It's Spring!

I've disappeared for the last few months. It was entirely unintentional. I blinked and three months had passed. Months filled with extra projects for work, ballet lessons, gymnastics practice, and lots and lots of cups of hot chocolate and games of Ticket to Ride. It was a long, cold winter.

But now it's finally Spring! And the warmer weather and sunshine has me almost giddy. The girls have gotten so big. E turned 8 in March and A will be entering Kindergarten this fall.

We celebrated a wonderful Easter, participating in a traditional Seder ceremony with the whole family.

  

Leading up to Easter, we did several activities as a family, including creating a confession station where the girls could write down what they were sorry for with the intention of burning them on Good Friday.

With Lent behind us, Easter celebrated, and winter melting in the spring sun, I'm looking forward to a new season full of soccer games, ballet recitals, and hopefully lots of new books and crafts!

spring tissue paper wreath

It's SPRING and the cherry blossoms, dogwoods, and bradford pears are all in bloom! I planned on making a handprint-trunk, tissue paper-blossom tree artwork with A this morning, but she had other plans.

Cute Garden Stakes

Our vegetable garden is finished, and while some of the plants are looking alarmingly limp and yellow, others seem to be thriving. Regardless, the girls and I are finding gardening to be great fun, and we decorated our garden yesterday with these adorable garden stakes.

We found the blank plastic stakes for cheap at our local hardware store. I drew simple vegetable shapes on construction paper which E helped to cut out and A helped to glue on with mod podge. When the glue dried, I gave the labels a good coating of clear gloss spray paint.

I love how colorful and hopeful they look out there: the promise of a bountiful harvest... so long as I can keep the plants alive!


The Surprise Gardenby Zoe Hall

I've come to love Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern (illustrator) for preschoolers. Their books are simple, fun, and so engaging for little ones. Together they have written several books, all of which explain something about nature to small children.

In The Surprise Garden three children plant different "mystery" seeds in their garden and wait to see what grows. They sort and plant their seeds and mark each type with a different colored stake. Then they carefully water and tend their garden, watching the various plants sprout and grow. In the end they have an amazing harvest of fruits and vegetables: all gorgeously illustrated in Halpern's cut-paper collages. 

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!

We heart Splotch

I'm back! Our move went great (despite the rain - and snow!). We've been busy unpacking, decorating, and enjoying our new digs. But I couldn't let the week before Easter go by without any posts, so I'm back to review one of my favorite new books:

Roly-Poly Egg by Kali Stileman

Of all the books I received from Tiger Tails, this is by far my favorite. Splotch is a little bird who lays an egg: "small- yes, spotty- yes, and absolutely perfect in every way!" In her excitement over her egg, she drops it and thus begins the egg's adventure through the forest.

Each page chronicles the egg's journey from animal to animal and finally back to Splotch. The illustrations are beyond adorable and have a Carle-esque feel in their paint and cut paper collages. A dashed line on each page encourages children to trace the egg's path. In the end, kids get to lift the flap of Splotch's egg, for a delightful spotted surprise!

This book just begs for fan artwork, so we pulled out our paints after church today and got splotching!

I let the girls pick out two paint colors and then they mixed and went to town on the paper. We used folded cardstock so we could give these away as cards.

We each thought our painting was small- yes, spotty-yes, and absolutely perfect in every way!


Disclaimer: Roly-Poly Egg was provided to me courtesy of Tiger Tails Books free of charge in exchange for a review. This does not in any way influence my review.

One Rainy Day

Our house is officially under contract, which means we can once again pull out our messy paints! It's a mild, rainy spring day, so we decided to paint a picture of the rain.

Yes, we do own an easel but it - along with so much other "stuff" - was stored away when we listed the house. The fridge actually works quite well, and A enjoyed spreading the watered-down (washable) blue and green paint onto the paper.

She was also excited to discover the tiny raindrops I had applied ahead of time with a wax crayon. If I were to do it again, I'd fill in the raindrops with crayon as well.

One Rainy Day by Tammi Salzano

Duck loves the rain, because rain means red boots, an orange umbrella, yellow flowers, and so much more. Like any good board book, it's not the story that takes center stage, but the illustrations. Bright, cheerful drawings fill each page and tell the story through colorful and adorable characters. Accentuating the artwork are silver foil raindrops which not only fall from the sky, but drip and puddle on the illustrated leaves.

I thought this padded board book might be a little young for A, but she loved it from the start. It's her current favorite and our must-read before naptime.

Update: You can win your own copy of One Rainy Day! To enter, just visit Tiger Tails Books and comment on your thoughts about ebooks for kids.

Disclaimer: One Rainy Day was provided to me courtesy of Tiger Tails Books free of charge in exchange for a review. This does not in any way influence my review. 


I'm linking up to:
- stART @ A Mommy's Adventures 

Favorite Pre-K Crafts and Books

I spent this morning at E's pre-K graduation! My baby is all grown up and ready for Kindergarten. Seeing as I'm in a nostalgic frame of mind, I thought I'd share with you a few of E's recent school crafts and her book recommendations. (BTW, did you notice how I'm in the picture? I'm trying, ladies!)

