Pirate Adventures

Each summer our local botanical garden puts on a special kid-friendly exhibit. While I doubt they will ever be able to top their Enchanted Storybook Forest, this year's Voyage of Discovery came pretty close.

Colonial Williamsburg with Kids

My mom and I recently took my eldest daughter (7) on a day trip to Colonial Williamsburg. We live only about 40 minutes away from this popular tourist attraction, so we're well-familiar with the town. This was my first time touring with a child, however, and by the end of the visit I had a much better idea of how to do Colonial Williamsburg with Kids.

Rainy Day Activities

It's a rainy sort of week and A has been stuck at home with a cold. My three year old might be happy to watch Tangled all day, every day, but I am not. So we have been busy with one boredom buster after another. Here are two of my favorites...

Fun with Science! "Painting" with Vinegar.

I'm back! Between home improvement projects and some personal crafts - not to mention work - I had to take a brief blogging break. But I'm back with this great activity I found on Growing a Jeweled Rose via Pinterest. 

It's a marshmallow world...

It might not snow here this year (and after last year, we can hardly complain) but that's not going to stop us from having some fun.

ABC Scoops

Thanks to Ronald Reagon, July is National Ice Cream Month and we're celebrating all week long with ice cream crafts and activities. Today I whipped up this simple matching game for A as we continue to work on her ABC's.

I google-imaged "cone" and "ice cream cone scoop" and found this great cone graphic as well as a template for a scoop. I printed off a bunch of the cones and cut them out, writing a lower case letter on each one. For the scoops, I used Photoshop to fill in each one with a fun pattern. (Squidfingers.com has some fabulous patterns for free.) You could always just use the template to trace and cut out of scrapbook paper, though.

Eventually I'm hoping A will be able to match the upper and lowercase letters, but until then this is working great for letter recognition. She might just know all her letters by the time preschool starts!

How to square foot garden

I have wanted a vegetable garden for years and in our new, sunny yard it's finally a possibility! Last weekend I roped my husband and father-in-law into building me a square foot garden.

Square foot gardening is becoming a popular way to grow vegetables and herbs in your own backyard. The technique uses raised beds laid out in squares to grow the plants in a small amount of space and with relatively little work. For a 4'x4' bed, all you need are two 10x2x8' untreated wood boards cut in half, four metal corner pieces to help reinforce the corners, nails, twine, and 8 bags of miracle grow soil.

Grab your favorite helpers and drill your box together using screws and those metal corner thingys. Pick out a nice sunny spot in your yard and dig up the grass, or in our case weeds masquerading as a lawn. We laid cardboard down as added protection against weeds. Then fill your box! (Or get your hubby to do it.)

Now you need to mark off your square foot sections. Drill a screw or hammer a nail into the boards at one foot intervals. Then run your twine between the nails to create a grid.

You will be assigning plants to the different squares. Doesn't it look so neat and tidy? It brings joy to my order-loving soul. :)

Now, plant! Of course we had to start with E's peanut seedling, a recent school project. I have my doubts as to the success of her endeavor, but hopefully the tomatoes, squash, and basil my friend Michelle started for me will produce a delicious harvest... right outside my kitchen!

For more information on square foot gardening, you can check out the official handbook All New Square Foot Gardening.


My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Did you catch this book when it came out last spring? I admit I did not. But I'm so glad I finally got my hands on a copy. The writing is beautiful. Kevin Henkes is a master, of course, but this has to be one of my favorites.

Written in first-person a little girl explains what her perfect garden would look like. The flowers would change colors, the bunnies would be chocolate, and anything you planted would grow. In a flight of imaginative fancy, the child takes us into her garden and we all wish we could join her in the fun!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

"No Lepeordcons allowd! No Mischief allowed!"

Leprechauns, you've been warned! (Lepeordcons, too.) The house is an absolute disaster. I'm drowning in boxes. We close on our new house today. And I do not need any surprises! E took my despair to heart and made two signs to protect us from those wily little guys. I sure hope it works!

Just in case you are not up to your ears in real estate legal documents, here are a couple rainbow-themed activities you might enjoy today.

A Water Rainbow Xylophone. It's so simple and so much fun. Just fill a set of glasses with varying amounts of water and tint the water using food coloring. We did this a couple summers ago, but I should really bring it out again for A to have a turn at it. 

A Rainbow Ribbon Streamer. This one takes a little more preparation, but the toy lasted for well over a year and I used the remaining ribbon in countless projects. In fact, I just packed up some of those spools this afternoon! At the time, I also made a cute rainbow ribbon baby toy.

I hope you enjoy a day full of rainbows and pots of gold... with no mischief allowed!

Bubble Counting Fish

I ran across this adorable bubble counting fish activity at My Montessori Journey and knew we needed a set of our own. While A refuses to learn her letters, she's proving to be a whiz at counting, so I'm trying to find engaging math activities appropriate for a two year old.

My Montessori Journey's fish are super-cute and sewn from felt, but I made these little guys out of craft foam from this template. After I cut each out, I glued-on a googly eye and wrote numbers 1-10 across their bellies.  Then they were ready to swim! How come I've never thought of using these florist glass gems in a craft before?

To play, simply ask your child to place the correct number of bubbles above the fish's head.

Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood

I found the perfect book to go along with this activity! Ten little fish slowly disappear from the pages of this book, providing a countdown exercise that leaves one little lonely fish. That little fish soon finds a mate and they have - you guessed it - 10 little baby fish to be counted all over again. It's a simple, straightforward book that will reinforce the numbers 1-10. The computer-generated illustrations are bright and colorful... and full of bubbles!

