Posts Tagged With: nature

Playing With Lady Bugs

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Mama Rosemary

lady bugs in search of aphids

What kid doesn’t love bugs?  Butterflies, caterpillars, rollie pollies and lady bugs are some of the most treasured critters in the garden.  I even know a child who has a deep love and respect for spiders.  Of course not every child loves bugs yet many do and lady bugs are among the most enchanting of bugs and are very approachable for most kids.

lady in hand

Recently I brought in a big bag of lady bugs to play with at the preschool.  (I purchased them at our local flower nursery.)  Before we let the lady’s go in our garden, we started out our lady bug exploration with a book all about the lady bug life cycle, Grub To Lady Bug by Melvin and Gilda Berger.

There are great pictures of lady bugs in different parts of their life cycle in this book including the larval stage when they look nothing like that lady bugs we are used to seeing.  The kids really were engaged reading about these familiar little insects.   While reading we talked about how many legs a lady bug has and about how lady bugs help our gardens be healthy by eating bugs that harm plants like aphids; aphids who suck all the nice juice out of plants and make them feel bad.  At this point one of our littlest girls who is just 3 years old, exclaimed “like the Grouchy Lady Bug!”

~ A Simple Art Project ~

Has you may know from my post about salt dough finger prints, I love to capture the precious cuteness of little fingers, hands and feet.  So as part of our lady bug exploration we made lady bug pictures with the children’s little red finger prints for the lady bug’s body.  The kids drew in the details of lady bugs often including six legs and even flowers for the lady bugs to protect.

Here are some wonderful examples of our art work:

~ Lady Bug Release ~

Finally the big moment came when we released the lady bugs into our garden.

The kids squealed and giggled as lady bugs crawled out of the bag in droves.

releasing lady bugs

They crawled everywhere, up my arm, all over the ground and on our spinach plants.

Super duper buggy fun!

lady's on spinach

We spent the rest of the morning gently holding lady bugs and watching them find a new home among the plants.

A Cherry Tree In Trouble ~

About a week after the release at school, my daughter and I discovered our cherry tree at home covered in black cherry aphids and we knew just what to do!

Off we went to our local nursery to get some more lady bugs.

coming out of the bag

Here are the lady bugs coming out of the bag onto our poor cherry tree!

 We let them go all over the tree and we could see the lady’s immediately getting to work chowing down on those aphids.

lady bugs finding aphids

It has been less that a week and the tree already looks so much better.

Like it’s energy is coming back, the leaves are greener and it seems to be standing stronger.

My daughter had a great day playing with the lady bugs and running back over to the tree every now and then to check on their progress.

Have you ever used lady bugs to control pests in your garden?  I would love to hear how it went for you.

For More Buggy Fun Check Out ~

Shared On:  Eco-Kid’s Tuesday

Categories: Gardening, Insects, Lesson Plans For Preschool And Home, Science Exploration, Science Investigation | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Adventures With Earthworms

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Mama Rosemary

Many happy days were spent stalking bugs when I was a little child.  I had an array of bug catchers and I knew where all the good places were to find a new pal.  My often caught favorites were roly polies.  I also sought after treasured lady bugs, butterflies and caterpillars which were hard to come by and when I would find one, I would be enchanted with my imagination completely sparked.  So, can you guess what one of my favorite things to do with kids?  Play with bugs of course!  Many, many summer days have found my girls and I “hunting bugs” and going on “roly poly” walks with bug catchers in hand. a wormy friend

The Helpful Earthworm

The preschool I teach at has a wonderful garden that the kids help to grow every summer.  They get to help plant, water and even pick food for the healthy lunches and snacks we serve. This spring we spent a couple weeks studying a couple beneficial friends for our garden, lady bugs and worms!  Naturally when we were done learning and reading we added some lady bugs and worms to help our garden grow.  Worm in it's new home

“Ms. Angela!  Did you know worm poop is dirt?”

After a nice little discussion about earthworms and how they help enrich our soil enabling plants to grow healthy and strong, we continued our study of worms by making a worm farm.  There are a large number of sites to find information on making your own worm farm, with much more detail than what we did.  Here is a quick run down of what we did if you want to make something super simple.

