Greening Sam and Avery

fundanas on the trail

This past Christmas my mom gave me two Fundanas. The girls have been too young to really do much with them but I have used them before with groups through work. Anyway, Fundanas are bandanas that have either scavenger hunts or bingo games on them that are all nature related. 

I am super excited to pack the two that my mom gave me for our camping trip this week. A bandana is one of the most useful things (at least to me) on a camping trip of backpacking trip. It is a towel, washcloth, neck wrap, hair wrap, napkin, tie it up with rope and its a bag, etc.  So many uses! And now we can have them along as a toy too! With aunt and uncles along the girls may really get into playing a game or doing a scavenger hunt at a break along the trail. 

If you camp, hike or backpack I would certainly suggest that you pick up a few Fundanas for your backpack! You can find them on Amazon OR go to Imagine Childhood. 

our new bug tool

This weekend a colleague of mine introduced me to The Bug Sucker. He had a whole bunch of them and actually sold me two! I thought they were interesting and such a unique bug tool. 

The idea is that there are some kids that do not like to touch bugs but it is still great for them to be able to safely collect bugs and study them. The bug sucker uses your breathe to pull the bug into the tube to be able to look at them up close. 

Check it out in action!

You place the end of the green tube over the bug that you want to catch. 

Then you put your mouth on the part that looks like the top of a water bottle. Then you simply suck, like you are drinking through a straw. You have to suck pretty hard but because of the shape of the tube and the water bottle top you aren't in any danger of sucking up any bugs or major debris. 

See the pill bug that Sam caught?

Sam wanted to try again and again to see how many bugs she could catch. But then after a while she looked at me and said "Can't I just pick them up with my fingers?" HA! Love that kid. 

But not every kid is as bug friendly as Sam. You may also have a child that hasn't quite mastered the skill of being gentle. This is a great tool for those kids that have a tendency to squish the bugs that they are trying to catch. 

Here is The Bug Sucker up close. 

And I just love the label!

I really think these should be a standard bug catching tool in every preschool classroom or nature center program!

They are awesome!!!  

So, I did some research and figured out where my friend, David Stokes, got these from. You can find them HERE.

If you have one of these I would love to know what you (and your kids) think of it! 

outdoor play party - princesses with boats in the pool

Welcome back to the outdoor play party!

We have pretty much been doing nothing but outdoor play for the last eight days and it has been wonderful! My girls have slept well, eaten well and had tons of great fun. Being in a beautiful warm place on the ocean makes it super easy to play outside. But I know we are headed back to snow and cold in just a few days, so I am soaking up all the sun that I can!! 

The girls do occassionally need some pretend play and extra distractions to keep the pool here at the house a new and fun experience. We recently added a set of small princesses and these great "boats" that we found to our pool toys!

The "boats" are made from some kind of seed pod that we found on a walk and then sent Chris out to find more on his run!

The princesses had to go from one side of the pool, across the water, to rescue their friends on the rocks on the other side!

The girls have had a blast with these new toys and they have provided me a great deal of quiet mommy time while I watch the fun from the side of the pool with a good book!!  (Yes, I do occassionally get in the pool and play too!)

So, what linked up idea from last week has me super inspired? These awesome bird feeders from Learning Table! I love the natural pumpkin containers and just the way the whole thing looks hanging in the tree. What a great way to reuse the carved or decorative pumpkins!

Thanks so much to the Learning Table for linking up!

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us! Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

• Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

• Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!

• Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished.

 

greening, when all they want to do is be princesses

My girls are in LOVE with princesses. It is all they talk about, think about and want to do all day long is be princesses. It drives me crazy sometimes because it is foreign to me. Besides playing Cinderella in a church play YEARS ago and loving that movie even now I was never overly interested in princesses. But I don't think it is a "problem" with my kids because they do have balance. They love playing with other toys, being outside and get dirty better than most little kids I know! I think balance is important but also letting them enjoy what they like is important too.

So, I try to incorporate princesses into our nature play and nature learning. If you have princess loving little girls at your house here are some ways to show them that princess know about nature too!

Books are one place to start!

Even though Fancy Nancy isn't actually a princess for my girls she still falls into that category and they love hearing about her outdoor adventures and nature themed stories. Here are some that we enjoy.

 

Another great author that fits us perfectly right now is Carmeal LaVigna Coyle. I love how her books show little girls that you can be a princess but also do and enjoy other things as well!

Today, I had four little girls at my house that like dressing up. Then they found the giant bin of puppets and wanted a puppet show. But of course the show HAD to include a princess. So, I grabbed the priness puppet and told these little girls a whole story about how the princess had lost her best friend. While she was out looking for her best friend she ran into all kinds of people and animals. She would ask for their help to find her best friend and she would describe the friend she was looking for (eats acorns, lives in trees, brown, has fur, long tail, small hands, walks on four feet, etc.). Each friend would guess an animal that she was looking for but no one got it right. Finally the giraffe was able to help the princess find her best friend...the squirrel! They had all guessed which animal it was already but I just kept going with the story telling them they would have to wait for the princess to find her friend for them to find out. The kids loved the puppet show and asked me to do it again and again. We tried many different animals and had a great time with this game.

