Sydney Children’s Festival

The first majorly exciting thing about the Children’s Festival was that we got to go on a train Whoo Hoo!! or more appropriately ToooTooo!! The trip was even more special because it was Sabrina’s first time on a Too Too. We chose to go by train  because I knew there would be limited parking and I didn’t want to be stressing about finding a spot when we should be enjoying the day plus hey it’s better for the environment. As it tuned out CarriageWorks is quite a pleasant walk from Redfern station full of frilly old stuck together houses and street art.

After we lined up to enter, filled out a brief little form giving us the right to choose to become part of their promotional material or not, we headed straight to the circus drop zone. All the kids had a blast in this room, a massive black performance space brim full of all things circusy. Glitter clad objects of potential energy filled buckets scattered throughout the room.  The children were free to career from one exciting piece of equipment to the next and either have a go themselves or ask one of the many helpers how to use it properly.

We then went to a singing class. Much to my horror as the teacher was going around the room introducing herself Eli responded with "My name is Eli and I’m not going to do anything  you say"  which if not polite was at lease honest because he spent the rest of the time I had the girls at the signing class catching bubbles with the Mad Scientist (a foyer based kid entertainer who told jokes and blew bubbles) The girls and I however learnt that there are 8 sides to an octagon and an octopus has 8 legs so an octave has 8 notes. We also learnt how to form notes, follow hand signals, clap rhythms, be conducted and sing in the round.

We then all headed over to the Art Zone. After checking out what there was on offer the girls dove straight into a world of glue, glitter and feathers while Eli went back and caught some more bubbles for the Mad Scientist. I spotted a table with a couple of artists who were busily drawing whatever wacky and weird combination of animals or machines the crowd of kids requested of them. "Hey do you want to get those guys to draw something for you?" I asked after tearing their attention away from the serious task of art."Nope" "Fine what would you want that for…do you want to get one for Mummy?" They just rolled their eyes.

Then we had lunch.

see previous post if you want to know how much of an understatement that sentence just was.

Post lunch face painting

Handy work of the not real Pirate

And the Rainbow Fairy.

We then joined in with a continuously evolving installation art work called Picture Us. Firstly we all (including the baby who was asleep) had head shots taken. When they were printed we cut them out and attached a piece of Velcro to the back. Then we took our head over to a large display wall were we found all sorts of shapes cut out of thick card. We then spent absolutely ages arranging body parts and clouds and our heads to form a family portrait. Then one of the organisers took a photo of our handy work which was printed out for us. The kids adored this activity and the story of our family portrait has been told over and over again.

Then we divided in half, totally terrifying for me as Eli hasn’t been the most reliable child in the stay where you are suppose to be area. There was an author’s talk in the under 5’s room and Lilly and Eli really weren’t up for more sitting and waiting so against my better judgment I let them go to the circus drop zone and took Lani and Sabi to the talk in the room next door. In the end I couldn’t trust them and spent most of the talk running between the two rooms but every time I looked in they were playing happily surrounded by supervising adults. The Talk was by Emma Quay which was so exciting because she illustrated the Bear and Chook books which Lani loves and which won her a gold medal in this years Children’s Book Awards. Lani knew almost all the books that she had brought with her and sat on a cushion at her feet to hear them read out again. When Emma Quay asked if any kids had heard the Bear and Chook story at their school library Lani told her all about Home Schooling and the Book Week we had at our house. Lani didn’t even know I was in the room and it was one of those moments were my heart skipped a beat, Ahh what is she going to tell her about home-schooling, does she really like it or not, this would be where it would come out in front of a published author and a room full of judging mothers. But Lani spoke beautifully and positively and better than that Emma came up to her after and thanked her for all her intelligent comments during the talk and said she must be enjoying her learning and she could see she was a fellow book lover. Woo Hoo take a breath and note to self must try to care less about the judgement of others.  

We of course had to have our first geeky fan moment and get a book signed and have a photo. Emma Quay was lovel
y I couldn’t have asked for a better first meeting your hero moment for Lani.

We hurried back to get the other two from the circus room and they were gone. It was pack up time but other kids were there helping to pack up, waiting for their parents, but not mine.

Ahhhh. I had checked on them not 5 minutes ago where could they be. Ok so all you judging mother eyes, fine, you’re in the right this time. After a mad dash around the huge concrete building pushing Sabi and dragging Lani I found them. Lilly was covered in tears standing with a kind mother who was trying to make sense of her garbled nonsense Eli was catching bubbles. I thanked the lady grabbed their hands and told them we should probably go to the toilet before heading back to the train. All of a sudden Lilly’s all panicky and all "Is that safe???"

"What you you mean" I said a little frazzled "Of course it’s safe"  she walked on warily looking over her shoulder as I dragged her on. "Why did you leave the circus room" I asked cross that they didn’t seem to realise how worried I was

"Oh we had to" said Eli "it was the end"

"NO" I said getting angry "you had to wait for me" Then Lilly points to the wall behind me with big wide eyes

"What is it made of?" she asked

"Concrete" I answer totally confused

"and is it heavy"

"Yes"

"And will it come down on here" She asked motioning to the corridor she was being dragged along

"No, why would you think that, it’s very strong it won’t fall down"

"Oh" she said relived "The man in the circus room said it was time for the Whole Festival to Close Down so we ran out"

And that was our day at the Children’s Festival and, as long as you explain that the walls are not designed to come crashing down and bury you alive at the end of the day I would highly recommend you put it on your calendars for next year.