MYO Worm Farm

Materials ~

  • Earthworms:  I got a huge amount at our local garden centers ~ more than enough to make 2 worm farms which we did, one for school and one for home.  
  • Dirt
  • Sand
  • Worm Food: Things like grass clippings, leaves, food bits, oatmeal, tea leaves and coffee grounds, shredded newspaper.
  • Water
  • Container For the Farm:  We used a salad green container.  You know the kind that has washed lettuce in it?
  • Dark Paper

Instructions ~

Layer the dirt and sand in your container to make distinct layers so you can see the soil get all mixed up by the worms.  We even used oats for layering at home because we didn’t have sand.

DSCN4364

Add the food bits to the top of your worm farm.

Here we used a bit of old grass clippings and dandelion flowers.

food bits

Dump your worms in and watch them bury themselves deep into your farm.

Check it out, so very many worms!

adding the worms

Give your farm enough water to keep it moist but not water-logged.

Put a lid on your farm making sure to poke holes in the top so the worms and the farm can breathe.

Cover the sides of the farm with dark paper to encourage the worms to come to the sides of the container.  If you are lucky, you may see the dirt/sand layers get mixed up and little worm tracks along the sides.  We got to see lots of worm tracks one year, but sadly not this year.

Keep your farm in a nice coolish place (but not too cool) and check periodically to see what your worms are up too and to make sure they have enough water and food.

When you are done enjoying your farm, release the worms into your garden!

worm being released into the garden.

We also read this wonderful book to help us learn more about worms:

Diary Of A Worm by Doreen Cronin

This book offers a humerous way to look at worm life and learn about worm facts as well as how worms help our planet.

Wishing you lots of wormy fun!

For more buggy fun visit Playing With Lady Bugs

Shared On:  The Kid’s Co-op, Eco-Kid’s Tuesday, It’s Playtime, Kid Lit Blog Hop, Tender Moments, Friday’s Nature Table

Categories: Gardening, Insects, Lesson Plans For Preschool And Home, Science Exploration, Science Investigation | Tags: , , , , , | 9 Comments

Chamomile Potatoes On Chamomile Day ~ Herbs For Kids ~

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Mama Rosemary

Chamomile is a super friendly herb for kids.  Chamomile is gentle while being powerful at the same time for helping kids with tummy upset especially when related to nervousness, general nervous tension, headaches and colds.

chamomile

What Does It Taste Like?

We started our day at preschool with a tea tasting which is a great way to introduce kids to a new plant.  Most children love the apple like taste of the tea made from happy sunshiny little flowers.  The kids at the school really enjoyed the tea and it seemed to help calm them down a bit… we were having another late Spring snow storm and the kids were all kinda crazy with the sudden change in the weather.

To make your own tea simple steep up to 1 tablespoon of flowers per cup in hot water for 2 to 5 minutes max.  If you steep for any longer than that chamomile tea becomes very bitter.  Of course children are very sensitive to any bitter taste.  You can add a bit of honey or agave to taste if you wish.

The Tale Of Peter Rabbit

Old Mrs. Rabbit Brings Peter Chamomile

After indulging in our tea we sat down for a cozy reading of this classic tale by Beatrix Potter.  The kids were still a bit antsy and yet were really involved with the book.  Many of them having read Peter Rabbit before, knew what was to come on each and every page.  Except when we got to this little bit on the last page where they noticed one little detail which was overlooked before ~

“Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: “One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime.”
― Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Smiles and giggles came when the kids heard that Peter had chamomile tea, just like they did!  We talked about how scared and tired and sick Peter must have felt after has intense adventure in Mr. McGregor’s garden.  It was a perfect little example from a familiar story about using herbs.

