Chalk in My Pocket

Tech Tuesday - A Few Favorite iPad Apps

2013-04-09T14:12:00.002-07:00

Long ago, I surrendered to the fact that my iPad is "our" iPad. Good or bad, immersion in technology is part of life today and sorting through the muck is a teachable moment. I wanted to share a few of my favorite apps, many of them we enjoy as a family - especially Toontastic (more on that later).

With iPads becoming so prevalent in early elementary classrooms, I've been excited to see engaging apps that go beyond the rote drill games seen in previous years. Here is a sampling of what is installed on my iPad at the moment:

GROW YOUR GARDEN

Finally! A math program without a flashcard feel to it. I love puzzles and those looking for an excellent edtech infusion for their math program should check this one out. This is a really engaging logic puzzler game. The automatic difficulty progression works well, but there are no hints which might frustrate some kids. The flowers placed in your garden as rewards are kind of hokey - but in a good way, Claire eats it up! The completed number sentence/equation flashes on screen as the operation is complete but is not an integral part of the experience. Simple concept, elegant execution. I really like this application.

(3 - 1 + 3 = 5) This is a screenshot from one of the first levels

READING RAINBOW

It's not often I cough up money for an app, but the 6 month subscription I purchased for full access to all Reading Rainbow's books and videos has been worth every cent. Claire loves being read to and has a voracious appetite for new material. With literally hundreds of books in this app, neither of us have grown tired of it. I appreciate the quality of books RR has chosen to feature, it is a well curated collection with diverse illustration styles and topics.

The interface is fantastic, there are different "islands" to fly in your hot air balloon each featuring a different genre of books. I grew up watching Reading Rainbow on PBS and this is a wonderful crossover to a new platform...but as LaVar would say:

"Don't take my word for it!"

TOONTASTIC

I cannot get enough of this app. If I was back in the classroom I would have this program in the hands of each and every one of my students. Storytelling is just the tip of the iceberg here - which the capability to animate and narrate a multitude of characters and places (including hand-drawn creations) this app has possibilities outside the realm of language arts. The only thing missing is the capability to export files. Boohoo!

A few others that I'll write reviews for in the coming days: Leo's Pad, MOMA Art Lab, Umi Numbers and Bob Books Magic. Happy "Apping!"

Celebrating Math with Children - Happy Pi Day!

2013-03-14T08:07:00.003-07:00

flickr user mag3737, Tom Magliery

On a day where so many are celebrating one of the most recognizable math mathematical symbols out there - I wanted to take a second to point some of you in the Northeast to a new children's museum celebrating math in New York City.

Don't picture galleries of ancient slide rules and walls filled with retired models of TI calculators (my friends and I used to exchange notes on ours during math class, sorry Mrs. Sealock), the reality of MoMath is far more exciting.

Here's a video from CBS all about the museum:

And in case you were wondering, my favorite math experience was coursework in college in Discrete Math. All those P's and Q's and logic tables just "clicked" with me. How about you?

Valentine's Day Activities

2013-01-25T06:43:00.001-08:00

Looking for some unique ways to celebrate Valentine's day? Here are a few of our favorite activities from the archives.

{1} Spray Painted Valentines {2} DIY Heart Stampers Made with Building Blocks {3} Tissue Paper Heart Collage on our Glass Back Door {4} Hanging Yarn Heart Ornaments {5} Tissue Paper and Watercolor Heart Wreath {6} Crunchy Baked Apple Chips with Heart Cutouts

One of my personal favorites are the "batik" hearts we made last year. Liquid watercolors, salt and blue school gel - my artistic trio of choice!

Winter Woods Trek

2013-01-07T10:43:00.002-08:00

Hooray for snow! Just enough snow fell that we were able to enjoy its beauty without grumbling about cold toes and plowing woes.

Above is a picture out our living room window of our "frog pond." Remember the tadpoles we watched develop in the spring? They are now sound asleep in the muck at the bottom of the pond, I'm sure they're enjoying their long nap!

ALL those tracks in the background belong to wildlife, wow!

One of the most exciting parts of snow, is the revealing of the animal super-highways that criss-cross our little slice of wilderness. Armed with a magnifying glass (don't ask, to Claire it was a neccesity) we walked our trails and found prints belonging to deer, fox, and coyote. I suspect one large set of tracks belonged to a resident blackbear but the deer tracks obscured them a bit.

