Where Is Mai?
Can you help us find our newest friend, Mai? She is hidden in every image within the latest Walls That Talk exhibition. All the locations are iconic places in Maitland, and we need your help figuring out where they are.
Head to Maitland City Council’s website to download our Finding Mai Activity Book here, which includes the nine artworks and has additional items for kids to find. It also has a range of online activities which can all be completed at home these school holidays.
(For the best experience to complete this booklet, use a tablet or computer so you can zoom in on the images).
Follow us on social media using #FindingMai and let us know what activities you’re completing.
Colouring in with Mai
We have lots of easily printable at home colouring in sheets to choose from while you’re completing the #FindingMai activity booklet.
Easy: Our friend Mai needs some colour! Download the picture of Mai to colouring in below.
Hard: Looking for more of a challenge? Colour in the locations of where Mai is hiding. Each location’s colouring in sheet is underneath their activity section below. Check back each week to see what new locations have been released.
Location one activity
Mai has really missed her friends and family since being in lockdown. She wondered how she could help her community by still staying safe and came up brilliant idea – she would send a letter to her loved ones, telling them everything she’s been doing since lockdown began.
Here’s our letter creating suggestions:
write a letter
Write to your favourite person you haven’t been able to see, whether that’s your grandparents, friends, or anyone else you miss.
Make sure to let them know what you’ve been doing in lockdown, like:
- Have you learnt anything new?
- What hobbies have you tried?
- What have you loved most about spending more time at home?
draw a picture
Get really creative by using lots of different colours, stamps, and stickers on your drawing.
- What drawing tools will you use? Pencils? Crayons? Texters?
- Can you draw who lives in your home?
- Can you draw what you’ve been doing while you’ve been at home?
- Can you draw a picture of you and the person you’re sending your drawing to? Maybe you can draw what activity you want to do with them the next time you see them?
create your own postcard
Why not do the best of both worlds? If you want to make something, then creating a postcard is a great idea.
- On one side you can let the person you miss know what you’ve been up to.
- On the other side you could draw a picture of your favourite place in Maitland.
- Or maybe you could create a picture of you and the person you’re sending the postcard to.
Remember to post it to the person you miss.
Mai might know a place in Maitland where you can post your creation…
Location Two activity
The school holidays have begun and Mai is getting very creative with her hiding spots.
She has been struck with inspiration after visiting this second location, and has found lots of fun, artsy activities to see, make and do during the break. Take a look through these activites at this mysteriously, crafty location: https://mait.city/see-make-do
One of Mai’s favourite ‘make’ activities on this web page is creating her very own Stop Motion Video with her toys. By simply downloading the Stop Motion Studio app onto a smartphone or tablet, Mai was able to create very craftsy and cool clips of her toys to look like they were moving around.
We have videos below for inspiration on filming your stop motion movie:
Location Three activity
Our friend on the inside, known as Snitch the Rat, told us he met Mai wandering around at a new location not too long ago. Snitch the Rat introudced Mai to all of his friends, including:
- Dob the Dog,
- Squealer (the stealer), Mouse,
- Cocky the Cockroach,
- Fizz the Fly,
- Rocky the Red Back Spider,
- Filipe the Flea,
- Rosie the Rosella,
- Blossom the Possum and
- Brawny the Tawny Frogmouth
Rumour has it, they are all hiding in the Finding Mai artworks too! We will have to put our dectective caps on to find them.
Snitch the Rat has a lot of fun activities that you can do from home too, like how to make real butter, jigsaw puzzles and lots of online games. Visit https://mait.city/snitchs-spot to check them out.
Mai has found a brand new location with a gorgeous view of the river. With the wind blowing and the sun shining, she was able to sit down and watch the clouds pass by.
When she was watching the sky, she spotted lots of people flying kites. This gave her the idea to make her very own kite.
Would you like to see your own creation flying in the sky, just like Mai? Create your own kite from home, share it with us on Facebook or Instagram by using #KiteKits and #TheLevee, and go in the chance to win $500 prize pack!
Visit https://mait.city/kitekits to find out more.
You may have noticed on location four’s artwork that there are bones of a giant Tyrannosaurus in the dirt. Do you think there could be a dinosaur in your backyard?
Being the creative girl Mai is, she thought a fun experiment to carry out would be to make a Dino Dig site. In three easy steps you can make yourself a Dino Dig site. All you need is small plastic dinosaurs (or any small plastic toys if you want to be creative), a container, cornstarch and water, which are ingredients to make something called oobleck, or goop.
1. Mix up some oobleck by combining cornstarch and water in a container. Depending on the size of the container, you’ll need double the amount of cornstarch to water, i.e. if you use one cup of water, you will need two cups of cornstarch. Make sure it’s the right consistency:
- If it’s too watery, you’ll need more cornstarch.
- If it’s too thick, you’ll need more water.
2. Put your dinosaurs, or other plastic toys you’re using, right down the bottom of the oobleck so you have more to dig up.
3. Leave it outside in the sun to dry for a day. Once it’s hardened, you can get digging. Toy tools and paintbrushes work well for the digging process.
