Greening Sam and Avery

fall fun - felt board fall tree

I have made my first attempt at homemade felt board fun!

I made the felt board probably the most simple (and potentially not very long lasting) way possible. I took white felt stretched it over a piece of white foam board and then hot glued it down in the back. I didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on a felt board until I knew for sure that the kids (and I) would enjoy this type of activity.

Once the board was made I started getting creative with some other felt colors for the girls.

I cut out a big brown tree, grass, some flowers and lots of leaves.

Avery played with these uninterupted and uncoached for almost 45 minutes! I was blown away. So I knew I had to make some more and come up with some other ideas for Sam.

I put together this activity for Sam. (Thanks Aunt Jojo for the suggestions!)

I cut out green, red, yellow and orange leaves to go with the big brown tree trunk. Then I drew four different trees on the notecards. Each tree with different colors of leaves and numbers of leaves. Sam's job was to try and match the felt tree to each of the tree pictures.

As indepently as Avery played with the felt board, Sam needed coaching and assistance. I think this had more to do with the fact that she was tired and cranky than her actual comfort or interest in the activity. But I sat with her and we created the trees, pretended it was a windy day and talked about where the trees go in the Fall.  She wanted more pieces and more options to make pictures (not sure I will be able to make the squirrel and owl she requested!).

I am super excited about all the felt creations that are for sure in our future!

Have a felt creation tutorial you would care to share? What is your child's favorite felt board activity? I am new to this and would love any suggestions that you have!!

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The Nitty Gritty!

I didn't get pictures of the girls playing together but I actually have two boards made with matching sets for each girl. I didn't make the notecards for Avery, she is still a bit young for that, but she has all the other pieces now to play with.

I think to go along with this tree set I will also make pieces to create the other seasons; small flowers to go on the tree for spring along with small green leaf buds, then for winter I will make some winter snowflakes and snowmen for her to put in the picture.

Already this set has lead to work on counting, colors, matching and nature related discussions. Loving me some felt play!!

fall fun - leaf walks

Leaves are the big interest in our house right now because we are at the height of leaves falling to the ground. The girls are fascinated by all the colors and finding "perfect" leaves.

We go for leaf walks to look for leaves, identify colors and see which ones are still hanging on to the trees.

I love making connections between our outdoor play and indoor activities. So as we are in love with leaves outside we are also reading about leaves inside!

Here are two Lois Eblert books that we are really enjoying right now. The information is fun and simple and Sam loves to try and find leaves the same colors and shapes as in these books when we are outside on our leaf walk.

But one of my favorite leaf walk books is Leaves, Leaves, Leaves by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.

A mom and her son go on a leaf walk each season and talk about what the leaves are doing. The information is great and the story is very cute. I like to talk to Sam about the differences that you can see in the story between the seasons, and not just the differences in the trees/leaves but also throughout the rest of the pictures too.

Combining books and outdoor play really helps to enhance the learning that happens when we are playing outside!

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The Nitty Gritty!

There are lots of ways to expand on a leaf walk with children. Collecting a few leaves while you are on your walk could be used for crafts or up close examination.

We have made simple leaf presses before that help to preserve the leaves color and ability to be used for crafting and projects later on.

You can search on this blog or even just on Google for TONS of crafting ideas that involve leaves; I don't have the energy tonight to do the searching for you...sorry!

But for teachers I really think a whole week could be spent in the early years learning all about leaves, trees and the changing of the seasons. Using books, crafts and hands-on activities both indoors and outdoors could fill the week with learning and play!

fall fun - playing in leaves

 
This is a great way to entertain five cousins while at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

You can just barely see Sam's shoes sticking out of the leaves in the picture above!

 
 
 
Great outdoor play, fun with family and good exercise!

Thanks family for playing and being silly with my girls outside while I was having an awesome weekend with my two best friends from college! So sorry that I couldn't be there to be silly with you all! _________________________________________________________________________________________

The Nitty Gritty!

Much like tree climbing, playing in the leaves is kind of an old-fashioned activity. I don't know how many parents still let their kids jump in piles of leaves, roll around and bury themselves in the leaves but every parent should be! It is a great hands-on outdoor play activity that is free and so simple. But the opportunities are endless.

Games/activities you can do in a pile of fall leaves -

• Run, jump and be buried in them
• Dig through the leaves for insects
• Pretend to be insects as you crawl through the leaves
• Create a large pile and hide a treasure in the middle for your child to dig and find
• Let your child dig through the pile of leaves to find special or unique leaves, leaves that don't match or leaves with the most colors
• Throw leaves up and see how many you can catch as they fall down

So get outside and play in the leaves with your kids!

fall fun - leaf walk

'Tis the season!