The coolest tracks footprints were these. Claire thought she had FINALLY found a real live dinosaur. I had to break the news to her that it almost certainly belonged to a wild turkey. I suspect the our chickens would leave similar (smaller) versions but they have not set foot onto the snow. The poor things won't even come outside for a corn treat. Or maybe they're panicked about all the fox tracks we found around the barn. Keep away sneaky fox!

Gobble, Gobble - wild turkey or dinosaur?

I'm doing my best to keep this active kid outdoors as much as possible. There is so much to see, even in the winter months. Are you feeding the wild birds where you live? We provide suet and get a wonderful show of migrating birds and woodpeckers. Much of the snow has already melted and I'm already wishing for another storm (a light coating, please!) so we can track our local wildlife movements. And maybe next time, Claire will find evidence of that undiscovered dinosaur!

At the top of our property overlooking the valley. We were both looking forward to hot chocolate after our trek!

Check out our homemade bird (suet) cakes here. Now is the best time to hang up some food for over-wintering birds.

Independent Creativity

2012-11-28T09:16:00.001-08:00

I've been nursing a nasty tooth infection that led to a root canal and a few days of some pretty strong painkillers. I'm off all the crazy stuff now, but still a bit sore so I have been sleeping in a bit and not the most "present" of parents.

Ping-ping the penguin here to cheer me up. Love his flipper feet!

Claire presented me with this "get-well" gift two days ago and I'm just so tickled by her creativity. See the clothespins and the bits of torn green streamer paper? The shiny foil carefully folded just-so in the corner? Aren't kids just amazingly creative when you provide materials without direction?

I'm always impressed when materials are used in new ways. Take Anastassia Elias, sure I've seen lots of crafts with toilet paper rolls. We've done our fair share here -- snowflake ornaments, owls and birdfeeders. I so admire Anastassia's ingenuity -- who thinks to create tiny little worlds inside a tube of toilet paper?!

We need more creativity. And not just in art. Creative thinkers are problem solvers -- inventive and ingenious. I can't help but think that if we encourage expression in the arts at a young age - a space and forum where children can mold, shape and showcase their ideas - that it will bleed over into other fields as they age and choose their life's path.

Milestone Moment: Child's First Library Card

2012-11-26T08:24:00.000-08:00

No craft or witty project today, just a proud kid showing off her very first library card! At 5 years old, our local public library lets the kids have there own card to check out materials and Claire couldn't be happier.

To help manage the LARGE amount of books, movies, video games and magazines I bring home myself, I've decided to limit Claire's checkouts to five items. This should keep me from having to pay too much for the "fines of shame" when books are inevitably late.

The librarians made a big deal of the card, coming over to offer handshakes and congratulations as well as a packet of new bookmarks and stickers. How sweet!

Bing! Bang! Boom! Homemade Instruments and Noisemakers

2012-11-25T19:12:00.001-08:00

I know I'm one lucky lady -- I can work around the house or in the garden by myself for a while and Claire happily entertains herself building contraptions and musical instruments. I'm very, VERY thankful for such an independent kid.

One morning, I was weeding my neglected garden and heard some serious banging coming from the family room. I peeked around the corner to find Claire happy as can be, banging away on a homemade drum set.

She had taken apart her stool for the top cymbal and dumped a series of blocks and legos out of the metal bins for some nice crisp sounding drums. Her mallets are made of tinker toys. What an inventive little girl.

A few weeks after her birthday she dressed herself (rather festively) and serenaded me during breakfast looking like this. Unfortunately, you can't tell in this picture, but she's wearing another purple dress underneath the sweater. How I wish I captured a video of her humming through the birthday hat while strumming along on the other!

I wanted to share a few homemade instruments from around the web, we've made a variety of these ourselves and I can say that there is not much that satisfies a kid more than making some good, loud noise. Invite the neighbors over and have a marching band or perform an impromptu concert in your pajamas one morning. Just make sure the video camera is ready!

SIX DIY INSTRUMENTS TO MAKE & PLAY {LOUDLY}

{1} Button and Cardboard Castanets

{2} Shoebox Guitar

{3} Recycled Can Bongos

{4} Jingle-Jangle Bracelets

{5} Button Noisemarkers

{6} Straw Pipes Wind Instrument

WANT TO BUY A READY-MADE SET FOR A GIFT?

If you're looking to slip a little musical magic under the tree this year, I HIGHLY recommend Melissa and Doug's band in a box set. There's a little bit of everything inside: harmonica, castanets, kazoo, jingle stick and xylophone...what more could you ask for? Keep an eye out for CyberMonday sales, The set retails around $15 bucks and will likely be on sale even cheaper soon! Happy Music-Making!

