Earth Month Part 2

For our second activity for Earth Month I decided to show Ryan what the Earth actual was. So we sat down and watched a few youtube videos and I showed him a few pictures. I'm sure he still doesn't fully understand what the Earth is but over time I sure he will. We did this activity the same day we made the flower, except I had planned this one to be an outside activity. Sadly Mother Nature had other plans. Usually around this time of year we are outside sweating like crazy cause it is so hot. But not this day. This day it poured so we went to the garage opened up the door to listen to the rain and get as much "we are outside" feeling as we possibly could.

The set up for this activity was rather simple. Last year I had bought a plastic shower curtain from Dollar Tree to use for an indoor winter activity but we never got around to it. So now we use it as a drop cloth for our more messier activities.

For this activity you will need a drop cloth, unless you don't mind getting paint on the floor or you have washable paint, blue, green, and white paint, something to put the paint in, sponge water balls, and of course a large circle to represent the moon.

If you've never made sponge water balls before it is rather simple. Buy some really cheap sponges, I got mine for Dollar Tree, cut them in four or five stripes long ways. You can layer them as one color for each ball or make them different colors like I did. Get some string and lay it down, next layer four strips on top of the string, then layer another four on top of those strips. Take both ends of your sting and tie them around the sponges, pull really tight. Make a knot and you have yourself a reusable sponge ball. These are great for replacing water balloons, and there is no tiny bits of balloon to pick up at the end of the day.

The whole idea for this craft was to throw the paint filled sponge balls at the paper. But Ryan didn't really care for the throwing part. He did it a few times then gave up. In the end he decided that his hands did a much better job. And I have to agree with him. I also love that he decided to take this craft and make it his own. After a while he ended up with blue hands so I usually keep a bowl of water and an old towel on the side so he can wash up when he needs too.

Over time he even started to use the sponges again. But instead of tossing he decided to use them as sponges. I'd have to say this kept him busy for a majority of the morning. In fact we lost track of time that we completely forgot about going in for lunch. Which I really don't see as a problem because this activity was so darn fun. I also plan to incorporate it into as many lessons as I can, cause come on who doesn't love to get messy.

 

This is one craft I am super proud of. He did it all by himself with hardly any instructions from me. His Earth, along with his flower, are proudly hung up in our living room for all to see. Every time I walk past it I can't help but smile.

Earth Month Part 1

As everyone knows Earth Day of course only takes place one day out of the year. That's twenty four hours, one thousand four hundred forty minutes, and eighty six thousand four hundred seconds. There is so much to learn about how to protect our plant that there is no way one can fit into just one day. So I decided to extent it to a whole month. Even a month isn't enough but its a great start.

Since last month we have started composting. The great thing about composting, and the fact that my family is mainly all vegans, is our trash is only dumped once or twice a month. Before we composted we were dumping it almost every other day.  We also ditched plastic grocery bags and produce bags when we go shopping. The plus side to this is we no longer have to figure out where to hid all our plastic bags and we save five cents for every cloth bag we take. We have also started using cloth in place of other disposable items. Ryan used cloth diapers, I use mama cloth, soon I will be making unpaper towels and napkins, and maybe even adventure into the world of family cloth. If everyone made one change, wither it be ditching the plastic bags, composting, giving up meat, or even using a towel instead of a paper towel to clean the counters we can all help our planet.

With that said, Ryan has started to learn what it means to be green. So far he loves the compost and especially enjoys planting. Every morning he has to go out and check on the worms. He even brings out his scraps from his breakfast, either his banana peel, strawberry steams, or carrot peels, to go feed them. When someone new comes over he has to take them outside to show off his worms. Now there is a funny side to his love for his worms is no matter how much he loves to watch them he is to scared to touch one. Every time I try to get him to hold one but nope he takes off running the opposite direction. Hopefully in time he will finally be able to hold one of these little guys.

To start off Earth month we did a simple activity.  We started out by learning about the different parts of a plant. We used things we found around the house to create our flower.

To make the flower I gathered objects from around the house. Dirt from the flower beds, yarn for the roots, a pipe cleaner for the stem (which got changed to a strip of green paper cause it wouldn't stick to the paper no matter what we did), we picked leaves from our tree, used pumpkin seeds to represent the seeds on the flower and in the ground, and for the flower we used a cupcake liner. I also made labels so Ryan could identify each part of the flower.

Ryan really enjoyed this project because he got to play with his two all time favorite things, dirt and glue. He started out by smearing mod podge on the bottom of the paper then sprinkled dirt on to it. Once he was done he glued a pumpkin seed into the dirt. Next I took the yarn and separated it so it would look even more like roots. As I mentioned before we had a hard time keeping the pipe cleaner sticking to the paper so I helped him cut out a long green strip for the stem instead. Next came the leaves. I had to help with this part cause no matter how many times I tried to tell him he needed to add the glue first he refused. So I placed the glue then let him put the leaves. Then came the flower. Ryan is learning how to use scissors by himself so I let him cut the petals on the cupcake liner by himself. After he glued the flower to the paper I had him add more pumpkin seeds to the center. The more gluing he got to do the happier he was. And everyone knows a happy kids means a happy mama. Lastly came the labeling. Through out the activity I would tell him the names of the different parts of the flower while we glued them. So at the end I would ask him if he remembered which was which. When he correctly told me where it was I would have him glue the right label on there. And that's that. We now have a very lovely flower hanging on our living room wall.

Getting Started

Since my son was born I couldn't wait to start crafting with him. We started out small with edible paints and homemade playdough. As the months passed and he started talking more he would ask me every day if we could do an activity. Almost every day we sit down and craft and like every mom I had to share. I took pictures of every step of our activity and I would upload them on my instagram or facebook. So after months of cluttering them with hundreds of pictures I decided to start a blog.

Here you will find tutorials to all the crafts we do. Some are outdoors, some are indoors, but all are equally fun. To start off I will be sharing Earth day related crafts and since Earth day is only one day I have extended it to a whole month worth of crafts and lessons.

Today we spent our time outside enjoy some much needed sun. This morning my son, Ryan, asked if we could go outside and paint. So we set out with our paints sat out in the driveway and painted rocks.

Actually he only painted four rocks until he decided it was more fun to mash ants with the end of his paint brush. So while he went on an ant hunt I painted away. I guess you can say I enjoyed this activity time a lot more then he did. Either way it was a win, he got to paint and be outside just like he wanted.

Tomorrow we are going on a small nature walk through the neighborhood and see how many different leaves we can find and put in our nature log. Until next time.