Travelling with Kids – Adventure isn't just about the plane trips!
Travel was redefined for our family when my children arrived. Rather than the two of them fitting into our routines and travel plans, it appeared that we would be following their routines and that our adventures would predominatly centre around them as well. It made us happier, our travels a whole lot calmer and life extremely joyful. For that …
Just under 200 kilometres to the south of Los Angeles, right on the Pacific Coast near the Mexico border, lies the city of San Diego. When planning a trip to California we knew that a few days in San Diego was almost mandatory, especially when travelling with kids. There is so much to see around …
Science is an incredible discipline through which the greatest of all discoveries are made. The idea of developing a hypothesis based on what you already know from data or experience, and then testing it out to see if you’re right is such an exciting process. We often head to the museum for a little hands …
As a huge fan of the Baby Sitters Club series as a kid, I often longed to head off to an American Summer Camp. I pondered a gap year after completing my HSC, thinking I could spend my time at a US summer camp before travelling the country, but headed off to uni instead. It’s always …
On every trip we take to a new city we make sure we include a number of hands on learning experiences for the kids. Sometimes this happens naturally through our day to day encounters, on other days we structure our day around a visit to a site that specialises in such activities. When we headed …
Hands on learning is often interpreted as an opportunity for children to manipulate and play with items which leads them to a richer understanding of a concept. At a deeper level, hands on learning is where children engage in in-depth investigations as active participants where they directly observe and develop their own hypothesis around concepts that they then test. …
A world of scientific exploration opened up to us when I discovered that there were dozens of ways my kids could participate in authentic scientific research and studies overseen by professional scientists from our own backyard. Have you heard about Citizen Science? Citizen Science projects are scientific initiatives supported by universities, research laboratories, scientists and/or …
For tens of thousands of years natural asphalt has been seeping up from the ground in what is now urban Los Angeles. Around Hancock Park the seepage has been enough to create areas large enough to trap animals who have been unable to escape and have perished, sinking into the asphalt which has soaked into their …
With my parents up in Sydney to visit the grandkids before travelling to Europe we decided the Powerhouse Museum would be a great place to vista considering it was miserable outside. The kids always like the hands on offerings across the many levels and I knew it would provide an opportunity for everyone to interact. The …
Just this weekend I came across a citizen science initiative that I knew we could easily support as a family. I grabbed my iPad and signed us up quicker than it took T to say “so what actually is it?”. Bathing Birds is proudly presented by the National Parks Association of New South Wales …
Science is an incredibly exciting field of study allowing children right up to adults who make it their occupation to build and organise knowledge through developing hypothesis which we then test to develop our own idea of how things work in our universe. Obviously there are many branches of science. For those of us who have …