We did our first leaf walk today because the colors are starting to really change and Sam loves the yellow leaves. I gave her a small bag for collecting and we did a long walk through our neighborhood. At various points the girls got distracted by dandelion puffs, acorns and even a family selling pumpkins! But we always returned to looking for great colorful leaves that we could put in our plant press.

So, what will we do with the leaves? Well, we didn't get to any crafts today but there are TONS of ideas out there waiting for us.

We have done a lot of crafts in the past with leaves. You can check out a list of them here.

I also found a few fun sites with ideas that I am excited to check out.

Enchanted Learning - this one has some neat leaf printables; I think I may print some of these for quiet time activities for Sam.

Making Friends - a lot of these crafts don't look like they use real leaves but I think you could use real leaves even when they say to use fake leaves.

Apples 4 The Teacher - this one has good looking crafts but it also has an AWESOME book list! It is a complete Fall unit so there are activities and ideas in all areas of learning. So fun!

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The Nitty Gritty!

Fall is a great time to collect but be sure that your little ones know that you are collecting for a reason. It is important that they understand we don't just go into nature and take whatever we want, as much as we want. Every part of nature has a purpose and role in nature. If we remove too much we can change things. Sam is very aware of how we collect, what she is allowed to collect and that we always do something with the things that we collect.

On another note...if you want to press your leaves it is important that your little one knows the leaves still have to have moisture in them. I tell Sam that the leaves can't be "crunchy" yet. Leaves that are too dried out will not press well so be sure to stick with leaves that are freshly fallen from the trees!

 

crafting with leaves

We got out our leaf press today because believe it or not some yellow leaves are beginning to fall in our backyard!

 Sam's favorite color is yellow so the second the leaves start to turn and she finds yellow ones on the ground she gets really excited.

When I got out the plant press to put some new leaves in we found some old ones that were being pressed from last year!!  Oops. Sam was very excited to do some crafting with leaves and apparently I had seen this coming because the last time we were at the library I checked out a great book.

Look What I Did With a Leaf by Morteza E. Sohi

This is a super creative book about making animals and nature scenes out of pressed leaves. Sam and Avery loved looking at the pictures of the animals, guessing what the animals are and noticing the fun shapes of all the leaves. I got very inspired by this book and loved the images that they made!

The girls and I had fun crafting with the leaves today too.

Sam was trying to make a face but couldn't quite cut the last leaf well enough to make a smile and then decided she didn't want to make a face anymore. She just had fun cutting and glueing the leaves together!

My attempt at being creative...

no animal or scene just some cool leave glued to a cool big leaf and then my current favorite quote.

Were you creative with your kiddos today?

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The Nitty Gritty!

Don't have a plant press but want to craft with leaves this Fall? Check out how to quickly and easily make you own here.

This next stuff is totally not related to tonight's post!

We had our parent orientation tonight for preschool and the director put me on the spot to talk about how I worked with the kids last year as a naturalist. As I was telling them about the couple of times that I came to my daughter's classroom last year it really reminded me how much fun those days were and how excited I am to do that again.

I know it isn't possible for every parent but for those that can I would STRONGLY encourage you to get involved in your child's school. Be present at events, volunteer and even do programs in their classrooms if you have a talent or a passion to share. It can be as simple as coming in to read a story. Just seeing a different face is fun for all the kids and for your child they will be so excited (to a certain age I think!) to have their mom or dad coming for a special event. It just really adds to every child's educational experience to learn from so many different people!

 

 

Day 223: greening her room

I posted about a book a while back that gave lots of ideas for how kids can be greener in their own rooms. Didn't see that post? Go here to read about a great book!

Today I decided to take some of my own advice!

We got a house plant for Sam's room.

 
It is just one small plant. But once we have proven we can keep it alive and not make a mess with it I am hoping to be able to add more.

 
I let Sam decorate it with stickers and then modge-podged it to seal it.

 
We have had several conversations today about why we open the curtains and how we have to water it. She is in charge of watering it but only when I say it is time. I think this will be a great lesson in responsibility, tending to something and gardening for Sam.

Hoping it will stay alive!

Do you have houseplants in your home? Do your kids help take care of them or have some of their own?

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The Nitty Gritty!

