Cavalia – Australia Review

Cavalia is the new MUST see show in Australia and if all the media hype has not piqued your interest then maybe this review will tempt you a little more.

When we were invited to attend the opening night of Cavalia in Brisbane (Australia) we were excited but didn’t really know much about it. The numerous flags and billboards around the city really built up our anticipation and expectation.

At no fault of the producers of Cavalia (unless they can control the weather outside) the rain poured and it poured and whilst the gigantic princess castle white top was dry, the walk in and out to our seating was not. It was raining with puddles and we not only got soaked walking from the car park, we got wet walking from the entrance (food, drinks, merchandise) to our seats and once again at intermission.

The show – It was as theatrical as you could expect and the set’s were amazing. At the start the horse was stepping in water and then next section the water was gone? How? The music was mesmerizing and the horses looked stunning.

If you are into horse shows and horse jumping, you would probably be disappointed with the performances. On the other hand, if you had no interest in horses you would not be able to appreciate just how hard it is to get a horse to move, let along dance/prance around.

As with our Cirque du Soleil review last year, we wished it had started earlier. (Saturday and Sunday are the best days to go as there are day performances but these are selling out fast)

Here are 2 tips if you’re planning to attend the show.

1: Don’t wear heels. There is a rubber matting down for flooring and it has small holes at the joins. I really wished I was looking down more often to avoid continually stepping on the lines (clearly I didn’t play the Crack jumping game enough as a child).

2: Either arrive early around 6:30 to grab a seat in the waiting area or go late. The cattle holding tent as I liked to call it was packed (no outside space due to rain). With 2 kids it was impossible to move left or right and if you were claustrophobic – well god have mercy on your soul.

Tickets and Show information can be found here Cavalia.com.au – The show will also be touring the rest of the metros in Australia after its run in Brisbane.

Tickets start at $59 (partially obstructed) – $289.00

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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