Give A Kid A Camera

And watch their observational skills soar!

In this day and age of digital madness it's so hard to get kids outside, engaging with the natural world around them.

But add in a little piece of technology and they might just be immersed for hours!

Give them a camera so they can record what they observe.

We recently spent some time on a local island and whilst they had to share the one spare camera we have, all three kids got into some serious nature photography.

They spent an incredible amount of time wandering, engaged, observing and capturing what they saw.

My teen is teaching himself the manual settings, with a few pointers from mum and dad, when he asks. The younger two are content with the automatic setting.

I have so many images to sort through and those are the ones just from the kids. Far too many to share them all with you, but here's a few.

The following four images were taken by our 15 year old.

Love how my teen captured this. Starfish were everywhere on low tide, along the shoreline and they look fabulous in the sunset.

So ok, not exactly a nature shot but playing around with the light and his little brother during a glorious Moreton Island sunset.

You can't visit Moreton and not watch the sun set over the famous wrecks.

He was even lucky enough to capture this guy whilst we were out on the water.

The next five images were taken by my 12 year old.

She was enraptured with the starfish. There are several images of them taken by her.

Playing around with her little brother. She had my camera for this one.

Of course the obligatory, toes with a starfish photo simply must make an appearance.

These guys get battered around by the surf and many of them get flipped from crashing waves. Their undersides though are mesmerising to look at it.

She also managed to snap the only crab photo of the entire trip!

Our 8 year old barely went anywhere without the camera hanging from his neck. Consequently I now have a plethora of images that he took. The following nine are all from him.

We were so lucky to pass by a pod of dolphins on our way over to the island. They were quick and he was lucky to even grab this shot.

This sunset he snapped directly out in front of our villa. What a beauty!

Behind us was a smallish tropical rainforest inspired garden, which he spent a bit of time in.

This little guy sat and posed for him for ages.

And because everyone else was doing it, he thought he should too!

Once again there are heaps of starfish photo's, but I particularly like this one.

A view through the glass bottom boat.

This little guy was found sitting in the trees just out the front of our room.

Once again in the garden at the back of our room.

Taking these truly helped each of them to observe so much more than if they would have done by simply walking around. I hope to get some of these added to our hand drawn nature journals soon.

If you would like to see more of what we got up to on the island please follow along with our family adventure blog.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens

Between Bateman’s Bay and Mogo is the Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens.





The small garden cafe serves light lunches, cakes and slices. We had a yummy hamburger here.



We loved these gardens. Very rustic, natural, full of Australian Natives and many areas of the gardens have barely been touched by man at all.



They’ve included a short children’s walk with a mini booklet to complete for anyone that wishes to do so.

Animal and bird figurines are dotted throughout the walk, however most of these have been damaged. I can never quite understand why people seem to delight in damaging things that are there for the pleasure of everyone.



Interactive question and answer signs are positioned with each animal along the walk.



It took them a couple of ‘walk bys’ to spot the kookaburra’s nested in the trees.



I had no idea what they were discussing here. I’m assuming the information about the specific animal in that area.





We were all pretty excited to unexpectedly stumble across some kangaroo’s.



Ponds, dams and creeks are everywhere throughout the gardens.








The Play Space here is fabulous. With covered BBQ Areas and wide open grassed areas right alongside the playground.



Which is not your average run of the mill playground.

I think like most home schooling families we spend a fair amount of time in playgrounds and most of them are fairly ho hum, so it’s always nice to come across a play area that someone has put real thought in to.



Similar to the regular spider web climbing frames that you now see in all newer playgrounds, however this has the element of movement. It spins like an old fashioned whirly gig.




Stunning large scale musical instruments are scattered throughout the play area.




Swinging is so much more fun in groups. The kids were calling this their own little ‘Claw’. Our friends at home will know what they talking about




Just before we left the gardens for the afternoon we spotted this heart shaped tree trunk. These gardens are certainly filled with love!

The Paperbark Trail

True to my word I am starting the school year as I said I wanted to and that includes getting out and about in nature. No pressure to produce anything from the expedition, just being there is enough. Although the kids did ask where their drawing tools were so I will try to always take them with me from now on.


We didn't venture too far from home and in fact this is one of our favourite places to visit. It has however been awhile since we've been there. The Paperbark Trail is perfect for little feet as it is only 450 metres and is a very easy walk through the Paperbark Forest.


There's always plenty to spot. B and K were wondering why there were so many burnt trees. I am sure they were there last time, I guess they just didn't notice.


The boardwalk is a nice addition to this area, keeps everyone off the ground and the environment protected.


This large creeping vine held their interest for quite some time. You could barely get by it on the boardwalk and I certainly don't remember it being there on our last visit. I'm wondering if it has become super heavy from all of its growth and has dropped somewhat, causing a near blockage of the walkway. It is very slowly strangling two quite large trees and truly would have been an incredible Tarzan swinging vine!!


We were hoping to see loads of aussie wildlife, you know Koalas, Lizards, Wallabies those sorts of things but instead all we really saw were heaps of crows.


I was lucky enough to grab some decent photo's of the kids though, which worked out perfectly as I wanted a new year photo for their year books.


Wow I can really see why strangers always call C a little girl after looking at this photo (below). He still doesn't look like a girl to me though. He really has probably needed a hair cut (or at least a trim) for some time but both of us love it longer. I think it is because he so blond, not something we are used to in our house with all of our dark hair.

He's our little surfer dude (or so we joke about) we can see him with his surfboard under his arm heading for the next best wave, can't you?


Just as we were leaving, we were in the car driving out, this Kookaburra flew right in front of us. I had to grab a quick picture just to remind us that we did actually see some Australian wildlife during our visit.


That was a lovely couple of hours. Nothing to do but just enjoy the surroundings. I have never seen K get herself dressed and ready so quickly when I said we were going to the bush this morning. And C, well we could barely keep up with him, those two are peas in a pod when it comes to the outdoors.

I am so glad we went and will definitely be making more of an effort to do this during our school week.