In bigger and much more important news did you see my new button on the sidebar? WI Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights; I'm a Supporter! I am working with many WI Association for Environmental Education members and the WI League of Conservation Voters  to try and do what several other states have already done; establish an outdoor bill of rights. This can be a major step for our state in making environmental education a necessity and a right for every child along with making sure that every child has access to things like clean air, water and land to learn and play on. I would encourage each of you to click on the button and read up on the bill. If you are in WI PLEASE get actively involved so we can get this legislation passed. If you are not in WI you may want to look into whether or not you have this in your state!

 

Day 182: souvenir making

The plants and flowers around here have just been fascinating us so today I thought of the idea to try and capture some of that to bring home. No we can't collect leaves and petals to bring home but we can find some and do rubbings to bring home. We have done rubbings several times and almost perfected it here. But today it was more about picking out our favorite plants that we didn't know but wanted to remember from the trip.

Sam loved the walk. We took along her little beach bucket and she filled it with fallen leaves and flowers. Then we headed back to the house to do the rubbings. This didn't last quite as long as I thought it would but she still had a good time. Had the rubbings turned out better I was thinking we could keep them to be a part of the photo album along with the pictures of the plants and pictures from the trip.

Just a simple, neat way to remember a small part of the place that we visited.

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The Nitty Gritty!

With older kids I think this would go over really well and could even be turned into post cards to send back to friends and family. It is a way for kids to remember their collections while on vacation but not necessarily have to bring them back home!

A similar idea could be done with using rocks or shells as stamps or painting tools.

Day 147: meet a tree

Mama May I giveaway still going on!  Check out Day 144 for the review and to enter the giveaway!!

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Too stuffed full of turkey to move? Hopefully not yet!! 

The Holidays can be so much fun but exhausting and crazy at the same time.  For us it means FIVE grandchildren all five years old and under gathered in one house.  So how do you keep little ones busy, out of trouble and able to releash some energy on this great Fall Holiday?  Take them outside! Without some outside time we would go stir crazy.  And adding the two nieces and nephew to the mix only makes out outdoor time that much more fun.

Today our little ones will be meeting trees. Here is what I have lined up for them (the photographer will be in tow so be prepared for pictures soon!).

What you need - a yard, park or forest full of trees. Other materials are not necessary but could add to the fun and will be mentioned later!

1. Grab your little ones and head outside.  Tell each kid to find their favorite tree.

2. Have them lay down on the ground and look up through the branches.  What do they see?  What does it look like?  Who might see a tree this way (bug, squirrel, bird, rabbit, etc.)? Do they see any holes in the tree where an animal might live?

3. Have them explore the base of tree. Look for any roots that might be sticking out of the ground, holes where animals might be living or bugs that are walking on the tree. If you have a magnifying glass that would be a fun tool to introduce.

4. Bark rubbings. If you have paper and crayons you could do bark rubbings on the tree. Simple put the paper up against the tree and rub the crayon (laying flat against the paper with the crayon wrapper peeled off) against the paper. Talk about how different trees have different kinds of bark and have the kids compare their rubbings.

5. If there are still leaves present you could do leaf rubbings.  Pieces of cardboard work well out in the field as a hard surface to do the rubbings on.

6. Using the carboard, paper and crayons have them sit down a little ways away from thier tree and draw it.  Are there leaves still on it? What shape, size, color are the branches? Is the tree really tall and skinny or short and wide? 

7. See how big the trees are.  How many people, holding hands, does it take to be able to make a circle around the tree?  See if the kids can find a tree small enough that they can wrap their arms all the way around it.  See if they can can find one big enough that even with everyone in the group you still can't get all the way around it.

8. Climb the tree! Adult supervision very much needed!!  Even if a toddler can only stand on the lowest branch, with adult hands helping to support, the sensation will be something new and exciting and the perspective on the tree and ground below will be something new.  Encourage them to pretend to be a squirrel, which branches would they like the best? Where would they want to climb? Where would they sit and eat their lunch? Or if they were a bird where would they want to build their nest?

These are all great activities that can keep a wide range of kids entertained and enjoying the outdoors. 

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The Nitty Gritty!

Got one more for you.  If you have older kids bring a long a blindfold of some kind (stocking hat that can be pulled down, bandana, etc.).  Once they have found a tree that they like and have done some of the above activities for their specific tree bring them back a little ways away from their tree.  Put the blindfold on them to a tree.  Have them feel the tree, walk around the tree and make as many observation about what they hear and feel as they can.  Is this the tree they were working with earlier? Do several trees and see if they can find their tree. This activity does require a yard or park that has more than just a couple of trees. 

