Cinnamon Day ~ Herbs For Kids ~

When I share herbs with kids I love to do it on as many levels  as possible, engaging all their senses.  Of course taste, touch and smell are huge when working with herbs plus most herbs are a visual feast for the eyes.

This day,  cinnamon day, was no exception.  Cinnamon is delicious and approachable often bringing up memories of comfort from home with its sweetly spicy taste, yummy fragrance and warming properties.  It is a great herb for working with kids.  They simply love the taste, the smell and it is a familiar herbs for most.

Cinnamon Milk

We had an absolutely lovely, cozy day playing with cinnamon.  I made the kids warm cinnamon milk for snack time which they LOVED.  Making cinnamon milk is so easy and at the same time tastes so special.  Because the preschool I work at is vegan, I used almond milk for the kiddos combining it with a bit of cinnamon, enough to really flavor the milk without being overwhelming, and then heated it to a nice warm drinkable temperature.

Cinnamon Play Dough 

Our hands on experience was making cinnamon play dough.  I have a great love of play dough stemming back from my childhood and combining herbs with play dough is just about one of the best things ever in my opinion!  I made a big supply of fresh play dough and brought it in still warm for the kiddos to enjoy.

As the kids playing I sprinkled on ground cinnamon and the warmth of the play dough interacting with the cinnamon made for a lovely smell.  We also added a bit of orange essential oil to the play dough for an extra dimension of fragrance.

I brought in lots of cinnamon sticks for them to use with the play dough.

Play Dough Recipe

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp oil

Optional: powdered herbs for color, either mix in when cooking (can give more even color) or let the kids mix in at the table.

Combine dry ingredients in a sauce pan.  Add the water and oil.  Stir together and heat slowly over low heat.  Stir almost constantly until the play dough sets up.  Let it cool to warm before playing, play dough right off the stove is hot.

While they played I read the story of Cinnamon, Queen of the Spices from A Kid's Herb Book by Lesley Tierra.  If you haven't checked out this book, you really are in for a treat when you do!  It is chock full of ideas, stories, recipes and herbal inspiration for kids.

Cinnamon Day was a simple creative day of great fun and rich experience.  A time to connect with a beautiful tasty plant friend.

Click for more information on cinnamon

Shared On: The Kid's Co-op, It's Play Time!, Kid's In The Kitchen, Eco Kid's Tuesday

Playing With Peppermint ~ Herbs For Kids ~

It is yummy.  It smells good and has tiny enchanting purple flowers.  Peppermint is a great herb for kids.   And this week at school we had a lovely time playing with peppermint.

We started with a peppermint tea tasting at snack time.  Everyone loved the tea, well, almost everyone.  There were a couple of skeptics at the table.  I was really impressed with how excited the kids were about the tea and how much they drank.  One little girl asked for about four refills!

Besides being super tasty, peppermint tea is great for digestion and enhancing immunity.

Here is how I made our kid friendly tea.  One handful of dried peppermint leaves went into a 1/2 gallon canning jar.  After covering the leaves with boiling hot water, I let the mint infuse for about 15 minutes.  Then I strained the leaves out and our tea was ready.  I did this in the morning before school started so the tea had plenty of time to cool down to a nice warm drinking temperature.

Our activity for the day was very hands on and simple.  First we sat on the rug and I gave each child a sprig of peppermint.  We looked at the stems and leaves.  We felt the square stems and talked about squares.  Then we ran our hands up and down the peppermint and gave it a good sniff.    Lots of big happy eyes looked back at me while they experienced the freshest peppermint fragrance.  One boy exclaimed that his peppermint smelled like zucchini!  So cute.  I explained to the kids that they were smelling the essential oil in the plant.  Like the essential oil we used in our aromatic playdoughthe week before.  We looked at the tiny purple flowers and talked about the plant making seeds.

Next I set up paper, glue, scissors, sunflowers and lavender, and lots of peppermint at our art table.

 The idea here was free time to just create with plants for a chance to get up close and personal.  Cut them up and see what is inside.  Get to know the plant through smell and feel.  Glue them down and create something.  One imaginative little boy made a map!

We also used our plants to make super simple wands but just binding plants together with ribbons.

What simple fun ways do you play with kids

and plants from the garden?

Shared on: The Kid's Co-op, It's Playtime!, Living Green, Natural Living Mama, Science Sparks

A Happy First Day of Preschool With Calming Aromatherapy

The new school year is quickly approaching for us at our very sweet little preschool.  Some of the kids will be coming to school for the very first time.  In fact they may have never been away from their mama.   Because needless to say, for some kids (and their parents too), the first day of school can be intimidating, scary and even a bit traumatic.  I know I sat in my car and cried for a good twenty minutes after I dropped my oldest daughter off on her first day of preschool. Every year on this very special day we help the kids adjust to their new environment by offering a time-honored and much loved activity, playdough, made a bit friendlier with the addition of calming essential oils and herbs.

