BrisStyle indie Twilight Market, King George Square Brisbane

BrisStyle indie Twilight Market, King George Square Brisbane Australia.

They came, they saw and they experienced, what an amazing night was had at the last brisStyle Indie Twilight Market of the year. Such a dense array of shoppers, but all had one common theme uniting them, a smile of joy as they discover new treasures at each and every stall.

Over 100 stallholders braved the impending rain to be rewarded by a clear starry night worthy of Van Gogh himself-just perfect for marketing! Set against the backdrop of the spectacular Brisbane City Council Christmas Tree in King George Square.

It was a handmade, art and craft extravaganza, I saw jewellery and heard jazz, cards and cushions, buttons and bags, bunting and brooches, prints and pincushions, and even, yes you guessed it a partridge in a pear tree!

BrisStyle, a not for profit incorporated association representing over 150 Brisbane handmadies and artists has played an important role in the growth and promotion of Brisbane’s burgeoning handmade scene. Stallholders at these markets are made up entirely of the very talented brisStyle members. With this in mind the talented folk at brisStyle always manage to put on a knockout array of stalls with a focus on handmade quality and variety.

These markets are totally everyone friendly, families, kids, prams and even dogs. With plenty of room to spread out and enjoy King George Square these markets can get pretty busy with browsing market goers and kids happily running around, creating a real sense of community, something that I believe plays an important part of what handmade means.

If you love hunting down the latest trends, general handmade goodness and supporting Indie business then you have to make it your mission to get to the next brisStyle Market, the 2012 dates have already been set and it all kicks off again on Friday the 24^th of February.

You can find all of next years market dates and out more about brisStyle at www.bris-style.com .

Story by Guest Editor – Emmaline Lamond

www.emmalinelamond.com.au

One of the subjects that’s often covered in preschool is learning about the five senses. Understanding our senses helps us describe the world around us and our experience in it, and it’s fun to explore the senses in different ways.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great free printables pack having to do with the five senses. I love the foldable activity shown above because it emphasizes that the way we really experience our senses is through our brains. They also have a sensory scavenger hunt printable, which doesn’t include taste but has the rest of the senses included.

Of course we don’t really want kids tasting things they find outside (unless you happen to have fruit or vegetables growing nearby) but I like the way Hands on Teaching Ideas handled it by including “something an animal would eat” on their five senses scavenger hunt.

Sea of Knowledge has lots of ideas for things to do with preschoolers to learn about the five senses, as well as this free with email signup template for making a five senses craft (you could also trace the child’s hands instead of using the hands in the template if you like).

Use a potato head toy you probably already have to play a five senses game with the download from A Little Pinch of Perfect. You could do the same thing on paper with a potato (or human body) shape and color on the different sense organs.

Simple Everyday Mom has a cute set of senses puppets you can print and play with, or use for different projects and crafts.

Preschool Packets has a whole set of posts dealing with teaching the five senses (the one linked here is for hearing but the rest are linked within that post), which includes a great idea for making shakers with kids to explore the sense of hearing.

Tim’s Printables has some cute five senses printables where kids can match the image to the sense you’d use to explore it. There’s also a body to label but I think there’s only a male version.

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