What Home Education Looks Like - 24th February 2014

We went to this festival last year too and really enjoyed it. It's described as a festival run "BY children FOR children, as well as hosting the top names in children’s literature, dance, theatre and art.". There certainly was a lot going on, from interactive exhibits....

....walls you could colour in....

....dance and music sessions....

.....book and comic stands....

....and special presentations, including one from the Etherington Brothers; the famous comic book team!

....and that was all just in the morning! We went to Las Iguanas for a yummy lunch (we figured most other families would head to Giraffe ;)) and managed to time it perfectly so we were in warm and eating during the rain storm.

Then we went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall (gorgeous brutalist architecture!)  for the Out with the Family talks and "That Catherine Bennett" show.

Catherine Bennett is a manufactured pop star created and managed by a nine year old girl and her aunt (who plays Catherine Bennett) as an experiment in individuality and what can be achieved once you put your mind to something. The show was great with the girl and her aunt telling the story of how it happened and then performing some of the songs.

Our favourite was Animal Kingdom, which you can see below. To find out more about her visit her website - http://www.catherinebennett.so/

Afterwards we went out to the brilliant sculpture playground, which Papaya was delighted to see had been painted all pink!

Imagine Children's Festival

It was half term this week, which doesn't really affect us except that all our favourite places were crazily crowded! The good thing about it though was that it meant the Imagine Children's Festival at the Southbank Centre.

There had been a lovely build up, with cartoon monsters by artist Jon Burgerman popping up all over the Southbank.

The festival itself was a riot of shows, music, workshops, interactive sculptures etc. It was insanely busy and we saw some very stressed parents, but all the children seemed to be having a good time.

Our first stop was the Lego book.

This had been built by people attending the festival the week before so sadly we'd missed out on that, luckily Povey was just happy to see it.

After that we felt drawn over to the Festival Control Room, which had been built and was being run by local children. We signed up for the 15 minute tour and got to see all around the structure they had created with a special portal....

Magnetic letter board....

...interviews with visitors to the centre, and the mallow machine... sadly out of order that day!

In the inside part of the structure were bean bags for lounging on...

.... a look out tower (here with one of the kids running the place giving us a talk)....

....and an interview room in the form of a mini ball pit!

Povey liked the free library and in particular the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, we must look for them in our own library!

The rest of the time we just explored around the rest of the free stuff like these cool glasses that turned all light into rainbows....

....a chance to create your own Imagine monster....

....and adding their hopes and dreams to the tree and elephant sculptures...

At 3.00pm it was the workshop we'd booked them in for; The Great Escape (A Borrower's Tale). This was an interactive theatrical experience, lasting 80 minutes and for children only!
The children were all taken through by people in white coats and glasses and hung up their coats before disappearing out of view!

We did spot them wandering around the Festival Hall a couple of time all in the same white coats and glasses! Papaya looked very happy and Povey had his serious concentrating face on!

Whilst they were in their show we watched the junior bands performing in the centre dance hall, with compère by the amazing Madame Lark! The quality of the bands was very impressive and the exuberance brilliant. They even projected up the words so we could join in!

My two came out of the Borrowers show bubbling with excitement about what they had seen and looking everywhere for signs of the Borrowers in holes in the ground and walls. They had a little leaflet showing some of the Borrower created objects they had spotted around the building.

A lovely moment was when they put their coats back on to leave and discovered a surprise in their pockets! A little plastic bag full of bits and pieces to make their own Borrower object!

Such a great little touch!