Quick Gardening with Children

My kids love gardening, but their attention spans aren't too long, especially in this triple-digit heat.  I aim to get us outside every day to do something in the yard, like pull weeds or water the edibles.  Someday that will be our reality.

Around Mother's Day, Home Depot's kids workshop project was a small planter, in which a Home Depot employee planted a bell pepper plant.

The plants were too big for the planters to begin with, and, within a couple of weeks, the roots were pushing the plants up out of the dirt.  We finally had no choice but to replant.  Ellie got bored with the dirt scooping, but Mikey would have completely buried the plant had I given him the opportunity.  That night, he told his daddy he "played with dirt!"

I let both kids place the plants in the new pots, teaching them to grab the plants by the stems close to the roots.  They both did great.  Not a leaf was lost.

Finally, we couldn't find the watering can.  It really is a great mystery.  My best guess is it somehow flew out of the yard during a windstorm, but we haven't really had that good of a storm yet.  It'll probably resurface eventually.  In the meantime, I grabbed the tugboat (or crab boat, as Ellie says) pouring toy out of the bathtub.  Sadly, it was too shallow to effectively transport water in little, shaky hands.  I ended up taking the hose to the two plants.  Ellie was long gone by this time, and Mikey was too busy trying to keep adding dirt to his to notice he didn't get to use the water.

Mikey helped me place the plants back in their spot on the patio, and, impressively, did not spill any dirt in the process.

When we got back inside, I thought it was a good time to finally bust into the $1 plants I bought at Walgreens after Easter  They are eggs with faces that have seeds that grow into hair.  (No, they're not Chia Pets.)  The top cracks off when the shell is adequately wet, revealing the seeds inside.  I decided the best way to apply the water was using a custard dish and tablespoon.  Besides minimizing the mess and improving fine motor skills, watering took longer this way, making the task more fun.

One of these days, my kids will really be able to help in the garden.  Until then, we'll keep seeking out these quick gardening projects to keep them interested and learning!

Build a Monster

I joined a busy bag exchange group on Facebook.  I decided I wanted to finally start making the cloth quiet books for my kids that I've been planning, so I made pages for all my trades.  The first one I completed was for the preschool group.  The activity is a create-a-face monster made of felt.

I sewed the monster's head onto the page.  (I used muslin, but any cotton - any fabric, really - would work.)  I backed the page with a piece of felt and another piece of muslin.  I would like to have bound the edges, but the muslin I got was ridiculously thin and was trying to disintegrate.  Instead, I did a couple of messy zigzag stitches around the edge to hold it together and minimize fraying.  I made all the monster faces out of green or dark purple felt.  I used light purple thread for contrast.  I also did not take care placing the stitches because I wanted chaos to go with the monster theme.  (I apologize to the neat and orderly monsters out there.)

Since I was going for chaos, I picked a wacky, mustard-colored, animal-print fabric for the storage bag.  I put a button on the bag to keep the pieces in and attached it to the page with a sparkly orange ribbon.  The bag holds the three eyes (well, two sets and one single eyeball), three noses and three mouths I created to stick on the monster face.

Most of the members are not making cloth quiet books, so I added one or three buttonholes, whatever their preference, so that the page could be joined with other quiet book pages of other mediums on a ring or in a three-ring binder.

I also included directions:

In case you can't read that:

MONSTER FACES!

Includes: Monster Head, 3 Eyes, 3 Noses, 3 Mouths and Attached Storage Bag

Get creative and get scary!

Optional 2-person Game:

The first person designs a face with one of each part without telling the second person what it is.  The second person creates a face, trying to guess what the first person designed.  The first person tells the second person how many parts are correct and how many are wrong.  The second person tries to guess again, and the game continues until the second person guesses the correct combination of eyes, nose and mouth, counting how many tries it took.  The players switch roles, and the player who guessed with the fewest tries wins!

Candy Canes and Christmas Trees...Fine Motor Crafting

This post has been sitting unfinished for a few weeks.  I had a hard time remembering to take pictures of our candy-cane chaos (below).  Anyway, here are some ideas for next year...

I've been wanting to have the kids do ribbon Christmas trees, like this, and paper candy canes, like this.  With a few minutes of down time today, I whipped up the materials for whenever the kids and I had the chance to start crafting.

Thinking about the candy canes, I knew that gluing the stripes onto the cane would be a challenge for Mikey, so I decided we'd glue the stripes on the paper and then cut out the cane shape.  My next thought was I needed a cane-shaped stencil, but I remembered I have a couple dozen stencils in the pantry.  ;o)  In this craft, I used the following skills: gluing, placing, tracing and cutting.

First, I glued the white stripes on the red paper.  You could, of course, do this the other way around.  Make sure you fully coat the stripes so you don't have any separation after you cut out the canes.