I've got a few more musical ideas shared over at Pinterest.
Come check out the board called Noisemakers & Homemade Instruments!

Fairy houses and my thoughts on Disney's Tinker Bell

2012-10-22T07:57:00.002-07:00

I've noticed an explosion in imaginative play this past year. From gnomes over the summer (thanks to the beautiful book we checked out from the library) to today's obsession with fairies, the world of this preschooler seems filled with magic.

Claire spent days working on fairy houses on our front porch. She's used rocks, sticks and leaves and is now begging us for a handful of bricks so the fairy folk will stay warm through the winter.

Aren't the flowers beautiful in there? My Mom adored them too, especially when they were on her plants! Heehee. We gave Claire permission to pick as many flowers as she is old (4 at that time) and while we were all thinking four total, Claire visited each plant for four. Watching her out the window, was like watching a squirrel scurry around for nuts. She bundled them all up in a ziploc bag fast as could be and cradled her treasures the three hours home from Grandma Caca's house. Mind you her pockets were already full of treasured rocks from the camping trip the night before!

Building these fairy houses were only the beginning. Fairy fever hit its peak in September when Claire discovered Tinker Bell the movie in the library. We checked it out and while I pictured this movie to be a fluffy bit of damsel in distress/happily ever after movie by Disney -- I was so wrong.

I was shocked that I LOVED it. I loved the message of finding one's talent and gift and using it to help the community as a whole. I loved the strong and smart female lead. I loved the idea of Tinkerbell as a "tinker," a fairy with a gift of mechanical engineering. Hooray Disney, we need more girls in science and math and this is one way to inspire them. Claire has always loved to build contraptions and invent and this has fueled her interest even more.

This is a "cleaning contraption." A slow, but oddly effective way Claire invented to put away her markers.

Thank goodness I loved this movie, because Claire re-watched it about 40 times going so far as to study the DVD menu from The Great Fairy Rescue to recreate the perfect fairy house. She sat still for 45 minutes drawing the fairy house and after hours of work, all on her own, she's got a great shoe-box fairy house complete with a popsicle-stick wood floor and interior artwork.

I'm sure any fairies would love to live here so send them our way!

There is a VERY special book out there whose name had escaped my mind for a while, I feel rather silly as the very title is "FAIRY HOUSES." So much for my memory! We read it in the spring and Claire loved it. I just found out there is a whole series of these books (including one with photos of fairy houses, squeal!). Tracy Kane tells a beautiful and imaginative story that encourages her readers get out into the wood and look for magic in nature. The website is a treat as well, go check it out:

{ www.fairyhouses.com }

A Rhinocerous in our BACKYARD!

2012-10-18T14:11:00.002-07:00

Ok, so my title is slightly misleading, but still -- check out this awesome beetle we found outside! You know the bug is big when you can HEAR it crawling around under the leaf litter:

What a great find! If you were wondering, it's a beetle in the dynastinae family, a rhinoceros beetle. Just check out that horn, if you've found a cooler beetle, I want to see it.

If you're on the hunt for a beginner's field guide to identify the creepy-crawlies, I highly recommend you check out the Peterson's First Guide collection. I think we've checked most of them out of the library and the insect and bird ones will make an appearance under the Christmas tree this year. I find these guides are great for an intro to taxonomy without being too bulky and overwhelming for little hands (and at $6.95 I won't cry for too long if they're lost).

Claire loves to watch the bugs do their work, the insect world is certainly a fascinating place. I loved her reaction when we tipped over a log and found a nest underneath with oodles of ants running around. Check out her estimation skills below, judging by her confidence in the number, I'm sure there are exactly 88 ants. Heehee!

Pattern Playtime

2012-10-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

When I hear the sound of plastic beads hitting the art room floor I cringe...it usually means that for the next 3 days I'll be vacuuming up accidentally scattered beads from the entire house (and it sound like machine gun fire, I'm sure it's not good for my vacuum).

Sometimes though, there's a creative mathematician on the loose who must be loocking for something new to sort. What a funny little creature Claire is lately. Sort, sort, sort. She's a young taxonomist at work I suppose and I'm certainly enjoying all her explorations, ESPECIALLY when she cleans them up afterwards!

Garden Gnomes and Garden Toads

2012-06-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Getting dirty is a skill set Claire especially excels at.