Chamomile Potatoes

I bet you are wondering what about chamomile potatoes, and so we come to the part of our day when we made these together…

These are not something yummy to eat, though I think creating some kind of recipe with these two ingredients might be interesting.  Nope, chamomile potatoes are for growing!  Potatoes make great little pots for sprouting plants, just like sprouting plants inside egg shells.

planting tiny chamomile seeds

When the seeds have sprouted and are ready to be planted outside you can simply plant the whole potato in the ground.  In the past we have given created Potato Heads by using markers and googly eyes to create faces.   Then we planted grass inside the potatoes which grew into hair!  It is lots of fun to for kids to cut their Potato Head’s hair with scissors.  Today we simply planted chamomile seeds into our potatoes, gave them a little drink and are eagerly waiting for them to sprout!

Materials ~

  • Potatoes, 1 for each child
  • A Melon Baller
  • Chamomile Seeds
  • Dirt

If prepping the potatoes ahead of time you will need: 

  • Citric Acid or Lemon Juice
  • Water
  • A Big Bowl 

Instructions ~

Prep the potatoes by cutting the a thin slice off of the top of the potato or the side if the potato is long and skinny.  Then using the melon baller remove the center of the potato to make a place for the dirt to go.  Test to see if the potato will stand straight by setting it down on a flat surface.  If it wobbles or rolls around cut a flat surface on the bottom of the potato so it will stand sturdy and straight.  I did this the day before class and I wanted to keep the potatoes fresh.  So, I place the potatoes in a big bowl filled with water and a generous sprinkle of citric acid.  The potatoes came through the night beautifully!

potato prep

Have the children fill their potato with dirt and then gently press the tiny chamomile seeds into the top.  Help the children give their chamomile potato a small amount of water to help the seeds sprout.  

Keep the soil moist and place the potato in a sunny spot.  You should have tiny sprouts within about three days, almost instant gratification!  When my girls saw these wee little sprouts they instantly exclaimed, “Aw, how cute!”

day three

Tiny little chamomile sprouts 3 days after planting!

Within one week the sprouts are much bigger and follow the sun during the day, turning their leaves to soak up nourishing sunlight.

day seven

Lots of healthy sprouts one week after planting!

Here are some other wonderful activities for Chamomile Day ~

Spring Time Blessings!

Shared On:  It’s Playtime!, Eco-Kid’s Tuesday, The Kid’s Co-Op, Kid’s Get Crafty,  Friday’s Nature Table

 

 

Categories: Chamomile, Herbal Crafts And Projects, Herbs For Kids and Mamas, Lesson Plans For Preschool And Home, Playing With Herbs | Tags: , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Landscaping A Fairy Land With Edible And Medicinal Plants

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Mama Rosemary

Welcome to Fairy Ville!

My children and I had so much fun planting this lovely artful play land together and filling it with edible and medicinal herbs.

It all started with the wasted space underneath our swing set.  It was a place that begged for fun but was let alone to become over grown with grass and weeds.

We planned to build our fairy land in the Spring but I couldn’t figure out away to eliminate the weeds and grass without herbicides and I just couldn’t bear to spray poison on the Earth.  Finally I found about using vinegar to get rid of weeds.  That is right ~ straight vinegar does the trick!  We bought a couple of gallons of plain white vinegar at the store and used a watering can to sprinkle in on during a hot, dry day.


With in 24 hours the grass and weeds were brown.  I wish I had pictures to share but I seem to have misplaced them.

Next we covered the area in weed cloth, added some dirt and the fun began!

Our happy garden is planted with beautiful helpful plants.  We chose some of our favorites especially those plants that we could get close to fairy size.  Here is what we planted:

For munching on ~

  • A Peppermint Forest
  • Thyme patches both lemon and the common creeping varieties
  • Lemon Balm Hedges
  • Borage and Marigold Trees
  • Snapdragon Bushes, not the tastiest but so fun to play with!
  • Nasturtium Seeds for vining up our Fairy Star

For harvesting to make into medicines ~

  • A Chamomile patch
  • Scullcap Trees
  • Seeds of California Poppy
  • A patch of Self Heal

And our garden ally ~

  • Santolina next to the pond to reply insects.

We have plans to add to our garden over time and through the seasons.  We would love to plant a miniature rose, bulbs for the Spring and maybe some wee baby pumpkins for a Fall harvest.  Plus our dream is to one day have royalty move in when we get our very own castle.

