NAC Kinderconcert Series

By Sara

When our eldest was 8 months old he developed a fascination with vehicles and we have since sought out every kid-friendly place in the city where you can get hands-on with all means of transportation.  When our youngest was 8 months old he developed an intense interest in all things musical, which is why I was delighted to discover the NAC Kinderconcert Series.

Each year the NAC puts on a series of 4 concerts for children between the ages of 3 and 8. Four shows are scheduled for each Sunday performance: 9:30 and 11:00 am shows for 3 to 6 year olds; 1:30 pm show for 5-8 year olds; and a 3 pm French show.  The events, geared towards families, take place in the Panorama room at the NAC and you're encouraged to bring a cushion to take advantage of an up-close view of the action (although the mats they provide are actually pretty comfortable)!

With our two boys in tow, we ventured out to the NAC half an hour early.  We knew the escalators and big red staircase would provide lots of entertainment.  Outside the Panorama room there were several tables set-up with an instrument-making craft, colouring, and even instruments for the kids to try out.  It was a good opportunity to burn off energy before the concert started.

Eager to get the full experience, we sat on the floor with the boys at the front of the room.  There are chairs and plenty of seating for parents and kids who would rather not participate in the melee at the front of the room.

The Giggle and Stomp concert was a hit with all the kids, many of whom were younger than the suggested 3-6 year old audience age.  The percussionists introduced the kids to the five different ways to make noise with percussion instruments, interspersing their explanations with jokes, physical comedy, and of course, lots of music!  My 4 year old was enthralled with the entire performance: he laughed out loud at their antics and clapped and stomped along with the music.  Our youngest, who is 23 months, sat for the entire performance but enjoyed the musical interludes the best.  No surprise that he wasn't interested in hearing about five ways to use percussion instruments: he just wanted to listen to them! There were lots of opportunities for audience participation and the performers were funny and engaging.  A true testament to the show is the fact that the kids stayed seated for the hour-long performance: no small feat when you have a room full of toddlers and preschoolers.

In 2010-2011 there are some great shows to look forward to: Anabelle Canto; Orfea and the Golden Harp; Peter And The Wolf; and How the Great Turtle Rebuilt the World. Take advantage of pre-HST prices by subscribing to the series before April 30th.  The cost for the concert series is $40 per adult, $20 per child, or $100 for a family of four.

If you don't want to wait until Fall 2010, there is still one show left for the 2009-2010 season: A Journey to Dixieland on June 13th.

Sara is mom to 4 year old Ben and nearly two year old Spencer.  You can find her at her blog My Point of View.

Sara is mom to 4 year old Ben and nearly two year old Spencer.  You can find her at her blog http://themcconnellfamily.ca/photoblog/

Going to the dogs

by Brie There is a dog park within a five-minute walk from our house. We always walk by it when we go to pick up the husband from work. Recently I realized the wisdom of walking there and stopping.

The dog park is part of a larger park. On one side is a sidewalk and on the other side is a field leading to a play structure. Both sides offer optimal viewing. And if we visit both sides of the dog park I can prolong the experience even more!

Once we arrive at one side of the fence I like to let my three-year old daughter and nineteen month old son out. They like to peek through the chain link fence and walk along it. This also allows them to follow a dog from one end of the park to the other and burn off some energy.

My son has a deep love of dogs. From afar. He will screech happily as he watches them run around the park but if they come anywhere near the fence he will back up cautiously until he is hiding behind my legs. As soon as they wander away again his face is pressed right back up against the fence.

Yes, a visit to the dog park is a great thing to do with my kids. And if I grab a coffee from the cafe around the corner I am happy to let them watch frolicking dogs for as long as they want.

Brie is the mom of a 3.5 year old daughter “the girl” and eighteen month old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.

ABC Challenge: Week two

Week two and I'm having a blast with this. More and more people are joining in to the challenge (you should too!) Here are my two photos for this week. The photo of Kiernan running is one of my favourite photos ever.

Y is for yellow

O is for outside

Participant photos

I love looking at the photos other participants have been submitting. Have you been checking out the flickr group? Here are a few to entice you over :)

How cute is this guy?! O is for outside by Carly@thetree.

A photo by meaklims after Kids in the Capital's heart :) (O is for outside)

Bokeh by jhscrapmom . So gorgeous. Too advanced for most of us for now I think. (W is for wet)

I love the feel of this photo by somekindofmom. Y is for yellow.