Second, I turned over the paper and traced the candy cane several times.  I recommend laying the cane on an angle so you get diagonal stripes across your cut-out canes.  Also, be sure to leave generous tracing borders, especially if you're using skinny candy canes, to make them easier to cut out.

Third, cut out the candy canes.

I haven't decided what to do with ours yet.  I thought about gluing them onto paper as a candy-cane collage, maybe sponge painting the paper first.  I also thought about hanging them on yarn as garland.  I decided to wad up newspaper and use watered-down white paint to make snow.  When the kids' snowstorms were dry, they glued on the candy canes.  I think it's obvious which one was done by the two-year-old ad which was done by the four-year-old.

When I decided to do the ribbon trees, I knew I didn't have any ribbon (yes, I know this is a theme with me), so I cut strips of paper in varying lengths.  Since I wanted the trees to have a little sparkle, I threw shiny star stickers into the mix.  As I started the project, I decided our trees need stars on top, so I pulled out the glitter glue.  In this craft, I used the following skills: ordering, gluing, peeling and placing, and glue drawing.

First, give the strips to the child in a pile so that they have to order them from longest to shortest or shortest to longest.  Then glue the strips to the paper with the longest at the bottom and the shortest at the top.  Second, decorate the tree with the stickers.  Finally, use glitter glue to create a star on top of the tree.  (I'm sorry I don't have a better picture.  I always wait until nighttime to take these pictures, and the lighting just doesn't work.)

Ellie decided hers needed "branches" at the top 

Mikey needed surprisingly little direction for this!

Fly, Monarch! Fly!

Let me start by saying how we came to read this book tonight, a story that illustrates what I love about unschooling.

Ellie was playing with one of her ladybug pillows when she started asking questions: "What do ladybugs turn into?  What are they before they turn into ladybugs?"  Well, as it happens, I have a book about the life cycle of a ladybug that I picked up on a recent trip to the library in search of butterfly books, another of Ellie's requests.  I thought this book was wonderful.  Here is more information about it, including my review.

After we finished that book, Ellie insisted on reading a few more library books, including Fly, Monarch!  Fly!  I really liked this book as well - I linked my review, but I like the extras the book contained, like a butterfly sandwich recipe and a craft.  Ellie, of course, was all about the craft, so we did it after dinner.

It was a simple craft: Sketch a butterfly on orange paper, color and cut out, cut out and affix antennae, and affix dots and magnet.  The sketch part was too hard for Ellie, so I outlined her butterfly, but she did the rest, short of cutting out the antennae.

Ellie's is a bit more abstract

I decided mine needed eyes

Spider Web Weaving

Today we wove our own spider webs.  I would have preferred paper plates and yarn, but I don't have paper plates, and string was handier, so our webs aren't so fancy.  I cut notches in the cardboard, making them triangular to make them easier for small hands to control.  Ellie got frustrated pretty quickly because she thinks there's a right and wrong way to do everything.  Mikey doesn't quite have the skills to do this, so I had him point to where he wanted the string to go.

For the spiders, I frantically grabbed whatever was near (pom poms) because the kids were getting antsy.  Apparently I need to stock up on spider-making supplies.  Eh, well...we made fuzzy jumping spiders apparently.  At least I found the small googly eyes before bed; the kids were about to riot.

I didn't wait for the glue to dry before taking pictures, so ignore the extra white around the eyes.

Ellie's I'm-done-with-this web and color-controlled spider (so unlike her)

Mikey's I-prefer-red-orange-and-pink spider that we accidentally glued on the wrong side

My rainbow spider with different color eyes

5-a-day books

A preschool blog I follow and love introduced me to the 5-a-day book plan.  When I found out about the 5-a-day book plan, where you read the same five books every day for at least a week, I knew it was perfect for our family.  I love themed story times, and anyone who's ever had a toddler or preschooler knows that children love to read the same books over and over and over and over and over...

Since Ellie is obsessed with spiders of late, I choose books about spiders this week.  I also had to include books containing spiders, since our library is surprisingly light on children's stories about spiders.

The three story books in this picture are The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, Itsy Bitsy Spider (my kids love books that can be sung and songs made into books) and Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin, which is very entertaining.  I'm also reading "Little Miss Muffet" from a treasury of stories and poems.  I added Fuzzy Bee and Friends to get to five books.  Yes, I'm desperately in need of more spiders in our home library.  The three books featuring pictures of real spiders are just reference books we picked up while seeking out stories.

Handprint Spider and Crayon Resist Web

Ellie has been obsessed with spiders lately, probably because spider decor is everywhere this time of year.  She has been asking many questions, so I decided to focus on spiders this week.

I love handprint crafts because their little hands grow so quickly.  I got some inspiration from the many handprint spiders I've seen on Pinterest, and I gave the spiders and webs my own spin, no pun intended, based on the supplies I have on hand.