Paper Bag Bumblebee

I thought this was such a clever use for a paper bag! The teachers pre-painted the bags yellow and then had the kids add the black stripes. The back of the bag is taped into a pointy stinger, and the kids added construction paper wings, sticker eyes, and pipe cleaner antennae.

Eric Carle Artwork

These turned out beautifully and were a wonderful lesson in cooperation. The children painted on large sheets of paper, filling the page with color. Once they were dry, the teacher spread the pages across the table and let each child choose two coordinating colors. They then traced a design on the pages and had the children cut out the shapes and glue them to a piece of paper. I wish I had taken pictures of the other kids' artwork as well - they were all different but equally impressive.

Butterfly Life-cycle in Pasta

I thought this was such a clever way of teaching kids the life-cycle of a butterfly. A lima bean symbolizes the egg... spiral pasta is the caterpillar... a small pasta shell represents the chrysalis... and bowtie pasta finishes the cycle as the butterfly. The kids painted each piece and even added glitter to jazz it up.

E's Book Recommendations:

I asked E for her three favorite books from pre-K and here are her recommendations in her own words.

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse by Leo Lionni

The story is about a mouse (Alexander) that meets a wind-up mouse (Willy). The wind-up mouse heard of a magic lizard that could make Alexander a wind-up mouse like Willy. Then Alexander went into the blackberry bushes and there appeared a bright colored lizard. Alexander asked the lizard if he could make Alexander into a wind-up mouse. The lizard said "bring me a purple pebble." At last, tired and hungry, Alexander ran all the way home. There in a box was all the children's toys. Willy said that it was Annie's birthday. They decided to throw away the old toys. And then Alexander ran and then came back and there he saw right there a purple pebble right near the box. Then he rushed all the way to the blackberry bushes and gave the pebble to the lizard. The Lizard said "what is your wish?" Alexander stopped what he was in the middle of what he was going to say. Then he said "turn Willy into a mouse like me." And then a flash of light the purple pebble was gone. He rushed back to his hole and then he heard a squeak - Willy was turned into a mouse! And they lived happily ever after.

I liked it because they were friends at the end.

A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

The hermit crab saw that his shell was very small. He wanted a new shell. Then he found a new shell. He put things on his shell. Then it got smaller again one day. Then another crab that was a girl looked at the crab who was a boy. The crab said "would you like to live in my shell?" She said yes. The end.

I liked the pictures. It looked like Eric Carle.




Going to the Zoo by Tom Paxton

It was a very busy day and two children and a daddy was going to go to the zoo and watch all the animals all day. They looked at a bear too. And then they returned home at night. In the morning they rushed to their mommy. And they were going to the zoo with their mommy. The end.

I liked it because it had a song, a book, and a tape!





I'm linking up to:
- ABC & 123's Show and Tell

Rainy Day

It's raining, it's pouring, and everything's so boring! I did my best to beat the spring-rain-blues with a little twist on splatter painting yesterday. We dripped food coloring onto pages of cardstock.

Then I sent my cabin-feverish child out into the elements to watch it splatter. This took about 1.2 seconds. Seriously, if I do this again I'll wait until it's sprinkling. Our steady downpour turned the painting from perfect-splatters to a muddy mess in seconds.

After the painting dried it was begging for a little embellishment. I printed out this free printable from Sarah Jane Studios and cut out the pieces. Then E glued them onto her painting

I didn't have the paper doll the printable was designed for, so I printed out a picture of E and added her head to the picture.

Then I asked my little rhyme-time-lover to compose a poem for the occasion.

Not too shabby! Although in all fairness, my husband suggested "pet" as an appropriate rhyme. E had originally said something about "making you sweat". :)

Rainy Day Books

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema

I reviewed this book almost a year ago, and it's worth another mention. This was one of my favorites as a child and remains a popular one in our house. As a kid, I loved the language and repetition. As a mom, I love that it exposes my kids to places and people different from themselves. Check it out from the library and see if it isn't one you'd want to add to your home collection.



It's Mine! by Leo Lionni

This is a good one if your kids are starting to get cranky stuck inside together. Three quarrelsome frogs fight over everything, each claiming the earth, the water, the air for themselves. A large toad scolds them but with no effect until a huge rainstorm swallows up their little island. The three frogs cling to each other and a lone rock, surviving the storm. When the sky clears they realize the rock is actually that wise toad. Having learned their lesson, they enjoy the bounties of the pond together.




Raindrop, Plop! by Wendy Cheyette Lewison

And for the toddlers out there, here's a rainy day themed counting book just right for little ones. I'm not usually a fan of most counting books, but this one really is adorable. The rhymes are sweet and the illustrations are so cheery, they almost make you glad it's raining outside! A cheered at nearly every page, which is high praise from a toddler.

BTW - I dare you to read this book and not want to buy your daughter her own pair of little froggy boots!



So what favorite rainy day books have I missed?