A Gorgeous Garden Storybook

This week at the library, we happened to pick up this lovely little book, and I am smitten. How Groundhog's Garden Grew is a captivating story about how Groundhog learns how to grow his own food instead of mooching off his neighbor's gardens. We follow Groundhog all through the seasons, from collecting seed in the fall, to preparing the soil and planting seeds in the spring... all the way to his feast of sharing at Thanksgiving. The book is lovingly illustrated, with a great attention to detail and gardening accuracy. Children learn the whole process of growing and harvesting food, without ever feeling like they're reading a how-to book.

If you want to help your children learn where their food comes from, and especially if you're planning a garden this year, this would be a charming addition to your bookshelf.

Custom Birdwatching Book

My five-year-old loves birds. She particularly likes identifying them, learning the differences between species ("how do you tell a grackle from a starling?"), and checking them off her mental list of "birds I've seen." The other day, we were playing outside and she asked me, "Mommy, could you make me my own bird book? One where I could mark off the ones I've seen?"

Well, yes, yes I could, because that, my dear, is a brilliant idea.



We have a fabulous bird guide that we keep within reach, and reference it often to identify new visitors to our feeders (or just learn more about old friends!). But it's clearly a grown-up book. I absolutely loved her idea of a bird book just for her, where she could record her very own observations. I got right to work.

Really, it was pretty easy. I created a simple template that gives her a place to record sightings, a place to practice writing the name of the bird, and a large box to fill with her own sketches and observations. There is also a photo of each bird, which I simply cut-and-pasted from the internet. I printed out the pages, 3-hole punched them, and put them in a spare binder we had lying around. Presto! Custom birdwatching book.



I made sure to select only birds that we've actually seen in our backyard (or close by), so as not to clutter up her book with irrelevant pages. At the same time, I wanted to give her a bit of a challenge, so I did include a few birds that either won't return for a few more months (hummingbirds) or are rare and exciting visitors to our yard, like the great blue heron. She was thrilled to flip through the book and discover that she could already identify each of the birds I had included.

It seems like such a small thing. But it is these small things that help to build the bridge between our children and nature. When we give our children the tools to become naturalists, we put them in position to revere and protect our planet. And why not start with our feathered friends?

Stirrings

Can you feel it? Can you feel the energy in the air as people come out of their houses and welcome the first signs of Spring? Just at the moment when I thought I simply could not bear any more gray, the seasons finally began to turn. In my garden, the first tender baby-green shoots are coming up, and all I want to do is be outside to welcome them.

There is excitement afoot in our house, as we prepare for upcoming performances, house-guests, birthdays, and more. I swear you can feel the electricity in the air!

And today is an exciting day for little ol' me, because my first post at SortaCrunchy appears today! I was so thrilled when Megan approached me and asked if I wanted to contribute some craft posts to her fabulous blog. Me? You sure? I've had a ball getting to know her better, and look forward to contributing some fun crafty content to her lovely, lovely corner of the internet.

So head on over to SortaCrunchy to check out a nifty little craft using cornstarch packing peanuts!

This post is part of the Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge, hosted every Tuesday by Jamie over at SteadyMom. Thanks, Jamie!

Sunday Seedlings Update #2

It's Sunday, time to check in on the progress of our kitchen-garden-in-progress! What a difference a week makes. The leek seedlings have really come up, and are beginning to look like a nice patch of grass. About time to thin them, I think, while I still can.



And is this thyme the most adorable thing you've ever seen?? The seeds were ridiculously tiny, and now I can see why. Of course, thyme isn't exactly a giant of the garden or anything, but I still think the scale of these seedlings is remarkable. I keep imagining microscopic fairies wandering through a forest of thyme seedlings... Okay, I have a vivid imagination.



Moving on...

So today we will be planting eggplant and parsley.





We have a motley assortment of planting containers today. Eggplant seeds will be planted in a wide variety of reclaimed items from the recycling bin -- this is just to demonstrate that virtually anything can be repurposed into a planting container. Just remember to make holes in the bottom for proper drainage.



And the parsley will be planted in cut-up paper towel and toilet paper rolls (with a layer of newspaper in the bottom to keep the soil from spilling out).



Fill with soil...



And tuck in the seeds!



Our weekly recap:

Leeks: planted 2 weeks ago, thriving. Time to thin.
Thyme: planted 1 week ago, already sprouting!
Parsley: planted today, 14-21 days to germination
Eggplant: planted today, 5-10 days to germination

Check back every Sunday for an update on the kitchen garden!