The muddy project Claire is working on in the photo above was inspired by a book we checked out from the library about gnomes. Claire was enthralled by it, and I must admit that I was as well. Growing up, I absolutely

Gnomes by Will Huygen

LOVED the Nickelodeon show "David the Gnome." Turns out the whole show was based on this book by Will Huygen. The illustrations were beautiful and I thought the premise of the story (and the gnome interviews) were endearing. The fact that we found this in the non-fiction section (it was in the oversized book collection) has convinced Claire that gnomes are really, truly, real.

Forgetting the fairy houses of last week, Claire wanted to build a gnome house complete with a barn for a toad she found, surely the gnomes would enjoy transportation via hopping?

I think her construction technique was spot on. Lots of "logs," mud to glue them all together and a thatched roof made of leaves. The toads in the yard are quickly learning to avoid the grass when Claire is afoot, this little one was forced to "enjoy" the barn she built. He hopped away a while later, but I'm not sure he actually disliked the place.

While Claire played with mud, I worked on getting dirty myself. The side garden is almost finished. Lots of mulching left and a few more plants to go in the shady area and I'm done. I think I've personally planted about 95 shrubs and that's not counting the ones we put in during the fall months (thank you Lowes for the AWESOME clearance steals). Now I'm spraying them all with putrid smelling junk because the deer near my house pay zero attention to tags labelled, "deer resistant."

My freezer better be stocked with venison this year since I'm providing so much food for them.

Playing Show and Tell with a bunch of great blogs!

The best plans are the ones you didn't have...

2012-06-12T08:29:00.002-07:00

Enjoying the summer's first honeysuckle. I introduced Claire to this little bit of magic and of course she was smitten!

My GPS died a couple of months ago and I've been braving the streets of suburbia with no guide, aside from my four year old backseat driver (who ALWAYS points out when your "dinkers" are not being used when turning).

Log chimney. So pretty!

I have a nice group of parks and libraries that are easy to get to, but I cling, CLING! to that GPS once I venture outside a 10 mile radius of my house. For a little background info: I grew up on Long Island and everything was laid out in a grid. You had to try, and I mean really try, to get lost there, which of course I did. Embarrassingly often.

Here, the county roads names frequently change as they wind up and over the mountains. Things are relatively well marked, but not always.

With that in mind, rewind to last week when I had plans to visit a peony farm mentioned in Martha Stewart's magazine. I blew right by the one of the last turns and without realizing it, traveled through an additional two (unmarked I swear!) towns and wound up at Jockey Hollow National Historic Site. Since it was on my list of must-see places anyway (well, insofar as driving past the brown signs on occasion and adding it to my mental list) I decided this was now our destination.

If parenting has taught me anything, it's that making plans is futile and and life is more enjoyable when you roll with whatever you're dealt.

Food and Simples Garden at the Wick homestead, lots of beauties that I want to add to my own collection!

I knew nothing about the site aside from the fact that it had something to do with George Washington. What a pleasant surprise to find a 1700s homestead complete with working garden to explore (yippee! a garden, just what I wanted). We watched a video in the visitor's center about "The Hard Winter" tried on some revolutionary era clothing and set out to find the cabins the soldiers built to wait out the coldest and snowiest winter on record.

After watching the video, Claire was so excited when we drove down the road and discovered the cabins in real life. Judging by the hardware used to fasten the logs I'm going to guess they're reproductions, the dimensions and layout of the cabins are true to the originals.We've done a fair share of camping and Claire took one look at the gaps in the logs and decided it must have indeed been a rough winter.

These are the kind of connections between real life and history that I hope we can make in the next year or two. Claire misses the Kindergarten cut off in our town (by 8 days mind you!) so our version of "school" until her full-day program in first grade begins, is going to be a lot of field-tripping fun. Granted, we've been doing this all along, but age 5 seems to be a magic number in this area for all of the special programs at the local historic sites and museums.

There is so much to see and do out there, I've been glued to my computer just bookmarking sites and calendars -- everything looks very exciting and judging by some of the complicated driving directions I've printed out, it might just be time to replace that GPS!

And here are a few more pictures of that gorgeous garden.

Tadpole Observation (A Cautionary Tale)

2012-05-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

In early spring the frogs gathered by the hundreds in our small pond and spent a very noisy weekend engaging in...well, you know. Think Woodstock, 1970s, lots of free love and partner swapping. Egg upon egg upon egg was floating in the water. It was so remarkable I had to photograph it. See an earlier post here.

Really, it was a bit ridiculous.