I have construction paper, googly eyes and glitter glue, along with crayons and watercolors, so our spiders are festive and our webs rectangular.  First, we drew the webs on white paper with white crayon and then painted over them with lots and lots of very wet watercolor.  The paint doesn't stick to the crayon, and Ellie sure tried to prove the physics wrong.  Mikey needed more help with drawing the web, so you see a giant asterisk on his that I drew holding his hand.  Neither child cared much for looking at one color for too long, so their webs are - well - what's another word for festive?  Ellie seemed to feel sorry for me when she saw that mine was not "rainbow."  The wet construction paper takes hours to dry, by the way.

While the webs were drying, I traced the four fingers and palm of one hand for each child on black paper.  I folded the paper and cut out the hand, yielding eight finger-shaped legs.  I then cut out ovals for the bodies.  I helped the children apply glue to one of the palms and press the other palm onto it.  Then I helped them apply glue to the other palm and place the body.  I applied the glue for the eyes because they aren't quite good enough with the glue yet.  They very capably affixed the eyes, though, both kids!  I let them go to town with the glitter glue, but - thankfully - the glues were low and hard to get out.  Mikey wanted to affix eyes to all his glue marks, but I convinced him he wanted to be able to see the colors and glitter.  When we got home from swimming class and dinner, I helped them glue the spiders to the webs.  I placed books on the spiders so they would dry flat.  Ellie insisted on hanging the spiders in the family room first thing this morning.

Backyard Birding

I recently signed up to "Celebrate Urban Birds" through The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in an effort to learn and teach my children more about our winged neighbors.  We enjoy backyard birding because the birds become so familiar.  We have yet to make our yard appealing to a variety of birds, but we are not wanting for variety if we venture out our front door.  We have, in fact, a resident Greater Roadrunner who occasionally runs alongside us on walks and often perches like a pigeon on less-than-dignified objects.  One day I found him on a storm drain.

Bounding through the Baylands

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to spend a couple days with my very best friend who I haven't seen in two and a half years.  Since she and I (and our husbands and children) are tremendous geeks, and proudly so, we knew a trip to the Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto, California, would be perfect for our families.  Although we didn't get to see the Golden Eagles and Burrowing Owls we'd hoped we would, we still got a nice show.  I don't have much to say other than we'd be there every week if we lived there.  I will share some of my pictures.  The trip completely rekindled my love of birding that I'd abandoned in high school.  If you are in the area, be sure to stop by and give yourself a couple of hours, at least, to explore.

Red-Tailed Hawk
Needs no words

Gorgeous White Pelicans preening and stretching

and fishing

Before we made the drive to Palo Alto, we spent a few days in the San Diego area.  Even though my obsession with birding had not yet been rekindled, my love of photographing nature was alive and kicking (wow, that's a lot of metaphors), and I got a couple of shots of birds I don't see every day, if ever.

These first two are a Brandt's Cormorant that was diving and resurfacing so much and so fast that I had a hard time getting a good closeup, but it did stop to rest on a buoy.

If you've never seen a pelican up close, you don't realize how big they really are.  The Brown Pelican has a wingspan of over six feet.  This one made the loudest splashes every time it landed!

At first glance, thanks to the light, this Rough-legged Hawk appeared to be a Golden Eagle.  Another birder, who drew my attention to it in the first place, thought so, too.  Even though I was slightly disappointed to find out it wasn't when I blew up the picture, I was still excited to find out I saw a bird I've never seen before.

P.S. I gave picture captions a good test today (I normally just type them manually under the picture), so let me know what you think of the format.

Storytimes

I am really into planning themed storytimes. I was introduced to the idea by my moms group and I've taken it and run with it. I planned a Read for the Record storytime last October and one for the Where the Wild Things Are movie release. We always read at least one story and do at least one craft, and sometimes we throw in songs or other activities.


The 2009 Read for the Record book was Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We read the story and then made sock puppets!




Where the Wild Things Are came out in October, but we put off the storytime until November because of all my baby planning. We would have read the book, but the kids weren't interested, so we jumped right to the mask making.



In February, we planned to learn about ladybugs. Again, the little ones were antsy, so we jumped right to the puppets. We did watch the Ladybug Picnic video, though!

I have lots of ideas for future storytimes, and I'm very excited to execute them.

The Sun Magazine | Why Schools Don't Educate

The Sun Magazine Why Schools Don't Educate

This article really makes you think...and feel guilty...

On the other hand, it motivates you to speak up and make a difference!

"Now, here is a curious idea to ponder: Senator Ted Kennedy’s office released a paper not too long ago claiming that prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98 percent, and after it the figure never again climbed above 91 percent, where it stands in 1990. I hope that interests you."