Growing potatoes with kids can be a revelation.

I run a weekly School Gardening Club with a group of eight and nine-year olds. They’re a great group and enthusiastic about getting their hands dirty and doing lots of practical work. They’ve been growing lots of plants from seed, both flowers and vegetables, and are now proficient planters. Hand them a packet of seeds and they’ll set to with a production line of activity, potting, planting and watering.

But potatoes – they turned out to be more mysterious.

Earlier on in the school the children had a go at growing beans in plastic containers and they’ve had lots more experience with seeds through the gardening club. They know what sees look like, and they know the seeds first send out roots that go downwards in the soil and then shoots with leaves that grow up. Or do they?

They were really keen to try potatoes. All the produce from the school garden is shared out between the club members (and any extras gifted to the teaching staff) and the thought of home-grown chips, fries and mashed potato was popular. We’d chosen two varieties of potatoes to grow and when the seed potatoes were pulled out of the bag for the kids to plant there were puzzled looks. ‘But – that just looks like an ordinary potato!’, said one.   Ahh, that’s because it is an ordinary potato and it’s not going to grow quite how you expect!

Growing potatoes with children

You can plant potatoes, depending on the variety and where in the world you are, between February and the end of May, for harvesting between May and October. Choose between small salad potatoes and big baking potatoes or try something a little different such as red Rooster or Purple Majesty.

We always chit our potatoes to get them started. This means sitting the seed potatoes in the daylight until the eyes begin to sprout leaves. This was the first surprise for the kids, who are used to every seed sending out roots first. And no other plant has been started by sitting them in an egg box on the window sill.

Then the potatoes are placed in soil near the bottom of a deep container. You can of course plant them straight out in the soil in your yard but we like to grow ours in containers – a big bucket or trash can is ideal – which makes them easier to earth up. And that’s the next thing that the kids didn’t expect, because once the potatoes start growing you need to bury all the leaves in lots more soil, completely covering the plant and encouraging it to grow up and up and up some more. Growing in a container also makes it easier to gather all the potatoes which will grow off the plants tall shoots as you can just tip over the bucket when you’re ready to harvest and pick out your crop.

Watching science in action

To help the children better understand what’s going on with the potato plants, why not use one of the seed potatoes for a science observation experiment? Take a tall plastic bottle and make some drainage holes in the bottom. Use this as your potato planter, placing your potato at the bottom and filling the bottle with more soil as the potato grows. Using this clear plastic container gives you  a window under the ground, so your children can observe close-up how the potato grows a new crop. Just be aware that the potatoes in this container are for the science experiment only – being exposed to the daylight can cause green patches to appear on the potatoes making them inedible.

Lessons learned

The lesson I took from growing these potatoes with the kids was that you really can’t beat hands-on ways to learn. It was a reminder that things we take for granted can be amazing for others and adapting an activity to make it more child-friendly can open up lots of interesting investigations and discovery.

What about you: what are you growing with your kids this year?

Need some inspiration for a green thumb?  Check out these ideas from some Quirky Mommas:

• How to Garden with Kids
• Interacting with the Environment
• Gardening with Preschoolers