I swiped a few eggs for observation and we watched tiny tadpoles hatch and devour algae and leaf litter in a tank set up in the office. We'd keep them for a few days then dump them back in the pond to experience bigger digs. Rinse and repeat. We're on the fourth or fifth tadpole infusion here.

Except this time, I scooped something else up too. Leeches. A lot of leeches.

We've seen a few tadpoles in the pond with a leech attached to them, but they seemed just fine. The leech would glean a blood meal and off they'd go, right? All knowing Google told me the leeches in my pond primarily ate the detritus in the muck at the bottom.

Google was very wrong.

Last night we noticed a tadpole in the tank had a leech on it. And then 2 and then 4...and I didn't want to try and remove them because I thought detaching them might injure the poor guy more.

Checked on the little guy this morning and there is nothing left of him but some translucent skin and a dark green little mouth. Looks like they saved the lips for last. Ugh. Shiver me timbers.

How on Earth to find time for blogging?!

2012-05-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to many [too many] blogs and I'm constantly amazed that people find the time to write -- seriously, how do you gals do it?! I have a number of things working against me here. There's the gorgeous scenery when I look out from the office window:

Between staring off into space at that mountain in the distance or our little patch of spring bulbs, nothing is getting done. Next thing I know, I'm wandering outside, pulling weeds and dead-heading daffodils and chasing after Claire whose practically upside down trying to fish more tadpoles out of the pond. Another blog post, auto-saved and forever archived because I've lost my train of thought.

Then there is my love affair with long run on sentences and 900,000 word blog posts. I'm wordy in person too. And don't get me started with yapping on the phone, my favorite pastime since I was 14. And Facetime! Right smack there on the computer's task bar -- very bad for productivity Apple, very bad indeed.

And then there is this kid who worms her way into the office with her too-short bangs and cuddly bear and says, "Mommy I've made a whole picnic, come eat." And then this post too must end as duty calls and pretend picnics are way more fun. But at least I'll post this entry.

A Craft for Little Bookworms

2012-04-09T05:31:00.001-07:00

These cute bookworms caught my eye and I just had to share! I know the knotting might be tough for little hands, but with a slight method change (glue on some legs or use pipe cleaners) it will be accessible to even the youngest crowd.

One of Claire's favorite Christmas gifts this year was a butterfly kit and we're getting ready to send off for our caterpillars. I think we'll try and make a few of these first, what a nice tie-in!

Head over to Impress Your Kids for the full tutorial.

In Praise of Mud

2012-04-06T10:02:00.001-07:00

The day after I blogged about Claire amusing herself swinging from vines and sculpting with mud I read this article:

Girls who play in dirt grow up healthier according to researcher
Young girls who play in the mud tend to end up healthier than those who don't, according to a researcher at Oregon State University. (AP Photo)

A dirty tub is the least of my worries at this stage and we've made trips to the park for the sheer purpose of puddle jumping (our local playground gets the best puddle located just near enough the "parent bench" for me to watch but not get spattered).

I year or two ago, I met up with my girlfriend at the park and we were letting the girls enjoy some puddle jumping. Parent after parent came up to us warning us the girls were up to no good. I wonder (as the article above suggests) if there really is such a bias to "dirty" play for girls.

Or perhaps they didn't want to say yes to their own kids. Who knows.

Around 2 years old in the driveway's muddy puddle.

And here's Claire in August of 2008, I can't believe how LITTLE she is and how much her voice has changed since then!

And here is a picture of my cutie all cleaned up! Just found this on my computer, these digital photos seem to play and hide and seek on my hard dive at times!

Claire of the Jungle

2012-04-04T13:46:00.001-07:00

We've been in brush clean up mode these past few weeks, hauling the old, dead cedar trees over to the fire pile and waging war on the wild thorn bushes on the side yard. The weather has been indescribably gorgeous and I'm so glad to have the chance to spend all this time outside during the day with my little munchkin!

Of course the "pick up sticks with Mommy" game gets old quickly but Claire has kept herself busy (and fit!) swinging on grapevines and playing in a giant mud pit. The [really] dirty laundry has been worth it. The yard is nearly cleared and ready for planting! Can't wait to share some before and after pictures once we get our landscaping in!

The chickens seem thrilled with the warmer weather too -- they're constantly on the hunt for green sprouts (eat those weeds, girls!) and the grubs and slugs don't stand a chance. Claire has started gathering the eggs in the morning on her own and I love watching her weave her way up to the barn jumping over logs and then carefully walking back down to the house with the chickens trailing behind. When she runs, they run. It's a pretty funny site to enjoy while I drink some coffee

Celebrating Our First Harvest!

