatest memories was having a ‘ranger’ bring a Ringtailed Possum in to show my (inner-city) school after he had rescued it nearby. He was cuddling it in his jacket and it was amazing seeing those little eyes poking out!

Diary of a Wombat can also be used when looking at days of the week and events. Mothball’s story is spread over 8 days, and we are told what day it is at the beginning of her ‘diary entry’. Her days are then organised into Morning, Afternoon, Evening etc. You could practice putting the days of the week into the right orders and look at all the different ways you could explain different times of the day (morning could also include dawn, breakfast time, early in the day, beginning of the day, first light . . .)

Of course, there’s also the Diary element of the book. You could use it to write your own ‘Diary’ story – the Diary of your own child or a Diary for a fictional character (Cinderella or Peter Pan would be funny). Again, you could make some great sequencing activities from this – looking at different activities and the orders you might do them in.

Another great activity could be planting carrots (or other vegetables). I (vaguely) remember putting carrot tops onto wet cotton wool to try to grow them! Yates had a guide to growing them from seed here.

Have you read Diary of a Wombat? What did you like about it? Have you got any activity ideas?

5 Ways to Play Outside With Your Baby

April 22, 2013Family, Playchildren, squirmsubversivereader One comment

Living here in sunny and hot Brisbane, the weather cooling is a cause for celebration – once the weather cools down a little we can get outside more! During summer, we try to get out, but serious play is restricted to the late afternoons, when we can shelter in the shady front yard. Now that autumn has finally arrived, we can get out at different times of the day, and even enjoy the sunshine a bit.

Here are some different ways we’ve played outside with Squirm. Whether you’ve got an acre to play in (like I did when I was a child) or a local park nearby, there’s so much you can do outside!

Five Ways to Play Outside with Your Baby

5 Ways to Play Outside with Your Baby: Adventures of a Subversive Reader

1. Have a Ball

We have a few different balls which Squirm loves to play with, inside and outside. His favourite is a bigger ball, covered in little knobbly bits. We take it outside all the time, rolling it to and past Squirm. When he’s feeling more secure, he loves to crawl along and chase the ball while I kick it around.

2. Get Down and Muddy

Our front yard is beautifully planted out with garden beds and native Australian plants. Our backyard is a little less organised! Luckily for us, that means there’s spots which are perfect for making mud. One day, when the ground was still damp from recent rain, we added a little more water and had fun splashing in the water and pushing the mud around. It was terribly messy, but that’s what baths are for!

3. Go Exploring

Outside places are brilliant for curious babies – so many things they haven’t explored before! Although our back yard is full of fascinating things to explore, for the moment, Squirm enjoys the little things. We have some concrete blocks sitting in our backyard which Squirm loves to balance against and use to support himself while he practices his walking. He also likes to reach down to explore what might be in them (after I check to make sure there’s no nasties lurking in there) He can spend ages exploring these blocks!

4. Get Your Outside Jobs Done

After a wet, hot summer, our garden beds were inundated with weeds. Squirm came out and sat on the lawn, playing with some of his toys and exploring at his own pace while I did the weeding. He particularly liked looking at the flowers! He’s also come with me while I put the bins away – finding new places to crawl and new things to balance against (the gate this time). Hanging clothes on the line is another big favourite for him – he loves looking up at the different colours.

5. Lay back and relax

One of my friends gave us a picnic set for Christmas, including a plastic backed picnic rug. This has been the best thing ever, since Squirm can sometimes be a little hesitant outside (especially on our sometimes spiky grass). We spread the blanket on the ground, bring out a few toys, and when we’re finished playing, there’s time for a cuddle and time to just look up at the sky – at the clouds and the light coming through the trees above us!

Things to think about when you’ve going outside . . .

Think protective gear. A hat is a big thing for us here in sunny Queensland. Long sleeves and pants can be helpful, but we’re going to invest in a safe insect repellent since mosquitoes are really bad at the moment
Think unplugged. Leave phones and electronic equipment behind at least half the time. I even try to leave the camera inside at times (shock!) so I can just enjoy the time with Squirm