1. Go Catch some bugs.
2. Watch a butterfly hatch from a chrysalis.
3. Make and enjoy fresh kid-made limeade.
4. Paint with fizzing sidewalk paint.
5. Dream of winter by making snowglobes – love the solar system one!
6. Take a mini-road trip to a new destination.
7. Make homemade bouncy balls.  Great fun if you bring them to the splash pad!
8. Make a fire, create and roast campfire food with these yummy smore cones.
9. Freeze some fun toys in ice and be an excavator and chip them free.
10. Jump rope - create a fun durable rope from marker lids.
11. Play I-Spy outside!  Great way to notice the little details in the world around you!
12. Clean out the trash cans… and then make noise with them!  My kids love trashcan drumming.
13. With a balloon and a CD fly a CD hover craft.
14. Play with your food – eat a pretend Lorax!
15. Watch ants change colors and learn about how they digest food with a fun outdoor experiment.
16. Kool-aide Slurppies.  Nothing says summer time better than slurppies by the pool.
17. Visit a farmers market together and make veggie smoothies (or a dessert smoothie) with the produce.
18. Fill a dry kiddie pool with a variety of items for a giant sensory tub activity.
19. Watch pill bugs race.   See if you can collect a whole “family” of bugs.
20. Make and eat some homemade kid-made butter.
21. Add some fun to your slip-n-slide, with shaving cream!
22. Use damaged pool noodles for art, a sword fight, or to create a marble run.
23. Play outdoor bingo - go on a hunt for the items on your card.  Whoever finds things in a row first wins.
24. Experience and explore gravity by playing with pulleys
25. Decorate rocks for your garden – with melted crayons!
26. Have a lazy boardgame afternoon.  Here are some of our suggested best board games.
27. Pick a flower, with your favorite color of paint make flower prints.
28. Explore the colors of the rainbow with ice.
29. Play with glow sticks – put them inside balloons, dump the contents into jars of water, paint with them, etc.
30. Create with your recycle bin – make art and toys out of trash.
31. Have a lemonade stand with the kids – put smiles on your neighbors faces.
32. Decorate some tin cans and create some DIY windchimes.  Compare the sounds of different sizes/shapes of cans.
33. Collect your summer memories into a keepsake jar.
34. Create art sculptures with tin foil.
35. Decorate your yard with balloon people OR make a bunch and hand them out at the park – put smiles on the kids faces.
36. Get muddy and make some dirt soup with the kids!
37. Paint with water outside – I love mess-free art!
38. Foam – a messy project, great to incorporate with washing the car! Make foam and then use the flakes to wash the car.
39. Make a water xylophone with the kids to make music with.
40. Freeze bananas (or grapes, strawberries, etc. Dip them in chocolate or yogurt for a fun summer treat.
41. Play with giant bubbles – the bigger the better.
42. Take your kids fishing.  Don’t have a pole?  Go pretend fishing.
43. Explore your shadow – trace them, chase them, make them dance!
44. Have a tea party – outside.  Bring your friends and stuffed animals.
45. Make a splashpad at your own house with a DIY PVC pipe sprinkler system.
46. Have fun decorating the garden with some paving stones.
47. Water the yard – the slow way, with homemade watering cans.
48. Explore scents outside with a water table experiment.
49. Play and mold sculptures with Rice Crispie Treats
50. collect items for a bird nest - that the birds can use to decorate their nests with.

A couple of the ideas came from the pinning party last night – we had a blast – so many great ideas were shared.  As always, by linking up you are giving us permission to grab a photo from your site to feature you… and we’ll add you to our weekly newsletter. Thanks for so many great ideas!!
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Last week I shared a simple spelling activity that we created using a pink party blower and some bottle caps.

This week I have another party blower activity that packs a punch! We used a party blower, a few Superhero friends, and some recycled materials to help us learn about action words!

My son loves Spiderman and the rest of the Superhero squad right now, so I decided to include them in this week’s activity. As we talked about them we reviewed several action words like protect, create, and change.

Materials Needed for Action Words Game:

• recycled materials (we used paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, and pasta boxes)
• double stick tape
• party blower
• Superhero images (we just printed these off via Google images)
• markers
• scissors

How to create the Action Words Game:

1. Choose your Superhero images and print them off.
2. Cut them to fit your boxes/materials.
3. Stick them onto your recycled materials.
4. Have your child tell you about each Superhero and talk about action words that you could use to describe each hero.
5. Write the action words on the boxes (older kids could do this themselves).
6. Set them up on the floor or on a table so that they are easy accessible for your child.

How to play the Action Words Game:

1. Set up the materials on a table/counter and give your child a party blower.
2. Describe one of the action words using simple hints or synonyms.
3. Once your child guesses the correct word, have them look for it and then use the party blower to try and hit the word and knock down the box/paper towel roll.
4. You can also play by telling your child to knock down the action word that starts with ___ letter or ____ sound.

As you play your child will notice that by hitting the words that are lower it is hard to knock down the boxes and they will notice that it is easier to knock down the boxes when they hit the words on top. Encourage them to problem solve and explore how to use the party blower to knock down the boxes (blowing faster/slower/at a certain spot/turning the box sideways… it is fun to see what they come up with!)

This activity was a great subtle way for me to teach my son some new action vocabulary words and their synonyms. He also liked taking turns describing the words so that I could knock down the boxes. Having him come up with hints/clues for me was another great activity because by being the “teacher” he ended up learning even more!

As mentioned in my post last week, blowing activities are great for helping kids improve breath control. Breath control issues can sometimes cause kids to have unclear speech. Blowing is also helpful with strengthening and controlling the muscles of the lips, which are used to produce sounds such as ‘p’ in pop and ‘b’ in bat.

