A typical bit of Erica / Lori silliness, as caught by the talented Jeremy Lim.

This year’s shoot was even more delightful than usual, as we were fortunate enough to shoot at the Burnaby Village Museum, which is such a magical place.  What an absolutely perfect location for two gals that have a love for hands-on learning in engaging and creative ways.  If you haven’t been, you must go.  Burnaby Village Museum is a living history museum, with historic interpretors dressed in period clothing there to spin tales for you of BC’s history.  Having worked in such environments in my teens and twenties, I can tell you I view such sites with a discerning eye and am not easily impressed.  Burnaby Village Museum impresses me.  It is a place of magic.

To experience a bit of the magic yourself you can visit the Museum from noon until 8 pm each day, up until January 2nd, 2011.  Who knows you may even see Rudolph.  He was after all created there.

Burnaby Artist Denver Gillen's Illustration of Rudolph

After that the Museum doesn’t reopen until May 2011, except for special event openings.  Hoping they host their scavenger hunt again in February and March.

One of my favourite winter time activities is animal tracking, especially in the snow.  I love finding animal tracks, identifying them, and creating stories of the critters that left the tracks behind on their travels. And animal tracks can be found anywhere in winter, even if there is no snow.  If there isn’t any snow, go hunting in the mud or on ground where the mud has hardened, for some tracks.

Here are some fun kitchen goodies that are easy for all ages to whip up and can help you to learn your animal tracks.

Peanut Butter Snack Tracks (A Tracey Temple Invention)

Recipe:

• Mix ½ c peanut butter, ½ c icing sugar, 1 tbsp softened butter, and ½ c Rice Krispies together.

Activity:

1. With your young ones or the young at heart, take a heaping spoonful of the peanut butter mixture, flatten the peanut butter ‘dirt’ and make the imprints different animal tracks in it,using the picture of animal tracks as a guide.
2. Stick the peanut butter tracks in the fridge to harden.
3. Whilst your peanut butter tracks are hardening, enjoy a winter walk and search for animal tracks, identify them, and create stories of the travels of the animals that left the tracks behind.
4. Share your animal track stories and teach your family and friends some track id as you enjoy your peanut buttery snacks.

You can also find last year’s paper making activity here.

Happy Holidays!

The Gang at Ahimsa Kids

Lori wanted to stress the importance of including details in his writing. To do this, she had him write out how to make a peanut butter sandwich. She then followed his instructions to the T.  So if he wrote, ‘put jam on the bread’, she would sit the whole jar on top of the bread because he did not specify to use a knife.

Charlie is a funny kid, so at the end of his instructions he wrote that ‘it is always important to add your own flare’. Being two fun and silly soles, this then sparked Lori and Charlie to turn the lesson into a big food art competition.  Their creations:

Wish I’d been there to see this!  Would have been a hoot!

Well, I was very pleased to see this article on Alex in the Vancouver Sun two weeks ago and to see that Alex had been nominated a second year running for a Young Artists Award.  Congratulations Alex!  And congrats on the opening of your latest film, The Time Traveler’s Wife!

At 12, young Vancouver actor is already a veteran

By Peter Birnie, Vancouver SunAugust 14, 2009

How does a young actor break into show business? Here’s one approach:

“Dear Agent, I am a very cute boy, I am smart, and you should hire me — Alex Ferris.”

Go ahead, laugh all you want. But that brief missive worked, and the seven-year-old lad whose mother forwarded the letter and a photo to a talent agency has had a busy career in film and television ever since.

Alex Ferris went for his first audition, and “booked” it — that means he got the part. He worked with Hollywood veteran Jon Voigt in the TV movie The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and has been busy ever since.

Now 12, Ferris can be seen the feature films RV, The Invisible, Runaway Vacation, Memory and X3. Or you can turn on the TV to catch him in The L Word, Terminal City, Harper’s Island, Stargate SGI, Smallville and Supernatural, among others.

Then there’s his regular job doing voiceover work at Dick & Roger’s, a Gastown sound studio, which takes Ferris away from Kerrisdale public school.

“I regularly have to miss half a day on Wednesday,” he explains, “because I do a show called Martha Speaks. It’s a cartoon on PBS.”

For his role in New Line Cinema’s feature film The Time Traveler’s Wife, which opens today, Ferris took three trips to Toronto (“We worked late nights and it was really freezing cold,” he notes) and missed a big chunk of school.

Strict rules for young actors meant that he had to make up his studies each day with tutors on set.

“It definitely limits my free time, but not so much if I work really hard at the end of the day,” he says.

“Complete focus, I can really get a lot done.”

For two years running, Ferris has been nominated for a Young Artist Award. That means a trip to Los Angeles and a chance to hang with his peers.

“It was a blast,” he enthuses. “A ton of other kids, and I got a few autographs — Emma Roberts, some people from Zoey 101, two people from Bridge to Terabithia, and Corey in the House.”

Ferris is next booked for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a movie based on the popular series of children’s books by Jeff Kinney. Although he enjoys collecting pre-teen travel points, the actor is happy to be working on that project in Vancouver.

“We have quite a good industry and there’s a lot of filming done here,” he says matter-of-factly. “But I’ll go wherever a job takes me.”

pbirnie@vancouversun.com

Sorry no moving images, on order by the Ministry of Magic.  You know being as muggles are involved here and all.

Excited to be visiting the young muggles and magics this week in Ladner for one last week of the Hogwart’s Traveling School for the summer.

The first one:

Protective Padding

Because it’s not only the athletes that need to protect their noggins…..

Photo by Steve Wilhelm

MATERIALS:

• Water Balloons (filled up and ready to fire)
• Anything in the recycling bin
• String (an arms length / balloon)
• Tape (a forearms length / balloon)

THE SKINNY:
Here’s the deal kids. Your building a helmet to protect your water balloon from bursting. You can build it in anyway you like as long as you don’t break the rules (I’ll get to those in a minute). Once you’ve built and fastened on your water balloon’s helmet, partner up and take turns tossing your partners water balloon gently in front of their feet. To win, you need to be the last dry kid standing (ie. your balloon has not burst).

THE RULES:  (Yes, there are rules, because without them it would be chaos people, chaos I tell yah)

• You can only use building materials from the recycling bin.
• No, you can’t have more tape or string, if you ruin yours, improvise.
• No whipping balloons at people. Immediate disqualification.

About the Author:

Erica Hargreave is a writer, storyteller, teacher and scientist.  She’s been having fun doing a few summer camps for the Delta School District, including the Wild World of Science, Outdoor Ed and Hogwart’s Travelling School of Magic.  She has two up and coming Hogwart’s Camps, the week’s of August 10 – 15 in North Delta and August 17 – 22 in Ladner.

The Rules:

• Only one sheet of paper may be used.
• The piece of paper must bridge a gap between textbooks or boards.
• The bridge must sit on top of the text books or boards.
• All pennies must be placed on the bridge, over the gap (not over the textbooks or boards).

Good luck!

As seen on celebuzz.com, Lori's paparazzi pic!

Not much of a celebrity hound or quite frankly an advocate of star power, but I have to say that it was interesting to see how a paparazzi pic taken of our very own star, Lori Yearwood, could go viral on the web in a day.  She’s on:

• celebuzz
• the velvet hot tub
• ocean up
• socialite life
• popsugar

…. and the list goes on.  And the funny part, the info they gave on all these sites isn’t even accurate.  Same misinformation across the board.  Just goes to show you that not everything you read, especially online, is true.

As for the original photographer? Not a clue, but glad nobodies jumping out of the bushes to shoot me.