I could go on for a lot longer - there are so many fabulous photos to choose from! Please feel free to join us next week - it's never too late to start playing along.

Photography tip #2

I believe a lot of you are probably taking photos with point and shoot cameras so I've been trying to find tips that make people more confident in taking great pictures even without a DSLR.  Here are a few of the tips I've found:

1) Make use of the presets on your camera.  Once you learn what they do, they can help you take better photos without doing anything more than turning a dial or pushing a button.  Here is an article on About.com that gives you more of an explanation on what all of the different presets do.  I'm a big fan of portrait mode.

2) Change your perspective.

- get closer

- zoom in tighter

- take a few steps off in a different direction than you usually do

- get above the scene, or below

It might make your shots more interesting and different.

3) Take a lot of photos. This is true no matter what kind of camera you have. I'm taking about 500 photos a week right now to come up with my 2 photos that I'm really happy with every week. Shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot - and then sift through to find the gems.

Housekeeping

- The flickr group now has a main pool for all the challenge as well as a discussion thread for each letter so that you can see the groupings of each letter (since people aren't all doing the same letter on the same weeks). Check out the "an idea" thread to see the details on how to add photos to the threads.

- As mentioned before, it's never too late to start taking part. Please feel free to start adding your photos to the flickr group, even if it's not every week but just time to time.

- I am assuming a lot of the people interested in the photography tips are using point and shoot cameras as opposed to DSLRs. Could you please comment and let me know what you're shooting with if you're interested in my photography tips?

See you next week!

Lara is the mom to 3.5 year old Kiernan and 11 month old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can find her at her blog Gliding Through Motherhood.

My Park: Big Bird Park

by Vicky Big Bird Park is our park. They call it Big Bird Park because from an aerial view it looks like a bird with its wings spread out wide. It's a mature park, full of trees, picnic tables and lots of wide open spaces to run or fly a kite. At one end you'll find a set of teeter totters and swings. There is a baseball diamond off to one side, although we have yet to try it out, and not one, but two playgrounds. The little kids' playground is gated, and has a smaller structure that is the perfect size for kids 3 and under. It's shaded under some large trees and we've spent many, many afternoons digging in the sand or riding on the spring riders.

The larger structure has a tire swing, another teeter totter, a tunnel to climb through and a really big slide!  One of my favourite parts of this park is what Joel calls the 'bridge'. It's a little wooden bridge over a culvert that leads to a path. In the summer the trees on the path create a canopy overhead, and when I walk through it, it reminds me of when I was a kid running through my park playing tag or hide and seek.

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Big Bird Park is off Jeanne D'arc Blvd in Chatelaine Village Orleans.

The Ottawa Public Library: The Ruth E. Dickinson Branch

by Shawna For those of you that use it, this will be a “no duh” kind of post, but for those of you who haven’t discovered it yet, your library is waiting for you! The Ottawa Public Library is a fantastic resource for parents, no matter what age your kids are!

Almost every Thursday I take my 4 year old daughter to Evening Story Time at our local branch, Ruth E. Dickinson (and pretty soon my son will be old enough to push back his bedtime to allow him to go too).  There, starting at 6:30, they read story books to groups of youngsters - half of which are usually in their adorable pyjamas - for half an hour, and when that's done they do a craft.

The library has regular events for all ages, including Babytime for the youngest set, on up to Homework Club for older kids.  Sprinkled into this mix are special and themed events, as well as some regular features such as conversation groups for various different languages.

Even if there's nothing scheduled, the library is a great place to go on a rainy or cold day to get out of the house and pick through the bins and shelves of brightly-coloured books for some free entertainment for you and your kids. They even have DVDs, and you can reserve most material.

I often like to log on from the comfort of my home computer and browse through the kid movies and books (and maybe some grown-up ones too) and add the ones that pique my interest to my "hold" list.  When it comes in I get an email letting me know that I've got a week to pick it up (which I do when we go to Storytime).  How easy is that?  I can even do this to secure passes to the museums of Nature, Science and Technology, and Civilization, though the waiting list for them is hugely long, so you have to be patient.  And as soon as I've used one of the passes and returned it, I go right back onto that list.

The best part of all this?  It's free!  Free!  Free!  I am always amazed to arrive at Storytime and not find every kid in Barrhaven there!

Shawna is mom to 4 year old Sage and almost-2-year-old Harris.  She has  been writing online since 2003, and her latest project is a fledgling photography blog.  Like many parents, she has a computer stuffed with thousands of pics of her kids.