Do you have any other favorite learning games that used recycled materials?

Here are a few recycled materials games that we’ve tried or have on our “must try” list:

Velcro ball game reusing gloves via Creative Connections for Kids

Magazine Hockey game via Toddler Approved

Jar Lid Letter Game via No Time for Flashcards

How else have you used party blowers for learning, exploring, or creating?

He had exhausted all of his toys.

It was time for a new sensory bin or some kind of different and unique activity.

I sent him out for a walk with his grandparents who happened to be visiting and promised him something new when he came home.  I scrambled around picking up pieces of felt, foam stickers, and anything else that happened to be in our craft bins.  Nothing was inspiring me until I spotted an old pompom from a college football game we attended (go Rutgers!).

I grabbed an empty plastic bin, the pompom, some scissors, and spools of any kind of ribbon and lace I could find.

First, I cut the pompom strings off of the handle and placed them in the plastic bin.  I then cut two pieces of every different type of ribbon and lace I had, being sure to vary their lengths.

I then mixed everything together, trying to separate the pairs from each other and hide the ribbons and lace in the pompom strings.

When my son came home, I presented him with his new matching game.  I told him that he was to dig through the red and white strings to find the other pieces of ribbon and lace.  When he found a piece, he was to set it aside then continue digging for more.  Once he made a match, he was to shout out a silly word and do a little dance (he made up that part of the game).

The goal was to find all or as many matches as he could.

He had a good time with this activity, but of course, it wasn’t long until all of the contents were spilled out onto the play mat and other objects hidden in the strings.

I recently revised this game to meet the needs of my child (and only you will know best what works for yours).  It seemed that the two different colored strings that served as the base in the bin were causing my son to get frustrated.

When the Easter grass went on sale following the holiday, I purchased a few packs of the same color on clearance.  I then got to play the game as I sorted all of the pairs and made sure the matches still existed.  I then mixed the pairs into the purple Easter grass to hide them again.  My son was much happier with this version because the game was simpler and provided more opportunities for success.

The fun that follows this activity, besides digging, finding a piece of ribbon or lace, making a match, and doing a silly dance, also includes talking about the different colors, textures, lengths, and widths of the ribbons and lace that are hidden inside.

To extend this activity even further, you can compare and contrast the pairs, measure the lengths and widths with a ruler, sort them by size or color, and even make abstract designs with them.  Chances are the grass and ribbons will end up spread out on your table or floor, so just be prepared for that in advance so clean up is easier.

This was a fun, inexpensive activity that I was able to pull together using objects I already had on hand.  It was a new type of sensory bin and really helped work on my son’s concentration, fine motor, and matching skills.

The possibilities are endless with this type of activity.

I would love to see what your kids do with it!

For more matching game ideas that you can make, take a look at these from the Quirky Mommas:

• Matching Game with Textures
• File Folder Games
• Make Your Own Animal Matching Game

Sometimes you hold onto an object to use a craft for a long time waiting for the perfect idea for a recycled craft to come to you.

This cup holder has been in my craft bin for several months waiting for inspiration to come. I would look at it almost every time I opened the box and nothing would come to mind.

Finally it just had to come out of the bin and be used for something. The cup holder was taking up a lot of room in the plastic tub it was living in. It had to be set aside so I could dig underneath it to find something I already had a plan for.

It needed to come out, but it still didn’t have a recycled craft for it to be a part of.

Thankfully a partial bag of large colored straws needed to be used too. It had been in the craft bin for a year. When I put both of the out of the table together, an activity quickly came to mind.

My son and I wove the straws diagonally through the holes in each cup position in the holder. The straws moved easily through the holes and could be easily removed if one of the abstract straw designs looked like it needs a different colored straw in its place.

We were both able to work on the sculpture by working on opposite sides of the cup holder which was fun.

I love working with him on projects! I did have to give up the one orange straw, but it was worth it.

This simple activity required using small motor skills and analyzing color choices and it created a really fun abstract sculpture or so I thought.

This colorful sculpture ended up being on a temporary exhibit in our home. My son soon disassembled it and created a light saber with the straws with a rubber snake sticking out of it. Ironically the creation of the light saber required using the same skills he had used to create the sculpture. Small motor skills and analyzing color choices were required to make it.

I guess I need to come up with a new idea for a recycled craft using the cup holder. The straws are now part of my son’s Star Wars collection.

Although they don’t involve straws, the Quirky Mommas do have some other ideas for Recycled Art projects.