2012-03-20T20:33:00.002-07:00

What's tiny, red and tastes a bit spicy?

Say hello to our first radish!

Ok, so it's not much, but I am SUPER excited to show off our first vegetable straight out of the hoop house. Claire was so eager to pick something other than lettuce leaves (she's been munching on them for weeks whenever we would walk up to water) so I gave in and let her pick a radish from the pot.

These are the ones we planted back in December. They grew s-l-o-w-l-y in our unheated greenhouse, but grow they did. The January and February ones are just as far along. Claire described the flavor as being "like spicy pepper, but it was good too [at the start]."

The rule in our house is that you must try food. You may not like it, but give it a shot. Even parents have foods that they don't like (don't you try to sneak any olives onto my plate!), but we should always have a try to see if our tastes have changed. Claire could live on broccoli, kale and garlicky spinach and she loves (gasp!) brussel sprouts. Really, the only things she doesn't enjoy are mushrooms, olives and (lately) raw tomato. And bread...we almost never have sandwiches because she never eats the bread.

Claire has shown me that it is entirely possible to eat PB&J without the bread, it's just very, very messy.

Are you gardening with your little ones this year?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

2012-03-17T07:03:00.003-07:00

Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I posted last year about a frugal find for exploring sculpture and how we tied it into learning about Saint Patrick and wanted to share for those of you new to the blog. Enjoy!

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I hit the jackpot! Have you seen those Magic Nuudles Bloxx? They look like a fantastic craft material and I love the idea of exploring sculpture with them but they’re a bit pricey. I found a cheapo option in shipping supply aisle at Staples - cornstarch packing peanuts! They’re not quite as colorful, but for $10 you’ll get more than triple the amount of fluffy fun. Of course…an even cheaper option is to hang on to your packing peanuts when receiving mail!

A damp sponge was just the right amount of moisture for Claire - a little goes a long way in getting these guys to stick together. If you are too generous with the water, the result is sad and disintegrated noodle goo. Claire added on lots of file sorting stickers and I helped with a bit of pink yarn for the tongue. And voila! A cool snake sculpture! I can’t wait for Claire to try some more shapes, right now she’s only interested in sticking them together end to end. I suppose we’ll slowly work our way up sculpting the Eiffel Tower, heehee!

I've got a book on hold at the library by Sheila McGill-Callahan called The Last Snake in Ireland. It's a perfect literature connection for this activity and Saint Patrick's Day! We've read it before and its a hoot to read out loud.

I’m off to drive away the snakes like Saint Patrick. I suppose clearing my table of cornstarch serpents isn’t quite as impressive as driving them out of Ireland, is it?

Early Spring Nature Activities

2012-03-12T07:42:00.001-07:00

If you missed out last year in creating a nesting material dispenser for your backyard birds, buy some onions and hang on to that bag because now is the time!

Last year we left out bunches of sparkling ribbon, pink yarn and batting and were treated to some pretty fabulous nests. We're in a new house now and while walking in the woods, my husband found this nest on the ground for us to examine, take a close look...

Remember not to take nests still on trees, some birds will revisit the same site year after year!

Do you see the dental floss and the blue string from a nearby tarp? We'll be spending the afternoon here hanging some yarn remnants on bushes and waiting for the song birds to arrive. With the warm weather our area has been experiencing, we're expecting the first robins of the year any day now. If you already have a feeding station set up, add an onion bag filled with goodies for your nesters (be sure to keep the string snipped to about 4 inches).

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If you're looking for a literature tie-in for this activity, I highly recommend The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman...you might just know one of his buddies, Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). This book about a bird couple and the pursuit of the perfect place to live.

In other spring news, the wood frogs have been busy in our pond and there are a few THOUSAND eggs just waiting to turn into tadpoles (we might bring a few indoors to watch!). They sound rather like the chickens in the morning, not your usual "ribbit" at all!

Hooray Spring!

The Happy Monkey House

2012-03-01T06:17:00.000-08:00

Blanket forts, tree houses, tucked away closets...it's obvious that the kiddie crowd loves to have places and spaces to call their own. Claire is no exception. Santa dropped this cardboard house off at Christmas and for the following 4 weeks Claire meticulously colored and embellished it in her own style.

