A ZooMoo Movie Morning

Our family was very lucky to attend a special preview yesterday of a new kid's show called ZooMoo. ZooMoo is an interactive TV show that entertains and educates kids about the animals of the world. With puppets, animation, and incredible wildlife footage, ZooMoo is all animals all the time!

My boys were very excited to get some facepainting done when we arrived, although my 5 year old decided to get Spiderman painted on his hand instead.



The Zoo Moo photo screening was fun for the boys too!



While we waited for the show to begin, each child was given a colouring book and pencils filled with Lightbox characters such as SpongeBob and Dora, which helped to keep the wriggles at bay.



The icecream and popcorn helped keep the boys occupied as well, and I know my husband appreciated the snacks.



We had an iPhone out during the screening, as there is an app for ZooMoo that encourages you to look after 150 animals on secluded ZooMoo Island. You can care for your animals, watch real life videos, learn animal names and sounds, feed, wash and create friends for your animals and take photos. The best part is it also works with each show to collect more animals and content, so the boys were excited to get some penguin cards throughout the screening. The ZooMoo App includes a Parent's Page where parents can learn about their children’s playing sessions, which animals are played with most, when animals were unlocked, and tons of animal facts. These facts help parents engage with their children, talking and learning together, which I think is a fabulous tool in our digital environment.



The show kept my boys entertained throughout the entire hour screening, and the interaction between the characters and those watching was also fun and lighthearted. I even learnt a few things about penguins! The storylines jumped a bit, but they were all easy to keep track of and the different mini-stories kept the show from becoming too dragged out. My 5 year old loved the Ninja Gorilla scenes, and my 3 year old was especially entertained by the story read by Mom Orang' to baby DJ.

ZooMoo’s schedule is built one hour blocks with five themed strands: explore time, create time, play time, puzzle time and quiet time.  These provide consistency and structure, something educational experts stress is critical for learning and skill-building in young viewers. The one hour show may be a stretch for little ones to sit through, but as it does keep changing I found that my three year old's attention did not wander too much- especially as he kept being excited by each animal earnt on the app!

Overall, I think that ZooMoo is a fantastic show for my two boys, who love technology and learning about the world around them. It has convinced me to sign up to LightBox, where there are currently 20 episodes of ZooMoo available to watch.

Father's Day Family Fun

If you are looking for some last minute fun for Father's Day this Sunday, here are a few events on in Christchurch that are family friendly and won't break the bank!

Scarecrow Saturday
5 September // 10am - 1pm // on green beside Hillyers Cafe, Gerald St. Lincoln
Come join in the fun at this annual Lincoln event. Perfect opportunity to get creative as a family to produce a prize winning scarecrow creation. Some fantastic prizes to be won. Bring along your scarecrow between 9.30 - 10 am for registration. Winners announced at midday. New category this year includes your on site creation - see how inventive you can be making a SCARECROW against the clock between 10 - 11.30 (with items supplied by the market). Judging begins at 11.30 am. There will be live music throughout the event to enjoy PLUS all the great selection of genuine locally grown fruit/veg/plants, award winning produce inc. preserves, cheeses, artisan baking, honey, hazelnuts.... and diverse range of handcrafted gifts - perfect time to start getting your Xmas shopping in early!! See www.facebook.com/lincolnmarket for full details.

Christchurch Arts Festival 2015
27 Aug - 20 Sept
Christchurch Arts Festival is a major feature on the South Island event calendar showcasing a programme of arts and entertainment by leading international and New Zealand performers and artists. The Festival experience in 2015 will span four weekends with a range of theatrical enticements that lead the city out of winter and into the lightness of spring. It's a Festival promising a burst of creative energy, vitality, amusement and adventure. Featuring an exciting programme of cabaret and magic, high quality theatre and dance, that sits alongside a diverse offering of classical through to contemporary music and a range of community events. Make the Festival part of your year and bring the central city alive through the arts in 2015! Official Website: Click here

Any Dad who visits Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools & Spa on Sunday with a child will get a free waterside pass. Or for something a bit further afield all Dads get half-price ski passes at Roundhill on Sunday!

The Imagination Station also has a Father's Day package for their Stop Motion Animation Movies workshop- buy 2 tickets for the special price of $20 and receive two cookies as well! In this course you will learn how to make your own LEGO stop-motion animated movie covering basic film-making principles, story boarding and LEGO specific techniques used in producing animations that stretch the imagination. If you already know this stuff - great! The class time is for you to make a film, or to continue work on one with an experienced tutor on hand to answer questions and help you polish your film!

What are your Father's Day plans for this weekend?

Robot Family Fun Night

This week's family fun night had a Robot theme!

We started off by making gear cookies. I used a Chocolate Shortbread recipe, and cut it into flower shapes. I then used a circle cutter to blunt the ends of the petals, like so:



Then we used a small circle cutter in the middle to create gear cookies!



We served these on top of chocolate cookie icecream after we had had Macaroni and Cheese for dinner and we watched Robots.

We also decided to make our own robots. I cut the pieces we needed on my Cricut machine.



The boys had a lot of fun assembling their own robot heads.



We also read a funny bedtime story about a couple of rude robots.

Family fun nights are such a great way for us to connect, and the boys always look forward to Friday nights and talk about them throughout the day- the anticipation is very exciting for them.

Linking up with Kitchen Fun with my 3 Sons!

Superhero Family Fun Dinner

My boys are currently obsessed with superheroes- Marvel Avengers, Batman, comic books, anything will do! We decided to have a family fun night based on superheroes, thanks to the help of The Official Super Hero Cookbook. If you have boys in your house, you need this book! As well as everyday items, it has great ideas for birthday themes and jazzing up lunchboxes, and it even comes with stencils.