• Handmade Recycled Bead Bracelet
• Play with Recycled Items
• Creative Techniques for Craft Creations

Rather than buy dad a new golf club, BBQ grill, or tool (all very good, manly gifts to give), why not make him a lasting gift…a book that captures your kids’ thoughts of him?

It is so easy to do!

Just pick out your favorite pictures of Dad with his kids, upload them to one of your favorite photo-gift websites and make a book leaving blank spots and questions for the kids to answer for the captions. I like to use Shutterfly, as they have the option to create a page exactly as you want it to look, not just a “fixed format”.

Ideas for questions could include:

-What is your favorite memory with Dad?

- I Love Dad because…

-What are some of the things that Dad has taught you?

- What is your favorite thing to do with Dad?

- What are Dad’s favorite foods?

- What is your favorite vacation you went on with Dad?

Questions could vary based on your child’s age – I always love the answer to what does dad “do”.  Out of the mouth’s of babes!

Have fun with it – encourage your children to really think about their answers and make them meaningful.

What a wonderful keepsake for Dad to treasure for a lifetime!

Capture those memories and get those picture off your camera.  Here are some more great keepsake and scrapbook ideas:

• Family Bedtime Stories – Use a family photo album for a bedtime story
• Creating a Scrapbook with Your Kids – Help your children capture memories from special events
• Fantastic Fridays: Time Capsule – Capture your child’s “first” in a Time Capsule

I had been blogging for a year or two when he came home from second grade with a writing assignment.

It was a simple paragraph about his favorite colors.  After he wrote the final draft in his best handwriting, he was to “publish” it.  The “publication” direction was very open-ended with the goal to have the child think about how he could get others to read his work.

We chose to start a blog and publish it there.  Ryan was excited to have his own website and thrilled that publishing his paragraph didn’t mean he had to type or do any more writing.  The blog is still there today.

A blog is a place where kids can experience writing, display photography and express their creativity.  It doesn’t have to be a traditional blog or look anything like any other blog in the world.  It is a place where they can make all the design and publication decisions because it is THEIR space.

Ryan’s blog is private.  It is not accessible to search engines or anyone without a login created by me.  Our computer is in the living room and he is supervised online.

My boys don’t enjoy the writing process, but the things that can be blogged about are endless and don’t all include writing {or typing}:

• Art journal – photos and scans of all the child’s artwork.   Parents or kids could add commentary as to what each piece is in the child’s words or background information about the work.
• Sports record – photos, videos and memories from a season of baseball.  The time he hit a homerun could be told in his own words right after it happened.
• Building archives – photos and videos of things built from blocks, Legos or whatever the latest obsession might be.  As the child gets older, he could add links to things he wants to build and online resources to make that happen.
• Trip scrapbook – a trip to the zoo, a day at the waterpark or a visit to grandma’s house creates photos, videos, family stories and memorabilia to scan.

This could start at almost any age with a variable amount of parental intervention.  My boys like looking back at the stories and photos on MY blog and can only imagine what fun they will have to look back and see what they published!

Did you know Go Daddy is a great place to start a website for kids and family? With WebSite Tonight®, a Go Daddy site builder, you can access a template library containing over 2,000 design and color combinations and 120 pre-built websites. From silly to creative, there’s a style for everyone.

There may be a lot you don’t know about Go Daddy including the tools they have for bloggers {no matter what their age}. Check out www.godaddy.com to learn more.

Join the conversation below for your chance to win 3 year Unlimited 4GH Hosting from Go Daddy!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Go Daddy. The opinions and text are all mine.

I was searching for some way to help the upper times tables stick for my son.  We worked diligently with flash cards, but it just was NOT getting the job done!  We tried some online games, but the timed games made my boy panic & it still wasn’t getting us there.

After doing some online research, I came across a program called Times Tales  & it looked promising.  Their slogan, “Life is too short to cry over math!” really hit home!

Times Tales creates characters for each number so your child has a visual representation of each digit.

Then, two numbers interact in a simple story giving the solution.

There are various versions of Times Tales…does your child work best in a workbook?  Watching a DVD and participating?  Times Tales has both covered!  We chose the DVD version because I liked the way the voice over work sounded on the DVD sample online.

We downloaded the free sample of the program & worked through the few stories given and I was surprised that my son easily recalled the facts after just watching the videos, talking about the stories together, & reviewing!

Look at that smile reflected in the monitor!  It was genuinely fun for my son to learn the stories & remember the facts.