I have always thought a Meet A Tree birthday party would be really fun for a young group of kids.  Have the party at a nature center or park and after they are all full of cake and ice cream take them outside to play with the trees!

Day 109: more blocks and leaves

Does anyone else's child wake up from nap (or time spent in their room not napping) super whiny and cranky?  Both my girls did today and I knew the only thing that could fix that was heading outside. 

We headed to the back yard and Sam immediately wanted to pull out the tree blocks again.  I grabbed a piece of rope that we had in the garage so that we could try stringing the blocks.

She got right to work but was a bit confused because she thought she could jump rope with it once she got the blocks on.  That didn't work out so well.

We (as in me with the girls watching) cut some more, bigger blocks with a hand saw.  Daddy had been given this task the day before and got about 20 done but I wanted to show them how he did it so we cut a few more.  I realized how covered some of the blocks were in fungus and mushrooms so once we got some additional ones cut I grabbed some sand paper and we cleaned them up a bit.

Avery even got in on the action today and enjoyed knocking over the towers that Sam and I built.  Hard to get a picture of that when you are the one making the towers!

We also played with leaves while we were out today. I saw a leaf bracelet activity today and thought I would give it a try. Go here to see the original from Natural Kids.

Sam was not such a fan of wearing the tape and most of our leaves were brown and dried out but she had fun filling up my bracelet!

This was super simple.  You just take packing tape and wrap it around your arm sticking side out and then fill it with all kinds of fun stuff.  Would be so fun to do on a walk.  I was not about to leave the yard today with kids that couldn't stop crying and whining. 

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The Nitty Gritty!

I need to sand down the tree blocks some more because Avery really loves chewing on them and I am just not sure what the mushrooms and fungus will do to her.  Most of the time when we are outside I don't rush to her to stop her from chewing on things (grass, leaves, sticks) she figures out pretty quick on her own that they don't taste good.  But fungus and mushrooms, yeah that I don't want her injesting!

Anybody know of a safe way to treat natural wood toys so they can be preserved and chewed on?

Day 105: ornament bird feeders

Let me start by saying that this would have been a great post to have step-by-step tutorial photos.  But if you have been with me at all through this 105 day journey so far you will know that photos are NOT my forte. I am not good at taking photos.  Which means that of course when I need them the most the photos are fuzzy.

Oh well. 

We made really neat leaf ornament bird feeders today out of stale while bread, peanut butter, bird seed and yarn. 

I started with the bread a few days ago. Sam and I used cookie cutters to make the leaf shapes out of the white bread.  It was harder than I thought to cut the shapes out of the bread. 

We let the bread cut outs sit in open air for almost two days getting stale and hard. *This is where I made a big mistake.  The leaves are suppose to have a small hole in them so that they can be hung up easily, just like an ornament.  We should have punched a hole in the leaves before they got too hard.  Once they were hard punching the hole was difficult without cracking the whole leaf or breaking off the small part of the leaf where the hole was punched.

But Pawpaw with a sharpened pencil drilled successful holes in almost all of the leaves.

And Grandma helped Sam with spreading the peanut butter on the leaves.  They spread peanut butter on one side and then covered that side in bird seeds.  Making sure to pat down the seeds into the peanut butter.

Both sides of the leaves were covered in peanut butter and then seeds. 

We made six ornaments and then headed outside to hang them up.

The hanging was quite amusing and we all determined that an evergreen tree or bush with lower, stronger branches would be a much better choice of tree!

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The Nitty Gritty!

So, if you try these make sure you poke a hole before the bread dries and I would still make the hole somewhat in the middle of the shape, not at the top, because they are pretty fragile when they dry out.

We used a smaller, mixed kind of bird seed instead of sunflower seeds.  This worked pretty well because we could get a lot of it stuck to the ornaments.

These will not hold up in bad weather. If you make these be sure to check the weather to make sure you don't hang them up and then have it rain that night or the next day.

Sam and I have made a lot of bird feeders in the last 105 days.  We love watching the birds and making feeders draws them to our yard, making it easier to watch them.  But what I realized today is that I have never really talked to Sam about why we make these feeders; we enjoy watching the birds with talking about where they would be if they weren't in our yard.  I need to have more conversations with Sam about the activities that we are doing and WHY we are doing them. 

I have been good about doing the activities but need to start doing better at teaching my daughter.