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Arts for Kids – SYDNEY!

Posted on February 15, 2024February 15, 2024 by Cristin
Arts Activities for Kids - Sydney

Find arts activities for kids in Sydney in the Artsplorers Calendar of Events

Look for the Sydney school holidays guides ahead of each NSW term break.

Posted in What's On Sydney Arts for Kids

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What is the NSW Active & Creative Kids Voucher? (Updated 2024)
Sydney Family Arts – Autumn 2024 School Holidays

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Arts Kids Sydney🎨Artsplorers

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I’m Cristin-my kids and I are exploring Sydney & beyond through the arts. 🎭💃🏻🎨🎵📚“What’s On Wednesday”. On Cammeraygal land
Artsplorers.au(at)gmail.com
Christmas season is well on its way… and it’s Christmas season is well on its way… and it’s actually a brilliant time for artsploring. All that caroling and dance and craft and splashy shows. 🎄The arts really shine under the fairy lights! I’ve put a big list of artsy holiday activities to do with the family in Sydney up on the blog. There’s a link in my bio. Here’s to a season of creativity and song!
With many of our minds turning to gift-giving, I w With many of our minds turning to gift-giving, I wanted to highlight these three chapter books, which all came out this year, but feel like they could have been written any time in the past 75 or so. 🕰️ These books have in common: 💚 Hard covers 💚 Sweet endpapers 💚 Darling drawn illustrations 💚 Animal and/or fairy characters 💚 Stories about friendship, nature, creative thinking and home 🐨 I wrote earlier this year about WURRTOO: The Wombat Who Fell in Love With the Sky by @tylissaelisara / illos by . @dylanfinneyart . A reclusive wombat reluctantly makes friends with a vivacious koala, and the two go on the adventure of a lifetime across Kangaroo Island. ( @hachettekidsanz ) 🧚 The fairies in JUNKYARD FAIRIES: Dig Deep by @edwinawyatt / illos by Lauren O’Hara are not your run of the mill fairies. These scrappy fairies live in a junkyard and are best friends with a toad. They live in a broken teapot, go foraging and adjust to the ever-changing landscape of the junkyard. Miss 7 says she loved this one because they are “not regular fairies - they are dirty fairies!” (@walkerbooksaus ) 🌳 Hazel lives in a treehouse with a grumpy wombat, an enthusiatic pademelon, an adorable honey possum, and a feelings echidna. There are definite nods to Winnie the Pooh in HAZEL’S TREEHOUSE by @zannilouise / illos by @judywatsonillustration . Each chapter is an episode about the friends negotiating their different personalities and wants. My Miss 7 loved each character and how they tried to work together. (Walker) Each of these chapter books would make a enduring gift for a young reader (I’d say around 4+. (Thank you to the publishers for our copies of these books, gifted for potential review)
I have had this book around here for ages and some I have had this book around here for ages and somehow never got around to posting about it. I noticed it in my stack today and I thought that it would be such an excellent Christmas present, that I should really put it on your radar (plus, gave me an excuse to do an old school flatlay!). I WONDER by the always brilliant @philip.bunting is a book that ponders the big questions in life. What happened before the Big Bang? Why do we make art? What is it like to be a tree? Why are we here? … just to name a few of the real head scratchers that Philip Bunting tackles. Each question is illustrated in Bunting’s signature graphic, quirky style and answered in one paragraph. Many of the questions are not answerable, but the answers serve as a jumping off point for more thoughtful consideration by those kids who always have more how and why queries. We love a curious kid. This book will surely keep their minds busy for at least a portion of your school holidays! (Thanks to @walkerbooksaus for our copy of I Wonder #giftedforreview )
It is World Kindness Day and, honestly, I have bee It is World Kindness Day and, honestly, I have been doing my best at mainlining all things kindness since last week. Kindness as an act of defiance, you might say. For the musical embodiment of kindness - in both verse and vibe - there’s one song that comes immediately to mind, and that is Pevan & Sarah’s “Be Kind.” @pevanandsarah are the brilliant duo (lady and dancing tiger 🐯) who are absolutely rocking the world of pre-school and early primary classrooms the country over. (Truly - I showed off a fan pic I snapped with them to my kid’s kindergarten teacher, and you would have thought I’d shown her Taylor Swift, she was so star struck) With their Cub Club, they make musical magic out of everything from packing up to pencil grip. And, there are plenty of their super tunes on YouTube and Spotify for us non-teacher types who just appreciate a most excellent family jam. So, Be Kind is our Song of the Week (“week-ish”), and the great thing is that it is so catchy that you and your kids will be reminding each other to “Be Kind ... to your friends and your family ...” in song over and over. (Find all of the Aussie kids music we’ve featured via Song of the Week in our Spotify Playlist - linked in bio)
As a 🇺🇸 citizen, I woke up yesterday feeling As a 🇺🇸 citizen, I woke up yesterday feeling hazy and broken. I couldn’t think what to say to anyone, either in my “real life” or on here. One of the first clear thoughts I had was that I needed to share this book with you. ALL THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS is the most recent of @katrina_nannestad ‘s remarkable historical fiction books about children living through war. This is the WWII story of Anna, a young German girl, who outwardly fits the Nazi ideal, but is protecting a precious and dangerous secret. Her darling sister Eva has an intellectual disability, which would mean a certain death sentence, if discovered. When harbouring Eva at home becomes untenable for Anna and her mother, they find allyship from people waging resistance in the ways that they are able. Eva is joined in hiding by two other children whose lives are in peril, putting at unimaginable risk Anna and her friends. I had such affection for all of the characters in this book and, like Anna, felt pain that a whole population could be convinced that other people are their enemy. Anna sees the world as a puzzle, where everyone and everything is a piece of the whole. It breaks her heart and soul that the Nazis don’t see diversity as beauty. A sub-plot in this book is that Anna makes friends with a key figure in the Nazi party. She doesn’t know what to make of this person, but can see the allure of the trappings of power. It really is a much easier life turning your head away from the suffering of others, if you’re afforded that privilege - though the cost is ultimately high. But, the cost is high for everyone. I read this book last week, and it felt like an important reminder of how dangerous things can get if we, as citizens, are not vigilant. This week -even more so. This is why we have stories. To put a human face on *all* the beautiful, valuable people. And to give us a model for fighting for what is right. There has never been a better moment to put Katrina Nannestad’s historical fiction into the hands of readers both young and old. (Our copy of All the Beautiful Things was #gifterforreview by @harperkidsau )