Playing with playdough on its own provides stress relief through tactile squeezing and massaging of the smooth squishy dough.  With essential oils added the child instantly gets all the benefits of aromatherapy.  Breathing deepens as the oils are inhaled calming the mind and body,  bringing about a sense of peace.  Read Herbal Playdough for more info on the benefits of playdough and to get some great ideas for making your own colorful fragrant completely chemical free playdough. It is fun to let each child custom make their own playdough to take home.  They have something fun they made to share with their family at the end of the big day.

Materials you will need:

Prepared Playdough or you can make the playdough with the kids. Here is my favorite recipe:

•  1 cup of flour 
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp oil

Combine dry ingredients in a sauce pan.  Add the water and oil.  Stir together and heat slowly over low heat.  Stir almost constantly until the playdough sets up.  Let it cool to warm before playing, playdough right off the stove is hot.

Food Coloring (Please note that I am searching for affordable coloring made from natural materials that are healthy.  I do use powdered herbs for coloring when making a large quantity of one colored playdough for the school, yet I need something wonderful for coloring playdough when we are making personal playdough for taking home.  If any one has a source, please share!)

Essential Oils  I like to offer lavender, sweet orange, cardamon, spearmint, rosemary and rose geranium.

Dried Herbs like lavender blossoms, ground cinnamon and rose petals

Glitter 

Here is how I do this fun activity:

1. Give each child a nice blob of playdough and some playdough toys.
2. Have them pick out one color from your food colors to add to their playdough.  Put a couple of drops of food coloring in their playdough and start mixing it in for them so they don't get a big blob of food coloring on their hands.  You will have rainbow hands at the end.
3. Let everyone smell the essential oils.  I usually talk with the kids a bit about smelling the oil by inhaling, not exhaling.  And then we practice.  I tell them to be sure not to touch their nose to the bottle.  This keeps the oils clean and safe for everyone to use.  Then let them choose which oils they want in their playdough.  I have found that most kids will want every oil!
4. Have the child make a hole in the playdough.  Then you place a drop or two of oil in the hole and take a moment to personally squish up the oil into the playdough so that the oil doesn’t come into direct contact with the child’s skin. It is safe once it diluted into the playdough.
5. Offer herbs and glitter for the kids to mix into their playdough.  Just dust a bit over the top of their playdough or make a little pile on the side for them to add in.  Some kids find the glitter and herbs to be "sharp" but usually they love adding in more and more as they go.
6. When the child is done playing, bag up their playdough so they can take it home at the end of the day.

How do you welcome little ones to your school for that first big day?  I would love to hear all about it! 

Well, the first day has come and went.  We had a blast making our playdough.  Some of the kids made some really neat pieces of art with their playdough and all the additions we used.  Fresh lavender stalks became trees and dried roses became lava.

Enjoy the pictures!

Please Note about essential oils: Essential oils are concentrated plant substances.  They are dangerous and should not be used unsupervised around children.  Always keep the oils up and out of reach when you aren’t using them and be sure that an adult is the one who holds and uses the bottles.  I tell the kids that the essential oils are for teachers to use.  Some oils smell like really yummy food, so please do be careful.  Use mild oils like the ones listed above.

Shared on: The Weekly Kid's Co-op, DJDaniel4's Mom, Charlotte Mom Favorites

Violet Equinox

A Children's Solstice Celebration

We have a lush happy little patch of violets (Viola odorata) outside at the preschool.  I noticed them last week quietly poking their deep purple heads through the soil and smiling with a delightful fragrance.  I knew that we had to get outside and be with the violets.  Violet are often one of the first flowers to grace us as the sun makes its way closer to us each spring and they are truly a treasure to behold.  So what better way to celebrate this first day of spring than by smelling, harvesting and eating violets?  Hence today we made our way to the violet patch.

I taught the kids a little song my teacher taught me, a song for the violets.  A song to say we are here and we are friends.  To say thank you to the violets for giving away to us.  And we marched out to the patch singing and excited!

The kids did a wonderful job being careful with the plants and picking just the flowers.

As we all tried the flowers it was delightful to watch little faces light up with the amazing taste of violets.

The children loved them.  We talked about how the violet's are good for us and they taste good too!

What a treat!

After gathering a good amount we took the violets inside, washed and dried them.  We put them in a jar.

Then we covered them with agave.  I usually make violet honey but the preschool is vegan so we are trying using agave this year.  We will see how it goes!  So far so good.  I plan to keep the violets infusing in the agave for a good week or so.  Then the agave and violets too will both go into a jars, one for each child to take home and enjoy!

We also read Mother Earth and Her Children by Sibylle Von Olfers.  This is an amazingly beautiful book about the coming of spring.  It is based off a gorgeous quilt made by Sieglinde Schoen-Smith.  There is a little Violet child in the book and we had fun hunting for her and her violet plant.  The kids were able to recognized the flower and the leaves in the book!