We looked through the cookbook and chose what we would like to eat, then I helped the boys write out the menu and a list of ingredients and supplies we would need.

Our main course was Holy Guacamole with Krypto Dogs, Wonder Woman Crudites and Superman Sauce. We also had Joker Juice as our drink.



Dessert was Plastic Man Pudding- this was absolutely delicious! I did change it to Batman Pudding and used a Bat cookie cutter to place some blue fondant on top, and we only needed small amounts of this sweet treat.



The boys both really enjoyed planning, cooking and eating our special superhero themed family fun dinner.

Date Night Movies for Winter

One of the things I look forward to the most is date nights with my husband. In winter, we tend to enjoy a hot drink, followed by a movie and popcorn, and this gets us out of the house and able to enjoy each other's company without being interrupted.

Here are some of the films we are planning to see during the colder months in New Zealand.

Mr Holmes:
Starring Sir Ian McKellan as a retired Sherlock Holmes, who finds himself reminiscing over a 50 year old case in his home in Sussex post WWII. My husband and I really enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes movies released in 2009 and 2011 featuring Robert Downey Jr., and so I am anticipating that this version will also entertain us both.

San Andreas:
As a Dwayne Johnson fan, I really want to see this even though it may be hard to watch at times due to the earthquake scenes. This movie is about the San Andreas fault line, not a GTA game as some fans thought, and features Dwayne Johnson as a helicopter pilot trying to rescue his estranged daughter as the city crumbles around him.

Minions:
The whole family is going to this, as my boys adore the Minions and their funny antics. This is the first movie aimed at children that I have been excited to see this year (my mum took the boys to Spongebob so I dodged that bullet!) and this will make a fun day out for the entire family.

Ant Man: 
My son can list all of the superheroes of the Marvel subset, and Ant Man is the latest version of a superhero character having his own movie. Paul Rudd is an actor that my husband and I enjoy watching, and it will be interesting to see how he holds his own in this performance as a somewhat serious role.

Fantastic Four: As a Marvel-fanatic household, we are also looking forward to this movie being released at the start of August. This is my husband's pick of the bunch!

As you can probably tell, we enjoy action packed movies, and I will still get my fix of romantic comedies through our movie nights at home and also going to the movies with my mum.

Are there any movies you plan to see this winter?

WCW Cinco de Mayo Family Dinner

We celebrated last night's Cinco de Mayo with a low key Mexican family fiesta. Even though we are not a Mexican family, we love the food and it was a great opportunity to practice some of our Spanish. I am bilingual in Spanish and English and am bringing my boys up to be bilingual also, and so immersing them in events such as this helps them to understand the different culture and increase their vocabulary.

I cooked a meal that was enjoyed by everyone in the family as it is easily customised to different tastes.

Taco Salad
500g chicken mince
1 large jar salsa (mild, medium or hot depending on your tastes)

for the table:
4 cups lettuce or other greens
1 1/2 cups corn chips
1 can refried beans, heated
1 cup grated cheese
cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup sour cream
1 avocado, pitted and sliced into chunks
1 cup sliced black olives

Heat a frying pan on medium high heat and spray with oil. Saute the chicken mince until white, and then stir through the salsa until heated.

Serve on the table with accompaniments and let each person choose their own toppings.



I had some of everything! The boys always go for lots of cheese and beans, and my husband is not a fan of olives. This way we all get what we want to eat, and it is a fun and interactive way to have dinner as a family.


Do you have any serve at the table meals that your family enjoys? I would love to hear about them!

Aladdin Family Fun Night

Adam has recently been requesting lullabies to help him fall asleep, and one of the songs I sing to him is my favourite song from Aladdin.

This got me thinking about a family fun night based on the Aladdin movie!

Firstly, I put down a tablecloth on the floor for us to sit on as a magic carpet. Pretty basic, but the boys think sitting on the floor to eat is awesome!



We all sat down to have our dinner and watch the movie.



We had Blue Genie Juice, which was Blueberry flavoured fizzy. A rare treat in our house, but this was rather tasty! We also had Turkish flatbread, moroccan couscous with eggplant and tomato, and some tandoori yoghurt beef kebabs from our local butcher.



Dessert was Cave of Wonders- strawberry ripple icecream with jubes to represent the jewels.



This was simple to throw together at short notice, and such a fun way to spend a Friday night together. The boys loved watching the genie, and I enjoyed reminiscing about the songs as I used to sing them in choir.

If you have any suggestions of movies that we should watch as a family, I would love to hear them as we love our movie nights!

Checking Out the Zoo

My family and I were lucky enough to spend a day at Orana Wildlife Park a couple of weekends ago to celebrate my nephew's birthday. I haven't been for over a year- my sister had her wedding here but my boys have only seem brief glimpses of the park.

First stop was the new playground and flying fox!



Feeding the giraffes was a real close up experience, as you can tell! I love that this is included in your park entry, although be sure to line up early. It is hard to get a good photo due to the amount of people on the platform, but my giraffe was happy to see me with leaves in my hand.



I love to see the zebras, and I even colour coordinated with them.



The meerkats were cute, and took turns keeping guard high up on a rock. The boys thought they would be bigger in real life, but still said they were cool.



We got right up the front to see the tiger feeding, and the zookeeper was a fantastic spokesperson for how these animals are treated in the wild. It really was an informative speech and we all learnt a few new things about tigers. I remember taking photos with this tiger at my sister's wedding, so it was nice to see that it still likes getting in the water and is so photogenic, even when waiting for the meat to be thrown into the enclosure!



Of course, the zoo is a big day for the littlies, and so someone was tired out at the end of the day!



If you are in Christchurch as a visitor, or live in Christchurch and haven't been to Orana Wildlife Park recently, it is well worth a visit- especially as they have a new baby rhino!