Check out the videos below for a visual of these instructions:
Location Five activity
The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and Mai is once again hiding.
Mai loves bird watching and she’s found a location where she can listen to 140 different species of birds while walking along beautiful trails.
There are two apps you can utilise at this location for iOS devices:
Mai was enjoying the beautiful song birds along her walk using the apps above. She’s combined their gorgeous sounds, pretty feathers and her eco-friendliness mindset into a creative art project you can enjoy from home.
Using old CD’s you can create your own Recycled CD Songbird. The supplies you’ll need are:
- Old CD’s
- Acrylic paint
- Foam sheets (orange, tan and another color)
- Feathers
- Permanent markers
- Googly eyes
- Scissors
- Glue
1. Start by painting your old CD with acrylic paint. Set it aside to dry completely. When it is finished drying, use your permanent markers to draw squiggly feather lines on the bottom half of your CD.
2. Cut out an orange beak, tan feet and wings out of your foam sheets.
3. Glue your beak, googly eyes, foam sheet wings and legs onto your CD.
4. Finish your recycled CD Songbird craft by gluing colorful feathers onto the wings
Location six activity
Mai loves playing in team sports. Her favourites to play are cricket, football and netball.
Even though she’s really missed being part of a team since being in lockdown, she’s come up with a few ideas to get you moving in the comfort of your own backyard.
Using a balloon:
- Don’t let the balloon touch the ground
- Hot potato drop – similar to don’t let the balloon touch the ground, take it in turns to catch the balloon or bop it. If you miss it you’re out. Last one standing wins.
- Penguin Waddles – try to make it across the room with the balloon inbetween your legs.
Using tape:
- Long Jump – Mark with tape to see how far you can jump.
- Stretching – With a piece of tape on the ground, see how far you can stretch your arms, legs or whole body to.
- Making a race track for your cars – Run around the track with your fast cars speeding around.
- Walk the plank- Put a piece of tape on the ground a balance yourself walking on top of it.
Using chalk:
- Hopscotch
- Handball
- Don’t step on the lava – get really creative and draw lava spots on the ground. Cross to the other side without stepping on lava
- Alphabet Hop – Get the kids to hop to different letters you call out or spell out words
Using wheels:
- Biking
- Skateboarding
- Scootering
- Rollerblading
Even more fun activities:
- Backyard football or soccer
- Hoops
- Ping Pong
- Hoola hooping
- Trampoline
Location seven activity
There is creepy occurrences going on in Mai’s new location and she could have sworn she saw a ghost! Can you see any supernatural beings in the image above?
It’s very fitting that these other worldly figures are appearing in Mai’s latest location since a very spooky date at the end of October is soon to grace us, known as Halloween.
Mai is very excited about bringing her fun and frightening ideas to all her new friends in Maitland.
Creative Costumes:
When it comes to celebrating the spooky season, getting creative with your costume is all part of the fun. Check out the video below that’s all about creating costumes from things around the house.
Tasty Treats:
Treats are the next thing this famous holiday is known for. With the current restrictions. trick or treat isn’t really the safest option at the moment. So why not concoct creepy baked creations at home? Take a look at the video below for your baking inspo:
Spooktacular Decorations:
Feeling (witch)crafty? Check out our easy to make decorations :
Jack O’ Lantern Balloons are easy to make. All you need are orange balloons and a permeant marker. Draw faces on the balloons before blowing them up and save your time carving out an actual pumpkin.
To give them a bit more weight or a funkier look, fill them up with rice instead.
Why not put those old wine bottles to good use as creepy candlesticks? Just spray paint the bottles in Halloween colors, and stick a candlestick in each bottle. Black candles look especially festive. Let the wax drip down the sides of the bottle because in this case, the messier, the better!
For more fun decorative ideas, watch the video below:
Location eight activity
What a unique location Mai is hiding in today! There are lots of aircrafts flying in the sky. Can you find them and name them all?
Hiding in this location has given Mai inspiration to make her own aircrafts!
Check out these videos below on creating some pretty fly machinery:
Helicopter Craft:
Airplane Craft:
UFO Craft:
Location nine activity
Mai has been searching for perfect place for a picnic in Maitland now that she’s allowed outside. There are a few things inside her picnic basket:
- sandwiches
- fruit
- sweets
- water
- juice
- tea
- teacups and cutlery
- and her teddy bear friends!
Why not join Mai by having a teddy bear picnic whether it’s out in your LGA or in your own backyard?
No teddy bear picnic is complete without fun games:
- Hide and Seek (if you have space)
- Who is it? Sit in a circle and put all the teddies in the middle. Describe one of them, and children must guess which teddy it is. Choose the language level and vocabulary appropriate for your kids. For example; “It’s big. It’s blue. It’s wearing a T-shirt.” Kids can then take turns to describe a teddy for the others to guess.
- Blindfold Bear! Put a blindfold on each child in turn and hand them several different teddies to feel. They must guess which teddy is theirs!
We hope you’ve enjoyed #FindingMai in our Walls That Talk exhibition held at Maitland City Library, an initiative by Maitland City Council.
For more information about the Walls That Talk exhibitions, visit maitland.nsw.gov.au/walls-that-talk