Click here to learn more about the amazing little violet

How are you celebrating spring?  It is such a wonderful time of year, so full of energy and life!

Blessings for a beautiful spring!

Shared On: Friday's Nature Table, Multicultural Kids

An Aromatic State of Mind

 Art inspired by Aromatherapy and  Emotional Awareness with Children

Breathe deep and what do you feel?  Taking a slow deep breath relaxes mind and body bringing clarity and calming anxiety.  Now take a deep breath of a high quality aromatic essential oil and all the therapeutic benefits of the oil are added to the experience.  Um, I am feeling more relaxed just thinking about it!

We conducted our own little experiment to see how different essential oils made us feel.  Seated in a circle on the floor I passed around smell sticks I had made from card stock.  Each stick had a number on it which corresponded to my list of essential oils.  I did this because I didn't want the kids to know what oil they were smelling but then I realized, silly me, they can't read yet!  I got a good chuckle at myself for that one.  Anyways, we passed around the sticks one at a time having fun sniffing.  After everyone had their fill of smelling each stick, we tried to figure out how what we had smelled made us feel.  We took the smell stick and placed it on a wheel I had drawn with the emotions calm, happy and refreshed.

It was so very cute to watch the kids smelling and feeling.  When we passed around the stick with orange on it the kids got giggly and wiggly.  We decided that orange made us happy!  Lavender produced a group of peaceful, relaxed and quiet kids; still where they sat and reflective.  We decided that lavender was a mix between refreshed and calm, but "mostly calm."  We also investigated cedarwood, spearmint, cardamon and rosemary.

Here is a chart of our results:

• Lavender: calmingly refreshed
• Orange: happy
• Spearmint: happy and refreshed
• Cardamon: calm
• Cedarwood: very, very calm
• Rosemary: refreshed

After all of our sniffing and feeling was done, I asked the kids to each choose their very favorite oil to create a piece of art work with.

Can you guess what oil was the most popular?

"Happy!"

"Orange!"

Isn't it wonderful how children just want to be happy?  What a gift it is to be around such joy.  A few kids wanted lavender and one chose cedarwood.  Apparently, none of them needed to be refreshed!

Next I gave them piece of paper with a drop of their chosen oil in the corner.  I asked them to create a piece of art work with the emotion and smell as their inspiration.

The kids were very creative and had a blast!

Thanks to 2flowerslearning for the great post inspiration for this fun class!

Shared on: Kid's Co-op

Roses at Preschool for Valentine's Day ~ A Celebration of Roses in the Making

Roses symbolize love, friendship and beauty.

The amazing aroma of rose is certainly special and has been used by humanity through the ages.  The scent opens the heart while uplifting the nervous system easing depression and grief.  Valentine's Day offers the perfect chance to explore this amazing plant.  We are having a rose party to celebrate at the preschool this year.  To provide the children with a chance to really explore roses we are going to provide them with a variety of activities.

Rose Tea

Tea made from organic rose petals is delightfully delicious and healthful.  Roses  benefit the respiratory and digestive systems enhancing their function, relieving inflammation and heat as well as helping to ease infections.  Because of rose's uplifting action, the tea is calming and eases emotional irritability.  I have found that most children love the taste of rose tea.

To make simply steep organic dried rose petals in just boiled water for 10 to 15 minutes using about a tablespoon per cup of water.  Sometimes I add a tidge of agave syrup or honey to the tea.

Rose Paint

For this activity I am planning to use this recipe from Mommy Nature and then I am going to tweak to fit our needs.

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups cold water
• 2 cups hot water

Mix the flour and salt.  Add cold water.  Beat until smooth and gradually add hot water.  Boil.  Beat until smooth.

Then to make rose paint I will add crushed rose petals and a bit of beet powder to enhance the color.

Rose Playdough

This is easy!  Just add rose petals, dried or fresh, to your favorite playdough recipe.  You can further enhance the rose scent by using rose water or rose tea in place of the regular water when making your playdough.  I also like to add glitter and beet powder to the playdough to make it sparkly red!  Or you can add cocoa powder for coloring and make chocolate rose playdough, yum!!

Check out my playdough post for complete instructions!

Rose Sensory Table

I think it would be fun to set up a bin with fresh roses and leaves (no thorns please!) for the kids to feel and smell fresh roses.  Silky soft and fragrant, um....  We will add some cups and things for sifting through the loveliness.

Stay posted for pictures, as I make these things for our party I will add pictures and of course, I will get some action shots from the big day!

Update on those pictures.... well, I forgot my camera and didn't get a single picture!!  So bummed....

Shared On: The Kid's Co-op, It's Playtime!, Kid's Get Crafty, Share It Saturday