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- you I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- you cannot underestimate the power of letting a kid be in the room with an author or illustrator. I watched this magic happen yesterday as Miss 11 was wholly charmed by Sophie Beer @sophiebeerdraws , in conversation with @lara_cain_gray , about her new middle grades novel THUNDERHEAD. The way that Sophie talked about this story, which is very close to her, was so honest, insightful and funny. I could tell that at least one 11 year old reader to my left was fully sold on this book. I was right. She started reading in the signing line, didn’t put it down the whole way home, and had it finished by morning, promptly handing it to me with instructions that I should begin it *immediately.* Thunderhead is - she tells me - the 2nd best book she’s ever read. (The first is Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but to be clear, the other Hunger Games now trail behind. 😉) Thunderhead is the story of a music-obsessed 13 year old who turns to an anonymous corner of the Internet to share what they can’t talk to anyone else about - the two brain tumours which will most likely cause them to become deaf AND that their only friend is moving to a new school. It sounds heavy, but it is full of wit, intelligence and so much music. I asked Miss 11 what I should tell you all about why she loved this book so much. She said - “I could relate to the character, almost as if it was myself. I really like the sense of humour. And I love the music.” I think this book is going to resonate really widely with middle grades readers. Thanks Sophie Beer, Lara Cain Gray and - as always - @gleebooks_kids for planting the seed for my reader’s book joy. (Thunderhead is published by @allenandunwin . Our copy is #selffunded )
Looking for a Halloween read? 🎃🐈‍⬛ This Looking for a Halloween read? 🎃🐈‍⬛ This new picture book by Maura Finn, illustrated by @lucindagifford is just the ticket. GRANDMA MURPHY’S PUSSYCAT is a black cat out for a nighttime wander. We’re not entirely sure where to, but this is clearly a cat who is not new to adventure. He slinks through town and forest with increasingly creepy obstacles around. There’s some great language along the way. I really like Gifford’s actually spooky illustrations (including some rats that I’d warn those reading to really young ones are pretty scary). They evoke more than a hint of Victorian Gothic- very fun to look at. If you suspected a black cat might meet a witch, you’d be right. Definitely the Halloween feels! 🧙 (Thanks to @affirmpress for our copy of Grandma Murphy’s Pussycat #giftedforreview )
What an enormous joy it was for Miss 11 and I to g What an enormous joy it was for Miss 11 and I to go along to @betterreadkids for the Sydney launch of THE LOST HISTORY by @melanielabrooyauthor We adored the first in this middle grades fantasy series, THE WINTRISH GIRL and are so pumped to be back in Arylia with Princess Seraphine and her knot-sister Penn. These books are big and ambitious, full of adventures, magic, fantastic language, questions about society, and quite a bit of quirky humour. In The Lost History, Penn and Seraphine are both on a dangerous quest to uncover the truth about the curse on the Wintrish, and both of their untold stories. I found the exploration about who gets to tell history and what gets left in the past so interesting, and I suspect will spark some good conversation points for readers. If you have a middle grades reader who loves the worlds of Harry Potter and Nevermoor, I suspect they will dive right into these books. Melanie La'Brooy, we so enjoyed meeting you. Congratulations on this beauty of a book! *Thank you to @uqpbooks for our copy of The Lost History, as well as our now very well worn copy of The Wintrish Girl*
SCULPTURE BY THE SEA I have a lot of love for Scu SCULPTURE BY THE SEA I have a lot of love for Sculpture By the Sea @sculpturebythesea , an annual event that turns our beautiful coastal walk into a gallery that is free and open to all. What better setting to engage in artsploring with kids than the great outdoors? The work tends to run the gamut from serious abstract work to social commentary to just plain silly fun, so there’s something for everyone. My personal favorite sculptures tend to be the pieces that really work with the surroundings. We made a post-school dash to Sculpture By the Sea yesterday. We lucked out with the crowds - probably the smallest number of people we’ve experienced in all the years we’ve been going - so I definitely recommend a mid-week visit, if you can swing it. (Going on a day when the actual King and Queen were drawing the masses across town probably didn’t hurt!) Sculpture by the Sea runs through 4 November along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. If you are going: 🌊Public transport tends to be a good option. The closest local roads are closed, so plan for a bit of a hilly walk if you do drive. 🌊The whole route is 2km. Good walking shoes and sun cream are a must! 🌊There are water re-fill stations, toilets and playgrounds on either end. 🌊Look for the green “hand” symbols on the signs, which indicate if the sculpture can be touched (essential info for kids!) 🌊You can start at either end, but Bondi (Marks Park) to Tamarama is less uphill and the flow of “traffic” tends to go more in that direction. 🌊Accessibility - the walk is relatively pram do-able, if you can make a few steps up/down work, though many find baby carrying easier. There are some steps, so parts of the walk are wheelchair inaccessible. Sculpture by the Sea offers detailed notes and maps regarding accessibility on their website. -My kids love to vote for the “Kids’ Choice” award (at each end of online). Snap a photo of the placard or keep in mind the number of favorite sculptures to make voting easier.
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