Now if you've spent any time at all here at the blog, you know I'm a "color outside the lines" kind of gal so picking up this house was a little out of character for me. But I am so glad I did because Claire loved it (and I was able to bury my nose in a bunch of books for hours at a time - BONUS!) I dubbed this "Happy Monkey House" because all over the outside of the house Claire drew happy smiley monkeys. These are quite different than her people drawings, a keen eye will notice the pronounced monkey ears (often colored in). A friendly family of millipedes live over the door (I'm sure this is my fault).

The aforementioned skylights in
their full glory. Future architect?

But by far the most interesting of modifications are Claire's skylights. Yep, it was dark inside the house so Claire punched an assortment of holes in the roof to let more light in. Like I said, I had my nose buried in a book...apparently she did this very quietly.

I can't ignore the genius in the idea, but Dan and I asked her to refrain from poking more holes. Her response? "It's ok, I'm done now with those I can see in my house."

Speaking of things to see, when not coloring the outside scenery, Claire was hard at work decorating the interior of the cottage. You guessed it, more monkeys. There's one frown-faced fellow in there and a picture of Dan and I even made it in (I feel honored).

Happy Monkey House is stowed in the basement right now. After giving up half the living room for nearly a month I've reclaimed the space but I'm sure we'll bring it out again. All of the monkey portraits that hung from the ceiling have a new home too but you'll have to wait to see it!

Greenhouse Gardening in Winter

2012-02-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

We used an eye dropper to water at first
so the seedlings wouldn't float away

We're so lucky to have two large hoop houses at our new house. Right now I'm mainly using them to over-winter some perennials that didn't make it into the ground, but back in December I thought a little experimentation with growing vegetables in the winter would be fun.

I was unable to find a lot of information geared towards the home gardener about growing vegetables in unheated hoop houses. In fact, most everything I read said plants would continue to grow if established, but that starting seedlings was near impossible. The previous homeowners left us an abundance of styrofoam coolers and I figured if I nested a few of them together and covered them with bubble wrap, we might be able to get some seeds going, even (fingers-crossed) in the winter.

So far, everything we've planted has sprouted! I went with all cool season veggies (carrots, peas, lettuce, radish, chard, beets) and Claire's been gently watering them every other week. Everything is growing, but slowly. The plants sown on December 19 and the plants sown on Jan 15 are about the same size.

Claire made a great observation that ALL the seedlings look alike at this point in their growth. Of course it was phrased more like, "Mooooommmmy, you mixed the seeds up. They're all the same <pout pout pout>."

One thumb knuckle. The official unit of measure a la Claire

Next year I hope we can take things a step further and harvest veggies throughout the winter. I'm hoping an early start in September will get everything established. For those gardeners out there, I'm in hardiness zone 6A. We've had a pretty mild winter but nights have been below freezing. I have no idea about the air temperature in the greenhouse (other than we're comfy with our coats off) and according to the turkey thermometer, the soil temp stays between 50 and 65...I'm not sure how correct that is though seeing as how it's meant for meat LOL.

This project has been a great winter diversion for outdoorsy kid Claire and her green thumbed mommy! Puttering around with dirt and plants seems to keep us both quite entertained.
Lifecycles of plants are an easy thing to study, relatively quick and with easily observable results. You could even sprout split peas or lentils in an afternoon.

Up next are summer vegetables. We've picked up a bunch of tomato seeds that we'll start indoors now and move to the greenhouse in April. I'm hoping to be taste testing our first few tomatoes in June. Remember how much Claire enjoyed rating tomatoes 2 years ago? Right now she's sworn off tomatoes, but I think once she picks her own from the backyard garden, she'll come around.

Carrots, swiss chard and lettuce. They DO all look the same at this point!

Batik on Paper Revisited for Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

My daughter informed me this morning that since it's Valentine's Day, M&Ms were in order for breakfast. As cute as she was (especially with her pronouncing them m-E-m's) we settled on a few red ones to celebrate and had our usual egg breakfast.

I've received many emails about the batik on paper technique featured here. I guess Pinterest has really taken off, hundreds and hundreds of people seem to be arriving to check out our creation and in my first post on the method, I did a rather poor job describing how we achieved the effect. In case you were wondering, here is the product of our last experiment:

Batik on Paper. Wherever the glue was used, the paint still appears wet and glossy!

SO -- Batik on Paper for Valentine's Day it is!

A good quality watercolor paper is in order for this project, things are going to get really wet.

Using Elmer's blue gel school glue, create a pattern or write some words (that's me who did "love" in case you were wondering, heeehee!)

We always seem to do artwork in jammies around here!

