texture cards

We used these texture cards during one of our circle time walks through the woods.  I got the idea from a great little science book for kids.  As the children walked through the woods they looked for things in nature that felt like the cards that they were carrying.  They had a lot of fun and were able to find matches for all of the cards.

Circle Time

 

A friend of mine started a wonderful little circle time at our local nature center.  Each week the kids (from about 6 families) meet at the nature center.  First the kids take a walk through the woods (in all weather).  Often time they find sticks and laves to carry with them.  The walk ends at the backdoor of the nature center where the children gather for a circle of seasonal rhymes,  songs, poems, and stories.  Afterwords the kids sometimes do a seasonal craft (one week they made pictures out of beans and seeds, another week they laminated fall leaves that they had found.  This coming week we plan on making flags for the children to wave on their walks).  When circle time is over the children often share a snack and wonder through the nature center visiting with the animals and playing with their friends. 

Corn husk dolls

Here are K and my first corn dolls.  I love K's little corn baby in the 2nd picture.  He was so proud to have done it himself (he just need a little help with tying).  We first soaked the dried out corn husks before shaping them into little people.  

nature stained glass

These aren't the best pictures, but K and I had a good time making these nature stained glass.  We bought contact paper at the store to make them.  It was a nice, easy project to do with a little person. :) 

Finished habitat

K and I finished all the little details for his Arctic Habitat.  We made an Inuit and a little igloo.  Here is K playing with the habitats side by side. 

Pond playmat

K chose to make a pond for our next playmat habitat.  He really wanted a place to put his ducks and turtles.  We used recycled sweaters to make the pond.  We plan on adding lots of elements to the pond including a bridge, willow tree, fisherman, and maybe some cattails. 

Blueberry picking

We picked 30lbs! Well I had a lot of help from my mom, brother, and Aunt. We ate some and have frozen everything else for now. So far we've had blueberry pancakes and blueberry oatmeal.

Garden Loom

We had to re-string the garden loom this summer as the squirrels and birds stole our yarn. :) It was actually quite fun this spring to look up into the trees and see our yarn hanging down. K had a nice time father flowers and plants to weave into our loom.

A day in the Gardens

Just wanted to post a couple of pictures of K at Cranbrook. :)

Sundial

Found this idea from book. K has been really curious about clocks lately so this was the perfect project for him. We just taped a pencil to a round piece of cardboard. Then we taped the sundial onto a stand on our porch. Every hour or so we went out to mark the time with a ruler. Since we made this we've actually been using it as a clock when we're outside.

Maple syrup

One thing I love about living in Michigan is getting to see maple Syrup being made. We visited a local metropark and saw the whole process. K was even able to taste the sap coming right out of the tree. Its too bad we don't have any maple trees on our property to try and make our own. The park also showed the traditional way that maple sap was collected and made into candy by Native Americans.

Fruit Salad

So I'm a bit behind here in the blogging world. Here are a couple of left over pictures from St. Patrick's day. We spent the day hiking around the nature center and for dinner I made a rainbow fruit salad. I used some frozen fruit to cut down the cost. The purple is naturally dyed coconut.

Snow Man

We finally have snow sticky enough for a snowman. Here's K next to the snowman he and his daddy made.

Fruit feeders

Every year for Christmas we make fruit slice ornaments for our tree. For awhile after the tree comes down the fruit decorates our home. Eventually though, we turn our ornaments into bird feeders. Here our our feeders from last year: http://seasonalgnome.blogspot.com/2010/01/feed-birds.html

Here they are from this year:

Spreading the peanut butter and seeds on.

Our Big pile of feeders ready to go.

I didn't get any great shots of the feeders on the tree as it was 5 degrees outside and K was in a hurry to get back in the house. :)

Snow Candles

We finally got around to making snow candles. I've been wanting to do this for so long. We've also gotten better at lighting a candle during dinner so we were in need of some new candles.

First we melted the wax. Then we dug little holes in the snow. I was so sure that when we poured the wax it it would melt the snow and make a huge hole, but nope, the wax began to harden as soon as we poured it in.

Here are the candles beginning to harden.

Our finished products. They are funny shapes, but they turned out great.

Here is one of our candles lit for dinner.

Maple candy in the snow

Found this great recipe at: http://rosinahuber.blogspot.com/2011/01/maple-snow-candy-recipe.html.

K loved it!Ours didn't caramelize quite like it should. i think I didn't let it cool enough before pouring it in the snow. It didn't really matter though. The taste was great and it was fun.

Ice Catchers

We tried a new variation on the Ice Catcher idea. This time we used Ikea ice molds (I've been collecting them at garage sales all summer to make crayons) and food coloring.

First we filled the molds and used food coloring to dye them.

We left them outside to freeze.

Next we place them into pie tins and filled the tins with clear water (the dye leaked out of the ice cubes).

Here are the final results. Stars

Hearts

Puzzle pieces
Mixed shapes

The project took a few days for everything to freeze. My 1 mistake was taking the colored cubes inside to place them into the pie tins. They melted a bit and made for a less dramatic finish. Oh well. Next time. They still turned out pretty.