Oh, school holidays… they fill me with many mixed feelings. On the one hand I love spending so much time with my big kid before she goes back to school. But on the other hand… it is such a long time! And in the middle of summer.
And while there are lots of vacation care programs and full-day workshops for school-aged kids, there’s little programming that I can take my 3 year old along to as well. So for the most part we’ve been hitting up the usual beaches, parks and pools. But we have done a couple of workshops.
We have a family membership to the Australian Museum so we went with the whole family on my partner’s last day off work. I was a little bummed to see that the drop-in activity they were offering was for kids 4+ which precluded my littlest and that it was an extra $10. However they gave her a little bag of materials, including a pack of model magic, so I felt the cost was justified.
The activities were great and open ended – weaving a jellyfish or other sea creature and sculpting pieces of coral from the model magic plus glow-in-the-dark fluoro markers. Luella really loved the latter, spending a lot of time creating intricate patterns on her coral. There was a black-lit area where you could then take your creatures and watch them glow.
Then, more recently, we were in Better Read Than Dead, my favourite local bookshop and I found out about a workshop they were holding, coincidentally, also with an ocean theme. It was $40 for a 10-3:30 program for kids aged 5-7. Luella was a bit apprehensive about me leaving her for an all-day workshop but then we found out she had a few school friends who were attending so that sweetened the deal.
So that was yesterday, and when I picked her up at the end of the day she was all smiles, proudly showing off the artwork she’d made and her “Better Read Kids” tote bag. They read a ton of books that she raved about and also had lunch and a play at Camperdown park.
On Friday Luella and I are heading off to Melbourne, just the two of us for a week! I’m so excited and we have a jam-packed itinerary of art and play, which I’ll write all about.
What activities have you been enjoying in Sydney?
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