Built into the program are also various review methods.  Audio & visual review on the DVD, a little game you can make by printing & folding your own dice with the character pictures, and my son’s favorite review…crossword puzzles!

As an adult, I must admit, the stories seem a little strange.  But I didn’t question the method behind the program…we just went with it.  After completing the series, I think the author created very silly stories so they would be easy for kids to remember!

I am thrilled we used the Times Tales program.  It is a fun method for all kids to learn tricky multiplication problems, & I would definitely recommend giving this a shot if your child is struggling. Especially since you can download a free trial of the program that your child can use & you will see if it clicks for your student!  The free trial is what sold me on Times Tales after I saw what it helped my son do.

Times Tales is produced by a company called Trigger Memory Systems, who also have a great line of chore helpers for kids called Zone Cleaning.   If you’re looking for a fun, motivating way to get kids helping with chores, check out their reuseable charts.

*I was given a free copy of the Times Tales DVD & Zone Cleaning charts as compensation for writing this review.  However, I had the DVD in my shopping cart to purchase the program and feel that it would have been worth every penny!  I have since recommended it to many friends who have been pleased as well.   I would never recommend a product I didn’t try myself and truly enjoy!

For more fun math games, check out what these other Quirky Mommas have used:

• Make Your Own Math Game: Division and Remainders
• Math Play: Egg Carton Number Toss
• PlayDoh Math Ideas

I helped my son decide to limit the things were looking for to flowers before we left the house. There are so many wonderful things you mind on a walk and narrowing what we were looking for seemed like it would help us accomplish the task and not end up an odd assortment of pictures. Although an odd assortment is perfectly fine to search for when you are looking for things to count.

Once we were out and about my son seemed to find flowers everywhere. He was really excited about finding clover in almost everyone’s yard. After a few clover pictures, I decided his hunt needed to be focused on finding flowers that were not clover.

Then his focus turned to dandelions. We had a short discussion about the difference between the flowers that appear on weeds and flowers you plant. He informed me his yard will be filled with weed flowers when he grows up.

After gathering a number of pictures of various flowers around our neighborhood, we headed home to print them out.

The printed pictures of flowers were later placed in plastic covers and put on a table along a black magic marker and counting pebbles.

We counted flowers in three different ways:

1. My son placed a counter over each flower and we counted them as he removed a counter from each flower.

2. My son counted the flowers in each picture as he circled them with the black marker.

3. My son pointed to each flower and counted as he counted I wrote the number of the flower on the flower.

What are some others ways we could have counted?

Counters could have been placed on each flower and then the counters could have been slid down to a number line to find out how many flowers there were.

Tally marks could have been placed on a piece of paper as we counted.

I hope you have fun exploring your neighborhood for things you can count.

Young learners may enjoy collecting objects they can manipulate and feel from around the neighborhood. Once they have had some counting experiences with concrete objects they will be ready for counting semi-concrete objects like the flowers in our pictures.

You can count on more math fun with these other Quirky Momma posts:

• Preschool Math with Beads
• Counting Garden: Preschool Learning Activities
• Counting and Adding with Snacks

Making the Butter

I learned from PBS kids that it can be done in small batches with just some cream and a jar.   Mom in Madison said that it sometimes helps to add some marbles in the jar; so I threw those in too, thinking they couldn’t hurt, and that we could use all the help we could get.  (I was a little dubious that it was going to work at all).

For the jar, I chose a salad dressing shaker, thinking it would be easier for little hands to get their fingers around easily.   We filled the shaker about half way with heavy whipping cream and started shaking.

At first, the kids wanted to shake like crazy, but of course, that got old quickly.  We passed it around the room, shaking steadily, for about twenty minutes.

Presto-Chango!

After a few minutes, the cream started to get very thick.  I wondered if that was all it was going to do, but then suddenly- presto!  We heard a sloshing noise and saw that the butter was stuck all together in one big clump.  We had butter!  We shook a little more just to make sure it was done changing, and then took it over to the sink.

After draining off the excess liquid, we slathered it on some hot cornbread we had just made.  Some directions say you should rinse and knead the butter for better quality, but we didn’t bother.  The butter was creamy and delicious- a little softer and wetter than the store-bought variety, but that just made it spread a little easier.

Check out these other Quirky Momma posts that will get your kids making their own food!

• Homemade Ice Cream
• Make Your Own Granola
• Freezer Banana Pops: Homemade Summer Popsicle