Explorations in Children's Culture and Classical Antiquity
Anna-Olimpia Rosenblum has been writing her PhD with me, on a teaching tool she has developed, using animated retellings of Aesop s fables to help language-learners with vocabulary acquisition. The animation is lovely: a simple retelling, with vocabulary interspersed, which takes learners through well known stories such as La Cigale et la Fourmi (The grasshopper and Continue reading How Aesop and…
A chance conversation at work led me to rediscover an favourite game: Scarab of Ra (1987), written by Rick Holzgrafe, and published by Semicolon Games. Simple but devious, this game takes you into a a labyrinthine pyramid, to seek your fortune as an archaeologist. You start at the top of the pyramid, and work your Continue reading Rediscovering Scarab of Ra
Last week I dropped into my favourite new Dunedin op-shop, the Re-Store, which is a charity shop operated by Habitat for Humanity. Lovely layout, great stuff, and a rich trove of children s books, including Muppet Manners (or the Night Gonzo Gave a Party), and We Like Kindergarten. But the one that really caught my classicizing Continue reading Uncle Scrooge goes to Atlantis with DuckTales and…
On a whim this weekend, I visited the Otago Museum to see the travelling Relics: A New World Rises exhibition. The theme of Relics is civilisations old and new: the year is 2530; human civilisation has collapsed, and a new, LEGO, world has arisen, built inside the tattered relics of the past. A piano, an Continue reading Lego and the Mummy Queen: a visit to the Otago Museum
I ve recently gone back to jigsaw-land, following a fascination with the world of jigsaw competitions. I have no ambitions to do a 500-piece jigsaw in under 30 minutes. I do, however, enjoy the meditative aspects of piecing together an image, bit by bit, taking time to look at the colours and shapes presented, chatting with Continue reading Jigsaw Odyssey piece by piece