Who says cars are just for boys?

I am the youngest of three girls. Our house was full of dress up clothes, dolls, and all-things-girly, but we also had tonka trucks, legos, and even remote-controlled race cars. I love that my parents didn't limit our play options simply because there weren't any boys in our house. Now that I'm the parent of all-girls, I'm attempting to do the same.

This fall, I bought A a set of Playskool Chuck cars having been inspired by a Busy Bag activity I saw on My Delicious Ambiguity. I started off creating roads for her cars using strips of masking tape on the carpet, but that got old quick. When I saw this great fabric at a local fabric store, I snatched it up and sewed a simple playmat for A's automotive adventures.

I also snipped squares of felt fabric in matching colors to create parking spots for the cars. A loves matching each car to its corresponding spot, and it provides an easy lesson on colors. It's such fun to see my little girly-girl vrooming and zooming her cars on the mat and off the mat and all over the house! Of course, she also occasionally wraps them in a pink blanket and rocks them to sleep.


My Car by Byron Barton

Barton is one of those author/illustrators that I fell in love with through my kids. I'll admit I'm not immediately drawn to his primary colored, block illustrations, but toddlers can't seem to get enough. Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs was our first introduction to Barton's simple drawings and sparse stories. After a few readings, each of my girls could easily tell the story themselves.

This book is much the same. Sam is a simple fellow who loves his car and follows the rules. He keeps his car clean and stops for pedestrians. If only all drivers were so courteous! The book makes good use of primary colors and will engage boys and girls alike.

Guest Post: Silly Eagle Books

When Vanessa @ Silly Eagle Books heard about my car accident, she offered the blogger equivalent of bringing me a meal: a guest post! While I'm doing much better, I still feel like I got hit by a truck (or a very large, out-of-control van) so I was thrilled with the offer. If you're unfamiliar with Vanessa and her artsy, book-loving little girls, you're going to love her blog! Take it away, Vanessa...

How to Make Swamp Slime

Lately, my daughter and I have been having a lot of conversations inspired by the book I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt. Basically, she comes up with several questions a day along the lines of, "But mama, but mama! What if I were a giant and was so tall I couldn't fit into the house--would you love me then?" (If you haven't read the book, the little boy in the story asks his mom over and over again if she would still love him even if he were a hairy ape, swamp monster, green alien, etc.)

Since her favorite thing to do is make a mess and she's particularly in love with the swamp monster in the book, I thought we would make swamp slime together. The recipe is very simple and it's surprisingly fun to play with even if you don't consider yourself the swamp monster-type!

Here's what you need:
Cornstarch
Water
Green Food coloring (optional)

Essentially you mix 2 parts cornstarch with 1 part water. We just sort of kept adding water and cornstarch until we got the right consistency. You'll know when it's perfect when it feels somewhat solid in the bowl and then turns to liquid and drips out of your hands as soon as you pick it up. (It's freaky, but fun!)

At this point, we added some green food coloring (to make it more swamp-ish), but you don't have to if you are afraid of dying your hands green for the rest of the day. (The sticker lady at Wal-mart looked at us kind of strangely when we walked past her...)

I Love You Stinky Face
by Lisa Mccourt

If you haven't read I Love you Stinky Face yet, it's a great one to read with your children this week with Valentines Day coming up. And slime-making? That's good any day!

Shadowy Days

Groundhog Day is Wednesday. I've always found it to be an odd tradition... and a depressing one considering we almost always have six more weeks of winter regardless of Punxsutawney's shadow. But shadows in and of themselves are fun, and groundhogs are so darn cute, we're going to celebrate anyway!

E learned about shadows today in school, so my afternoon activity was a perfect tie-in. I stretched a sheet between two chairs, placed a naked lamp on the ground, and voila! We had ourselves a shadow puppet stage.

Groundhog Stays Up Late by Margery Cuyler

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but there are an amazing number of books about groundhogs out there! This one was particularly cute. Groundhog doesn't heed his friends' warnings and plays instead of collecting food for the winter. When his friends leave him to hibernate for the winter, he gets lonely, bored, and hungry. During a brief thaw, he tricks his friends into thinking spring arrived and they celebrate with a feast. When the snow starts falling, groundhog happily escapes to his den, but his friends have a few tricks of their own.



Groundhog Weather School by Joan Holub

Professor Groundhog opens a new Groundhog Weather School, inviting groundhogs from across the continent to study under his tutelage. The book is jam-packed with facts, each presented in such a fun and creative way you're left hungry for more. While too busy and witty for toddlers and preschoolers, kindergartners on up will thoroughly enjoy reading every detail in this clever book.

Apples: Apple Tasting!

For our after-school snack today, I hosted an apple tasting for my two favorite little ladies.

They tried five varieties of apples: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Braeburn, and Pink Lady.

The judges carefully tested each apple on appearance, texture, and overall tastiness. 

After much deliberation, Pink Lady was declared the favorite, with Golden Delicious finishing a close second! What's your favorite variety?

Up, Up, Up! It's Apple-picking Time by Jody Fickes Shapiro

This simple story of a family enjoying the sweet delights of apple-picking time hearkens back to my own childhood in Michigan. I have dear memories of visiting orchards in the fall to pick crisp, juicy apples. Shapiro's book captures perfectly the smells and sights of an autumn apple orchard, and rejoices in the time a family can spend there together. The language is simple enough to engage a toddler but is also lyrical and beautifully descriptive. How can you resist phrases like, "fresh-baked apple dumplings, floating like islands in a sea of milk?"

I'm linking up to:
- Feed Me Books Friday @ Little Sprout Books