Other ways you can incorporate princesses into outdoor and nature play -

• Let your kids take their princess dolls or figurines outside to play or on a hike with them.
• Build an outdoor play area for your princess doll or figurine (buying a small, completely plastic doll may help make this easier and not ruin the doll).
• Let your kids wear their favorite piece of dress up while they are outside or on a hike.
• Buy princess themed outdoor gear; binoculars, gardening tools, water bottle, balls and other outdoor toys.
• When they are dressed up like princesses and playing pretend, encourage them to be princess explorers, hikers or other incorporating other outdoor adventure activities into their pretend play (the stairs can become a huge mountain for princesses to climb!).

What are your kiddos interested in? How do you encourage their interest but keep them balanced at the same time?

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The Nitty Gritty!
I strongly believe in balance for everything that my kids do. But sometimes it is just so easy to give in to their obsession. When they want a book to read, a toy to play with or I need an on the go activity it is always easiest to go with something princess themed. It takes more work for me to encourage something else, to be excited about something else so they will too. Maintaining balance in what they play with and love is something that I have to be aware of and think about all the time. I'm not perfect at it and I do give in but because I think it is important I continue to try my best.

Is there anything wrong with them loving princesses? I have no idea. I am sure some child pschologist somewhere could tell me all the ways the image of the princess is setting my daughter up for failure and there are probably others that would say the opposite. I have no idea. I just think that everything in their life from what they eat, watch, play with, read and do should all be balanced. Just my thoughts, with no real science to back that up!  

Do you try to maintain balance? Why do you feel it is (or isn't) important?

homemade crayons

Crazy crayons got me motivated to try recycling our own crayons and making some new crayons.

Just the other day Sam was coloring and purposely broke a crayon in half, then handed it to me and said "this one is broken, I need new crayons". This ended her coloring session for the day and we had to have a long talk about why we need to be more careful with our things. But sometimes crayons do break on their own. We have a lot of little broken crayons that I insist to Sam are still usable but she refuses to color with.

Today I grabbed all those little pieces and tried out making our own crayons. I actually have a tree mold from making christmas candy, so I made tree crayons today!

Super simple stocking stuffer made entirely from stuff I already had! LOVE THAT!! 

Have a homemade Christmas (yes, I am now using the name. who are we kidding...Christmas will be here before we know it!) post up already that you would like to share? Please leave the link in the comment section, I would love to see what you are making and share some green christmas ideas on my facebook page as well.

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The Nitty Gritty!

This is a project that Sam could have helped with and if it weren't a stocking stuffer for her too I would have let her help. She would have loved peeling all the paper off the crayons and breaking them into even smaller pieces. I would have had to do the oven part of it but she could have helped me pop them out of the molds.

I can see this being a fun kid project that we will do again in the future!

outdoor play link up - pumpkin week - pumpkin ball

SUPER EXCITED! The Outdoor Play Link Up is BACK!!!!

Thanks goes out to Mama Pea Pod for getting this awesome link up back up and running. We have added another host that I am honored to be working with. If you are not familiar with Learning for Life you have to check it out.

Okay, so what were we up to this week for outdoor play? Pumpkin Ball! I actually made these for our carving party on Tuesday night but the kids were just more interested in their own play ideas then the ones I had come up with. What's a mom to do?! But the girls and I have just loved playing with these in the backyard this week.

I simply took washed out milk jugs, cut the bottoms off and then painted them. I used black electricians tape to cover the slightly sharp edge and used a black permanent marker to draw on the face. I covered the whole thing in modge podge to seal the paint. They worked pretty well with the bigger ball. The small ball was fun because it was a pumpkin but hard to know which direction the ball would go when you threw it using the jug.

Super simple, upcycling and tons of fun!

Now, let's get this linky started! If you have never been a part of a link before please be sure to check out the other ideas, leave comments, and let them know you are stopping by from the Outdoor Play Link Up. It is just more fun if we are all out there checking out the ideas and chatting about what we are finding at the Link Up!

How did your kids play outdoors this week?
 
Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us! Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!
• Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.
• Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!
• Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished.

 

outdoor play link up - water play with an animal twist

We had friends over today to play and eat dinner with us tonight. Four little ones can tear apart a house in no time so I was determined to have them play outside as much as possible. Water play is always a good way to do that. But I thought I would add a few other things to keep the play lasting a bit longer.

I set up this great animal/water play area.

