From the category archives:

Observation

Wordless Wednesday – Oasis

October 3, 2012 Life and Living

There, amongst the sere brown grasses, a patch of green. Big girl spotted this strange phenomenon. I suspect those ferns under the large and luxurious bushes hold the answer, and diagnose a broken pipe.

Wordless Wednesday – Levers

September 26, 2012 Energy and Change

I got a rare chance to play with my girls at the museum. Big girl’s explanation is that they must weigh different amounts, so she was testing it. She did explain why they went up to different heights. And I heroically did not tell her the answer, she can play with it another day.

The Witches

September 14, 2012 Activities

I remember doing these as a kid and for some reason I thought they were very complicated, but they turned out to be really simple. Perhaps it’s just that my artistic standards have slipped, the girls were thrilled to have something that looked like a recognisable face rather than being disappointed it wasn’t a perfect [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Parasitic tree

September 5, 2012 Life and Living

We get lots of mistletoe parasites up here, but I had to look twice at this one. It probably isn’t a true parasite anymore because those root/trunks reach the ground, but it probably started as one when a seed lodged in the fork of the gum tree. There’s now a whole tree (some type of [...]

Glittery Leaves

August 31, 2012 Activities

I owe this one to the lovely backpacker who babysat my girls in Ngukurr. They came home with the most fabulous multimedia creations involving paint, rocks, containers and glitter glued leaves. What a great way to explore the veins and patterns on leaves and learn about different plants. First collect your leaves, always a fun [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Eureka!

August 22, 2012 Life and Living

The finalists for this year’s Eureka prizes have been announced, and as usual there are amazing photos to drool over. (Above is a Mantis Shrimp by Gary Cranitch) I have no idea of the legalities here, but I think that seeing I’m using the photos for comment, I’m non-commercial and I am attributing the photos and [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Kingfisher

August 15, 2012 Life and Living

Look who popped in to visit one day. Sorry for the photo quality, I was taking them through a window before she disappeared. I think it’s a female because of the fairly dull colours, and she seems to be a sacred kingfisher. I like being able to identify some of the things we see!

Frozen Candles

August 10, 2012 Activities

A little while ago we made ice lanterns, remember? Something interesting happened with the tea lights, and led to many more happy burning sessions while the girls worked it out. This is one of the candles from the ice lantern, if you have a look you can see that the top still has a thick, [...]

Wordless Wednesday – More Weird Bathroom Light

August 8, 2012 Energy and Change

Obviously this is reflecting off something round, but we can’t work out what. I thought it was the metal corner strip, but we tried covering it up and the pattern was still there. In fact we seem to have tried covering pretty much everything reflective in the bathroom and we still get these starbursts all [...]

Look Closely

August 2, 2012 Activities

I have light blue eyes, as do my siblings and father. So it’s very obvious looking at us that there is a black spot in the middle. But I had a fun experience one time when I was teaching a class of 13 year olds in an Aboriginal community – they didn’t realise they had [...]