Below is a collection of photos of our garden.  

Enjoy!

♥  Here is the first stage of construction.  Our little houses have been placed; the garden bed for our California Poppy seeds is set, a pond is ready for playing in; and the Fairy Star has found a home at the back of Fairy Vill.  We planted nasturtium seeds around the star which we look forward to providing us with beautiful, peppery flowers to snack on!

♥  My eldest daughter had a blast added paths and fences.  Here you can see the seeds we planted in our garden bed and around the star are already sprouting.

♥  A Mermaid is resting in the fairy pond.  We added  a jumping log for lots of great fun playing in the water.

♥  Here is a fairy resting in a patch of chamomile which smells delightfully of apples.  This is my favorite place in the garden.   Just wish I was small enough to hang out there with her!

♥  We added a bistro set for tea parties.

♥  Somebody has been gardening and collecting grapes from our nearby vine in the garden.

♥  Hammocks for tired fairies.  We made these out of felt scrapes and chenille stems.  The hammocks are suspended between tall marigolds.

♥  We added a basket up high on one of swing set supports and new fairy family moved in right away!

♥  Baby fairy learning how to ride a bike.

♥  Our neighborhood dragon is taking his morning bath.

♥  Cooking for the fairies with tasty pansy flowers.

♥  Serving the delicious, beautiful food.

♥ Remi the horse is feasting on a patch of thyme, yummy!

We had a lot of the things we used to decorate/make our Fairy Land hanging around the house.  I also found some things in the garden display at Hobby Lobby.  We purchase the fairies at Michaels.  And found the little tiny fairy things like the bistro set at  Miniature Garden Shoppe because, well, I couldn’t help myself!  Or you can MYO Flower Fairy friends!

Thanks for visiting our garden!

Please note many plants are toxic and can cause harm if ingested.  It is important for children to know that they should never, ever eat a plant unless they have permission from an adult.  

More Fairy Fun ~

Shared On: Home Link Up

Participating in The Fairy Garden Contest 2013!

Categories: Gardening, Herbs For Kids and Mamas | Tags: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Tree Gazing

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Mama Rosemary

Trees speak to me.  A soothing rustle of leaves creates calming dappled sunshine.  Simply laying beneath a tree listening and feeling always centers and soothes me.

Listening to the peaceful sound of leaves whispering in the wind.

Feeling profound strong comfort of the Earth.

All is well here.  All is how it should be.

What a gift to simply take a moment and breathe while watching patterns of the sky and sun shifting between the leaves.  Feeling the steady love of Mother Earth cradling and nourishing every cell while letting go into the ground.

Our baby in the Fall one year enjoying beautiful golden aspens. (She is now 10 years old, sigh…)

My family is truly blessed to live in Colorado where we have easy access to rich beautiful forests.  On a recent hike we found a lovely aspen grove.  Into it we climbed to find a forest floor strewn with soft plants and leaves.  Here we nestled down together for a bit of tree gazing and centering.  The wind blowing high above in the tree tops provided a lovely show as we watched the trees dancing and swaying.  We let go of the craziness of the school year.  We let go of schedules and stress.  We let go of concerns.

Pretty soon we found ourselves taking about the beauty of nature and how we can help to preserve it.  My six-year-old decided that we should have a “nature day” at least once a week.

“What would you do?” I asked.

“Give nature love and water!” came a vigorous happy reply.

Wonderful…

At the edge of the aspen grove was a very amazing tree growing in an interesting shape.  What does it look like to you?

We thought maybe a headless warrior…

As summer moves along and eventually transforms into autumn, I hope we have many more family moments, many more simple pleasantly easy afternoons tree gazing.

Fun Fact ~ Aspens are one of the (if not the) largest organism living on Earth.  They grow connected under the Earth.  So when you see a grove of many aspens, you may only be seeing one living organism!

Golden aspens amid the pines…

Categories: Adventures And Stories, Natural Family Care, Nature Exploration, Trees | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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