 
 
It was a combination of toy animals, reycled carry out food trays, logs and tree cookies! Which all combined turned into over an hour worth of imaginary outdoor play. The big girls had animal races, took them to the pool and had them jumping from cliffs. The two little girls practiced animal noises and finding specific animals.

I have always been a supporter of bringing indoor toys outside and today reminded me just how much fun little ones can have with toys they see everyday just by putting those toys in a new setting.

 How did you spend your week outdoors? 

Share your outdoor play with us. Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

> Any kind of outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up

> Please do not share any competitions or promotions

> Please link back to this post

> Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link from your post to be republished.

Thanks for sharing.

Share this link-up on your site

Day 343: announcing the green gift

So the girls and I have been on this journey for ALMOST a full year.

Almost.

But our one year anniversary is coming up soon and I am already thinking about how we will celebrate.

One thing that I knew I wanted to do was to thank all of you that have been with me from the beginning, those that have joined along the way and all the amazing people that have helped spread the word, offered advice or helped me out with this crazy project.

Which brings us to THE GIFT.  One of you, my awesome readers, will be getting all of the fun gear we have made and bought over the last year.

Things like the traveling toy, the homemade guessing game, the flower matching game, a set of lacing tree blocks and much more. I have added a link on my pages on the sidebar for THE GIFT. I will post everything that will be included in THE GIFT over there.

Would you like that awesome box to come to your house? Super easy, just head over the to the page on the sidebar and leave a comment. That is it. No need to promote it, spread the word or comment everyday. Just comment once. Then on Day 365 I will pick one of my amazing readers to send the box to. I know not everyone will need these little kid toys but I thought for those that might have a little one at home they would make a really fun box for that little one to get in the mail!

And I may be adding more things to it over the last few weeks...maybe even a surprise or two for the green mamas out there. Be sure to check back to THE GIFT page!

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The Nitty Gritty!

My girls have had a great time with all these things. They love these toys and have learned a lot while playing with these. Avery would still get a lot of joy out of these toys but I can make them again. I will make a lot of them again. I just thought passing them along to someone else's home would be a really fun way to end the year. So, I hope you will will enter to recieve the box. Even if you don't need the toys maybe a little one in your life might like to see them under the Christmas tree or wrapped up for their birthday.

 

Day 316: traveling toy

We are headed on the road today! And although there are certainly things in life I like more than road trips I do love getting creative with how my kiddos will be entertained in the car. Of course there are lots of books packed, toys and dolls but the thing I am most excited about is this GREAT new toy that I MADE! Got the idea from this amazing site!

 
A lacing log! I had this great piece of wood from my dad's private wood stash (don't ask!). Once I pulled off and sanded off all the bark the colors and grains in the wood were just gorgeous! I got really excited.

 
No splinters, sanded perfectly smooth and then I started drilling the holes. I did them totally random, with no real plan of where they would go or how. Then I sanded it again (could still use a bit more sanding around the holes). We picked up an outdoor boot shoelace (the longest one the store had, I think it was 60cm) and tied it on one end.

I quickly showed it to Sam this afternoon and she jumped right in with little instruction. She got the first boot lace all laced in and said she needed more. So I handed her the other one. This is what I discovered about 15 minutes later.

 
Then she sat perfectly content pulling all the laces back out, which was quite a task! I was thrilled to see how much she enjoyed the toy. And even more thrilled that I made a lasting toy with just a little bit of my own sweat, skills and a few dollars (okay, yes it took a cool log, some sand paper and a power drill but you get the point!).

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The Nitty Gritty!

Have you ever made a toy for your child?  The idea of making the things that my kids will play with is SO intriguing to me. I would love to get some more ideas for simple wood toys and check out what other parents are making, so please share if you have posted about a toy you have made, have seen a great tutorial or just have an idea!

Day 256: the gift bag

Need some inspiration to participate in Zero Waste Day? Check out a great giveaway over at Butterfly Wishes and Wonderland Dreams. You get extra entries for participating!

 

Sam is at school so I spent some time and got the gift "bags" put together for Sam's friends at her birthday party. Sam helped pick everything out but I thought I would put them together and then she could be surprised too by how they looked at the party.

We started with aquarium nets, bug boxes and marigold growing kits.

 
Then I put the growing kit and the bug box inside the net, tied it with some ribbon and that's it!

 
Instant fun gift bag! A net and big box for outdoor exploring fun and a little flower for each of them to grow and take care of.

 
I don't think it can get anymore simple than that!

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The Nitty Gritty!
The nets came from the pet store that we visited a while back. The bug boxes are an amazing value from acorn naturalist. And the growing kits Sam and I found in the dollar section at Target! Love that dollar section!

I wanted to stear clear of the candy, stickers, silly stuff that most kids get at birthday parties and do something that wouldn't cost much more but could inspire some great outdoor play. Hoping the parents don't think I am too crazy!