A Bribie New Years Eve For The Kids

I had been told that Bribie Island puts on quite a nice little 'show' for families come New Years Eve. With Market Stalls, a Mini Fair and Fireworks.

We decided to ensure our holiday covered the New Year period so we could enjoy the festivities. I was a little concerned with noise, but thankfully we were far enough away from the centre of the bustle for it to bother us at all.

The market stalls were a mixture of the regular type stalls you generally see at markets, jewellery, thongs, sunglasses and things like that.

There were however a few gems that caught our eye. This gentleman for example, carves out of lumps of wood and a chainsaw. Just check out the Ned Kelly, he's pretty impressive, considering that the chainsaw isn't the finest of implements.

We then stumbled upon a Lucky Dip Stall. Yes the entire stall was full of lucky dips, not just a little box off to the side that someone has added on to lure the kiddies over to their stall. This one was chock full of little wrapped parcels, all highly organised.

Can you imagine the hours this lady must spend wrapping? Considering that the gift Fairy Princess chose was in three layers.....wow!!

We all enjoyed a few rides, which, thankfully were reasonably priced, compared to larger events like the Brisbane EKKA.

I can  never remember the name of this ride, but will always remember it as my mum's favourite ride when we were growing up. I enjoy it and now my kids love it also. Little Surfer Dude was a tad disappointed that he wasn't tall enough to ride though.

So he got stuck with the baby rides.

For some reason I simply cannot figure out, he never smiles on merry go rounds.

Does he dislike them that much? Is he scared? Is he thinking, what on earth am I doing on this thing? I'm not sure I will ever know.

He does continue to get on them though when he has the opportunity, so they can't be all that bad.

The big kids enjoyed a good old classic ride, the swings.

This is one ride that I just don't do. All that spinning in the same direction just makes me ill!!

The giant bouncy slide was the most popular kids ride by far. We did wait for nearly 10 minutes for this one, but boy did they have a blast.

Just a shame my battery started to die on me and my iphone just wasn't quick enough to get any decent shots, oh well.

We spent 2 hours at the fair and market stall area. You could spend longer as various artists performed on stage, but for us 2 hours was plenty. At 8:00pm the fireworks kicked off. Perfect, as the mother of a 3 year old even 9:00pm fireworks is just too damn late. 8:00 was great!

The beach was definitely packed full of people, it was well worth it though. The fireworks were pretty spectacular. Considering the relative population of the Bribie area we were all pleasantly impressed at how captivating they were.

Little Surfer Dude has experienced fireworks before, but he couldn't remember them so this was 'another' first time for him. Love sharing those things with my kids.

Other posts in this series:

• Exploring Bribie Island

• Bribie Island Beaches 

•  Beachmere Playground

Australia Day - Activities, Baking, Crafts & Fun

~~~ Happy Australia Day ~~~

This week we've been using our Australia Day Unit, which briefly covers the history of Australia Day.

We had a large party organised for today, with lots of Australian themed activities but the SE area has had massive downpours of rain this week, so we made the decision to cancel our outdoor party.

All of us were very disappointed, considering that we have only had one brief shower here all afternoon :(

Hubby attempted his first ever chocolate creation, that was to be the cake topper for today. Yes the entire flag is chocolate.

We spent a little time every day working through the various aspects of the printable Australia Day unit. I was reading The First Fleet section from The Australian History Collection by Bryce Courtney, whilst the kids coloured our Coat of Arms. They were so particular with the colours chose for this.

This collection of short narratives are easy to read and full of eye catching illustrations.  Topics included are Captain Cook, The First Fleet, Bass and Flinders, Buckley's Chance, Crossing The Blue Mountains, Gold, Burke and Wills & Ned Kelly.

Definitely a great overview of Australian History, a good place to start with, the section on the First Fleet really had the kids imagining what it would have been like back then.

Lego Lover sorted all of the 3 part cards (with descriptions) and glued them to place in his notebook.

Little Surfer Dude loved the Do A Dot ABC pages from the Australia Day printable. 

Because today was supposed to be all about fun and add in that it was my lovely husbands Birthday, we decided to have our Australia Day celebration, after all.

Just the five of us instead of the forty odd that were originally planned.

We made silly Red, White & Blue headwear. I simply laid out the supplies and gave no real instructions.

 

Ok, so not a great photo I know, but, what do they say, no shame no game.....they do say that don't they ?! 

I asked Lego Lover to prepare a map for me using our Wooden Australian Montessori map. He traced each state carefully.

Then labelled each of the capital cities. Meanwhile I printed out a sheet of labels for all of the captial cities and placed them in our math treasure box.

It was time for Pin The Capital City On The Map!

The kids had so much fun with this. Way more than I ever expected. They were giggling themselves silly and they didn't even realise they were learning. Granted the 'educational component' of this was more for Fairy Princess, it was fun for Lego Lover to brush up a little too.

They thought it was absolutely hilarious when dad got one of his city labels way off in the Pacifc Ocean somewhere. It probably didn't help that he had been spun way more than the average 3 times before he had his turn.

The completed map. Overall, they didn't do too badly.

We made a batch of basic sugar cookie dough.

And pressed out little Aussie cookies.

And set about icing them, Red, White & Blue!

The icing was a little runny so we ended up with some pretty funky designs.

Of course we had the obligatory BBQ and a birthday cake for dad.

My parents called in to wish hubby a Happy Birthday. Little Surfer Dude enjoyed some pool time with Pop.

There is simply no Australia Celebration without a game of cricket. Lego Lover has really gotten into the game this season. Not so much watching it on the telly, but having a hit in the backyard with dad.

So even though I know we would have had a fabulous time celebrating today with all of our friends and family, we didn't do too badly on our own.

What about you? How did you spend this Australia Day?

Linked up at Enchanted Thursday's blog hop.

Top 100 Home Schooling Blogs

This is a great list of Home Schooling Blogs. Such variety and a wealth of ideas and resources.




I was just a little bit chuffed when I received an email letting me know that my blog is listed amongst those in the Top 100.

Go check them all out :-)