Horseshoe bend farm has reopened! Well, it’s accessible to the public and is no longer a farm, but we were excited as we’d see another part of Brimbank park – with the Wedge Tailed Eagle’s nest. So we met up with a friend and had a walk around. Unfortunately we didn’t find the nest! But we think we saw one of the eagles circling high over our heads. The place was deserted aside from some wallabies, birds and millions of bull ants! the kids were a bit cautious about walking through the long grass due to snakes, but overall it was an adventure, followed up by a play in a local park.
At home this week Daniel and I have done lots of puzzles, we’ve even made a ‘lookout’ for his paw patrol characters. We’ve all played foosball and I’ve played the Harry potter lego game with Alex. He adjusted the rules, and we both won! I bought some new books recently about real, inspirational people. I read Alex the Jane Goodall book, and he loved it. I’m so glad, I had hoped that it would be enjoyed by him. We’ve read more treehouse and we’ve played with lego and playdough too. Made chalk messes too! We discovered in cleaning out Sticky that they are able to fly now! Fortunately we got it back into it’s enclosure safely enough. One day we had a friend of Daniel’s over. Alex doesn’t like these scenarios, but we got to play rat-a-tat cat together and minecraft (we’ve been playing survival and mining, i quite enjoy it!). We’ve been playing basketball at the parks too. Alex politely asked 2 adults if he could share the court with them, and they were very respectful of him thankfully. Vio and Alex watched the Green lantern, and on another day the kids and I watched ‘room on the broom’ for halloween. Alex wants to look at blood under the microscope again. He volunteered my blood for the task! Alex has been practising football a bit in the backyard. He’ll never go out alone though. Vio has given him some challenges.
We revisited the Incinerator gallery. the theme was environmental awareness (our actions and their effects on the Earth). I quite enjoyed this exhibition actually and it was quite meaningful for Alex as we’ve had lots of conversations about this recently. The first art we saw was a circle of coloured rocks. It was quite beautiful in itself, but the artist had informed us that there could be a piece of gold in one of the rocks. Each family was allowed to take a rock home if they chose to, but they had to agree to smash the rock, photograph it and send to the artist. Each child was asked if they’d like a rock, with the question added – what would happen if everyone took a rock? It was a nice idea I thought, very easy for a child to understand the finite nature of resources symbolic of the mining industry. Some children took one but Alex chose not to. I later asked him why and he said that he didn’t want to ruin the artwork. 
There was a dump style artwork that Alex voted as his favourite – I suspect the water feature did it! We had a chance to make our own artworks, and Alex made some animal habitat/enclosures with tech features like detection beams. Daniel’s creation changed purpose multiple times, I’m not sure what it ended up as but he enjoyed the process. Afterwards we went to the pirate ship park. The kids were more interested in collecting fallen branches from recent strong winds to make a cubby with!
On the way to athletics training Alex was asking me about fractions (not by name) and asked what half of 1/2 is (he knew 1/4 and 1/8) but wanted me to continue. So I kept going until I couldnt do the mental arithmetic! On another car trip, Alex asked about how to get jobs, so we talked about it. I told him I’d flown a plane and helicopter and he was quite fascinated and wants to do too. He asked about flying and when you could do that. Said he wants to be a pilot. The next morning I strewed a flight sim on his iPad. he was happy about that and played it for a few days.
I worked at school and the kids had a day with Vio. they went out for dumplings and ice cream! Also stopping on the way home to fly a kite at the park. That evening we had Emily and Jacob over. I played hide and seek tiggy for what felt like hours with Emily and Alex. We had lots of fun, and the kids cooperated and collaborated against me! The little ones played a bit but mostly watched TV together.
I had a long weekend of sickness so some of our plans fell to the wayside. The kids really wanted to celebrate halloween so I took the opportunity to talk about cultural appropriation. I told him about cultures having their own ways and traditions that are not appropriate for those outside of that culture to use or mimic for their own benefit. It was all a bit abstract to him so I told him about how people from my hometown have an annual cheese-rolling event, I showed him some videos of it later. He thought it was amusing! I wasn’t keen on trick or treating in our neighbourhood, but fortunately Watergardens had an event. The kids were given bags and visited shops dresses as Iron Man and Captain America! It was great fun, they want to do it again! They also went on a giant inflatable slide. I couldn’t go on, but Alex did a great job of looking after Daniel. It was nice to witness.
Looking over this month we’ve spent a lot of time at home and it has felt a bit stale, though the kids have not complained. I really want to read more with Daniel as we just don’t at all it seems! And I want to do some exploring, just us.