Allow to dry over night. This is probably the hardest part for Claire, the gel will feel dry in about an hour, but you're going to be painting over it so make sure it's really, really dry.

Go nuts with liquid watercolors (try an eyedropper, what a great lesson in color mixing!)
I've referenced them all over the blog, and these are my favorites. They're super concentrated so diluting them to get more mileage is fine.

Unlike fabric batik, we're leaving the glue in place. My original goal back when I first attempted this was to peel off the glue (like a non-stinky rubber cement to make kid friendly watercolor resist paintings). The places where the glue was will remain raised and intensely shiny, even upon drying!

Lastly, sprinkle some table salt around the picture to chase some of the colors away. Claire used a liberal amount on a few of these hearts and the crystals look like snow on the paper now! And for those of you who'd like a visual aid (I'm still figuring out this pinterest thing, bear with me) for your digital pin boards....here ya go!

Pin It

Here are the exact products I've used. I think the watercolor paper in a pack of 100 is the most affordable option in terms of paper. You want something really thick and the 15 sheet pads are really pricy at my local crafts store.

In the interest of full disclosure (and so I can avoid jail time) I must write that if you buy something through my links to Amazon, I earn a small percentage of each sale (at no cost to you). All opinions are mine and they are not influenced by whatever product or book I happen to be reviewing. I link only to things we love and spend the pocket change we earn from Amazon on crayons, glue, glitter and other things to mess up my kitchen with. The End. And now back to our regularly scheduled fun...

Embracing Simplicity during Christmas

2011-12-01T15:39:00.001-08:00

I think as you have children, everything becomes more magical -- especially around the holidays. As Claire has gotten older (this will be Christmas # 5 for her, although I'm sure she's forgotten the first few) I've gotten excited myself just watching her anticipation and excitement grow as we draw closer and closer to the 25th.

In front of the BIG tree in Boston, MA

Last year we went to see the Nutcracker, spent hours in our pajamas making ornaments and generally became homebodies, enjoying each other and lots of warm drinks (hot chocolate for the kiddo, Mommy and Daddy discovered American Honey Bourbon and liberally added it to their hot mulled cider).

This year we're trying out an advent calendar. I'd like to do a lot before Christmas, but want to keep things stress free, simple and fun. Especially simple because, like always, I waited until the night before to get cracking. So here's what I'm working with:

Cute, right? I picked it up on sale last year and totally forgot about it until I opened up one of our Christmas boxes. I'm sure little candies would be nice in each cubby, but I wanted to go with an activity instead.

In each cubby (I've only filled up to #10...don't let the picture fool you) I've put a little picture or note detailing something special we'll do. Day 1 was a rolled up piece of paper with a mug of hot chocolate on it. Day 4 is a miniature banner which will be a clue about our art project that day. There is a picture of Claire with Dan and I in Day 6, where I wrote a little note about her first Christmas. I used regular old computer paper and tried to fold everything a few different ways to make it interesting. IKEA sells tiny little finger puppets that fit in the cubpoards perfectly and I'll add a few Hershey's Kisses scattered throughout as well.

Simple, fun. And I can cheat and move them around if need be. Looking for more ideas? Check out these crafty calendars below. I'm thinking some of these could be nicely modified for a little math activity!

{a} Beautiful family photos modpodged onto magnets over at Brenda Johnston 's blog

{b} Tiny matchbook boxes displayed in an apothecary jar at JustAGirlBlog

{c} ASeptemberFeeling shares nature inspired goodies to hang on the tree

{d} HouseToHome showcases a great way to reuse cans for a fun stacking calendar

{e} Simple, elegant and lots of buttons for little ones to count. Brilliant, Missgioia

Why I should buy stock in scotch (tape that is)

2011-11-30T11:18:00.001-08:00

There's a great article on Wired.com by GeekDad Jonathan Liu about the 5 Best Toys of All Time.

While I wholeheartedly agree about the joy of sticks, boxes, twine and above all dirt -- there is a glaring omission from his most excellent article:

Tape. And lots of it. Case in point:

Claire's version of London Bridge. Constructed completely on her own in a quiet hour which I used to whip up a 30 minute Rachael Ray dish (really, don't these always take like 20 minutes longer than they should?).

The bridge hung on until this morning when her bouncing turtle finally shook it from the couch.

So I say hand over a roll of tape to your little one, see where it takes them! It's cheap, easy to clean up and there's probably a half dozen rolls stashed in your junk drawer as you're reading this.

Messy bedhead hair is of course optional, but I feel it adds to the experience.