Little Herbalists and Healthy Families
Little Herbalists and Healthy Families
In my yard resides a beautiful gnarly grapevine. It grows along my fence and at times threatens to overtake a lovely Italian plum tree I have planted there. Every year perfect full bunches of grapes form all along the vine. In the Autumn they hang heavy, deeply purple and full of seeds. Their flavor is intense and beautiful, almost too much to sit and munch on for longer than a few minutes.
Read MoreJust like the pomanders of old, these smell amazing but they have a fun Halloween twist.
Read MoreThere are just days left until Halloween and if you are searching for easy, creative ideas for hosting a Halloween party, look no further. These activities and treats are perfect for kids from 2 to 8 years old. Happy Halloween!
Read MoreDid you know that many of our sweet, warm culinary herbs come from trees? Herbs like cinnamon, cloves, allspice and star anise all come from trees. We are studying trees and herbs from trees at preschool this month so naturally we are playing around with these well-loved and well-known herbs.
Read MoreThanksgiving is tomorrow! We have a whole day set aside to count our blessings and be thankful. How can we make this meaningful for our children and for ourselves? Here are three simple craft projects for kids and families to capture the spirit of Thanksgiving and hopefully help it spill over into the days to come.
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"What are we making today Ms. Angela?" I am lucky to often answer this question. Lucky because my job is to play with little kids and create fun things! The answer this time was "an erosion bundle."
Logically the next question quickly followed the first, "What is erosion?"
I first found this neat idea on Art Club Blog and I thought it looked like a great project for introducing kids to concepts of weather, change and decay, and of course erosion.
To get the kids engaged in our project we started out talking about weather.
We had a light-hearted chat about this; about how things change and wear away, or erode, when they are exposed to weather.
To give the kiddos a tangible hands on example of erosion and the effects of weather, we made our own "rain puddle".
I put warm water in a glass bowl in the center of our table. Then we started adding things to it. We started with paper. I gave each kid a scrap of paper to rip up and add to the water. We stirred them around for a bit and then pulled the paper out. The kids were surprised by the change, it was floppy and really easy to tear! I asked them if they would be able to write on the paper now.
That was the start of our fun experiment. Then we added other things like hibiscus flowers which changed the color of the water. And we added these starchy noodle shaped things that dissolve in water. I got them long ago at Hobby Lobby and can't remember what they are called, ah well... The kids did really enjoy watching these dissolve and squeezing the noodle things as they changed shape. We watched and stirred and exclaimed as our puddle eroded away all the things we had put in it, this experiment was a huge hit with the kids.
Next we went outside and created our erosion bundle. I spread a cloth spread in the center of our circle and had each child add one unique thing to the center of the cloth. We added rocks, paper streamers, paper cards and broken crocs jibits among other things.
Then we wrapped it all up inside a mesh corn bag and buried it in the ground. We plan to unearth it in the spring to discover what Mother Nature has done to the objects within.
Shared on: Science Sparks, The Kid's Co-op
Herbs for kids and families! Crafting, learning and projects for children, parents and teachers including herbal crafts. Also natural living ideas for healthy families.
