We had a new addition to our staff this week, Laura has come
to join us just for these holidays as Maya is away on holidays and Brandon is
working in the snow. Laura teaches piano as a full time occupation offering
lessons at her home studio in Black Forest. She has also undertaken a new
venture creating handmade original jewellery. You can find her products on
DuckDuckGoose and email her at laura.poynter@hotmail.com.
We began our week with a delivery of arcade games from Dickeson’s Amusements, including Datona,
Pinball, Super Pang and Puzzle Bubble Two. Although the
adults all hold driver’s licenses this fact did not seem to imply that we were
more capable on the Datona racing
game than the children.
We also spent a great deal of time playing Just Dance through the day. Who Let the Dogs
Out was played more than five times within an hour! This game is great for
getting the heartbeat up and having a laugh.
We finished the day by relaxing and watching Finding Nemo, this was a great choice
because many of the kids had recently seen, or were going to see the sequel Finding Dory.
On Tuesday we focussed on winter cooking to help keep
ourselves warm. Everyone got to have a hand in peeling and chopping vegetables
for a pumpkin soup and a mixed veg and pasta coup. This was served up with some
nice crusty bread for lunch and we all got to sit together and share the fruits
of our labours.
Mid-week, Paul from LampinInk did a comic drawing workshop. Paul
has a degree in visual arts and is creating his own comics. He explained some
of the process of how comic books are created. Then he explained some ways of
using different images to tell a story, first, showing a setting, the character
and then an event in steps so the reader could follow the plot. See the bottom
of this post for some of the work that was created on the day.
On Thursday we were blessed with some warm weather for our trip to the Adelaide Festival Theatre. We took the train to town
and walked to the Dunstan Playhouse. Here we watched a live performance of Andy Griffiths’ 52-Storey Treehouse. After doing so, we came back for a chilled afternoon playing outside in the sun, playing the arcade games and drawing our own treehouses.
After a big couple of weeks of holidays we were all in need of some time to just unwind and relax. We spent Friday in our PJs having hot chocolate with marshmallows, watching a couple of films and just socialising with friends. In the morning we were so lucky to have Brit bring in some of her bunnies in the morning and Baileigh brought her guinea pig, Lucky. We all got to have a cuddle and pat these precious creatures, for some children they had never held or touched these animals.
