Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Birds Nests

With the arrival of Spring, I thought now would be a good time to teach the girls about birds and eggs. We read the book Nest Full of Eggs, discussed how birds build their nests, and how baby birds develop inside the egg.

Next, of course, came the craft(you know I can’t just simply read a book). I made up some salt dough clay and dyed it brown with food coloring. This was our mud. I also cut up some pieces of yarn, since birds sometimes use this as well.088

Then we went outside and gathered twigs and dried plant leaves and grass.

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I tried to show the girls how to form the grass into a bowl shape and then use the “mud” as glue, but the salt dough wasn’t the right consistency so it wouldn’t stick.

So plan B was to shape the salt dough into a bowl form and add the grass. Still didn’t quite work. The dough wouldn’t’ hold shape. It kept wanting to collapse.

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So here are the finished “bird nests".”

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As you can see these don’t really look like your typical nest. Perhaps they would suite a bird living in a swamp or something.

I think when the weather warms we will try it again with real mud this time.

Live and learn!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Spring has Sprung

It may not be officially Spring yet, but this past week’s weather has sure made it seem that way! The girls have been enjoying the nice weather immensely. It has been so refreshing to our souls to be able to go outside in the fresh air and play again!

Here are few pictures of the girls making the most of the nice weather.

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Natalie learned how to ride her tricycle!

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Then she got bored with that and taught herself how to ride Audrey’s bike.

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Audrey enjoys using our driveway as a rollercoaster.

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How have you been enjoying the nice weather?

 

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Planetary Art

We have been studying the planets the past few weeks and, as usual, I had to come up with some sort of art project to go with it.

We started with the sun.

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Lori painted a paper plate orange and yellow and then tore pieces of yellow and orange tissue paper to stick on.

Next was the planet Mercury.

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For this we used cardstock circles that the girls painted gray with a sponge to give bumpy (crater) look.

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O.k. so we didn’t get very far with our planetary art. The last planet we did was Venus. If I had them do an art project for every planet we’d still be doing them in May. Anyways, here are the pictures of Venus.

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The girls put their circles in a cereal box I cut the top off of and rolled around a marble dipped in paint.

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The girls had a lot of fun making their planets. Maybe next year we will make the rest of the planets.

Weekend Project

I picked this book up at the library 057the other day and found in it instructions for making these fabulous snack bags.

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I’ve been needing some sort of creative project to work on and finally found one! It only took me about 1.5 hours to make 3. I plan to make more. Here’s what they look like on the inside.

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Not only did I find a great creative project but also a way to use up some scrap fabric and save me from having to buy Ziplock bags. I guess I’m being green too. Wooo hooo!