Bunchland families could teach you a thing or two about having fun. You see, for them, hangtime is serious business. In Play List, we ask families about the top five awesomest things they have ever done together and get an amazing illustrator to draw them, and we get blown away every time.
- CITY: Leslieville, Toronto, Ontario
- OUR BUNCH: Kagan, 31, illustrator. Sandy, 31, teacher. Islay, 3, curious animal lover. Ruby, 1, busy hat-wearer. Buddy, hound dog.
Kagan McLeod is an insanely talented artist who has illustrated for Nintendo, Hasbro and Nickelodeon, among others. We love his drawings and were super excited to have him illustrate his own family’s Play List. We are also huge fans of his educational and stunning History of Rap poster, which you can totally win a signed print of if you become our 600th Facebook fan.
Reading our first comic book. My oldest has been enthralled with The Jungle Book for a while, so I found a comic adaptation of the novel to read with her. It’s a fun new way to show them a story; to point to the panels or characters speaking, reading the sound effects. She sat for about an hour reading it, not a small feat for someone barely 3! I did have to gloss over Mowgli skinning the tiger at the end, though.
Art. Being an illustrator I have lots of fancy art supplies that can keep the kids busy and creating cool art. We usually let them paint with a bit of my colored inks and watercolor paper. The colors are so bright that their scribbles always look great!
Swimming at low tide in Prince Edward Island. Our first family vacation out east was great, the terrain was like a wet mini-Mars: red sand and small cliffs. At low tide it was a perfect kiddie wading pool, with tons of nature to explore in the red mud: jellyfish, snails, crabs and lots of other slimy stuff.
Go-karts on Cherry Street. They’ve got little red two-seaters with dual steering wheels so the kids can “drive” too. It’s close by and not too busy, so it makes a great little event if you only have an hour and no plans. Ruby might be big enough this year to race with Mom.
Our natural playground. The park on our street was homely and virtually unused last summer, but was redone in October as (I think Canada’s first) natural playground. Basically, it’s more woodsy with trees, grass, sand and rocks than plastic and steel. It’s great to have things like this right in the city, and it’s used a lot more by the neighbourhood with the changes made!