Learning to Music

Do you still remember advertising jingles from your childhood? I know I do. Virtually anyone who grew up in the Washington, DC area during the '70's and '80's remembers "Call USA-1000... Jhoon Rhee means Might for Right... (Nobody bothers me. Nobody bothers me either.)." Catchy tunes are irresistible, and the words just flow right into the brain along with them. Why do you think the ABC song is so popular? (And if you're me, when you had your first job and had to file things alphabetically, you still had to hum a little of the song under your breath to remember if P was before Q.)

When my teenager had to learn the state capitals in 4th grade, her teacher used a song. (Not the one to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw" that everyone else seems to know -- this one was a rap, and it was awesome. We still sing snatches of it all the time. "Hartford! Connecticut!") When we needed to teach her our new phone number, we came up with a little tune (and dance!), which of course we all still remember even though it was several phone numbers ago. The point is, putting something to rhythm and music really helps it get into the brain and stick.

There are two main ways this concept plays out in my house:

1. We listen to sneakily educational music. Note the "sneakily"! No-one likes fun time turning into let's-get-lectured time, so I'm not talking about overtly educational songs of questionable musical quality. There's a lot of that out there -- avoid it. Yuck. No, I'm talking about things like the overwhelmingly brilliant Here Comes Science from They Might Be Giants. I love this album. I listen to it when the kids aren't even around. It's that good. And can I just tell you how many things I have learned from listening to it? Did you know that the sun is not really a giant ball of fire/gas? Did you know it's really a giant plasma? Well, I didn't. But now my five-year-old does. She also could tell you about the functions of blood, that a shooting star is really a meteor, and why photosynthesis is important. And none of it was ever taught, she just picks it up while grooving out to some seriously well-crafted tunes. I will put a little caveat on my recommendation though: If you consider evolution to be a controversial topic, don't buy this album. They lay out their pro-science agenda in the very first song -- "Science is real / From the Big Bang to DNA / Science is real / From evolution to the Milky Way." If any of that rubs you the wrong way, you're not going to like this album. Try Here Come The ABCs instead -- also brilliant.



2. We also make up songs. All the time. I apparently inherited the "Sings at the Drop of a Hat" gene (thanks, Dad!), and when I'm not singing snatches of whatever song's stuck in my head, I'm putting new lyrics to old favorites based on the situation at hand. Case in point: The five-year-old wants to learn how to spell the names of all the family members. Easy! Use the Bingo song, adapting the lyrics to fit each name. Last night in the bath it was, "There was a dad who had to work late / And Daddy was his name-o / D-A-D-D-Y, D-A-D-D-Y, D-A-D-D-Y / And Daddy was his name-o!"

We have songs for everything. Most of it's not particularly "educational," per se, but it helps to move our day along. For instance, we couldn't possibly put our jackets on and get ready to go out to the car without singing a rousing chorus of "Going in the vroom-vroom car / Going in the vroom-vroom car / Going in the vroom-vroom, going in the vroom-vroom / Going in the vroom-vroom car!" Okay, it's not my most creative work, but it gets the job done. Or the socks and shoes song! Or the many diaper-changing songs! OK, yeah, we sing a lot.

Yes, I am that mother you see in the grocery store, the one who's singing to her toddler in the shopping cart, making funny faces and looking as if she doesn't realize she's in a public place. Yes, I do realize you can hear me. No, I didn't realize I had a banana sticker on my cheek, but thanks for the heads-up.

Next time you have something you're trying to teach your child, or have something you need to remember yourself, try putting it to music. Familiar tunes like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" are great for this. And the bonus is, it's fun!

Even if people look at you funny in the grocery store.

This Moment: Reading

No words, just a picture from the past week, a moment I want to pause and savor. Inspired and hosted by SouleMama, go on over and check out all the moments being shared. Lovely.

3-D Memory Collage

I am really bad at scrapbooking. I have made baby book scrapbooks for each of the three kids, and that's it (and even those peter out after a few months old -- sorry, kiddos). But I love mementos, and I save a ridiculous amount of sentimental stuff -- movie ticket stubs, receipts, matchbooks. And then they sit in a drawer or box. Hmm.

I've had this bag of stuff from our trip to Ireland, oh, almost six years ago. I kept meaning to put it in a scrapbook or something, but then it would all just be in a book on the shelf. I wanted to be able to see it.

Since I've been experimenting with sewing fabric onto paper, I thought... why not sew paper onto fabric? A little nutty, yes, but it works. I also wanted a way to include things like the feathers we'd found on an Irish beach, and the road map we'd used navigating the countryside. So I sewed a little pocket to tuck these things into. And for a little Irish flair, I added an appliqued shamrock. All these were sewn onto a scrap of linen fabric I had leftover from previous projects, and then stapled onto an artist's canvas from the craft store (on sale, 2 for $8.99).



I am absolutely in love with the result. It's like the best of a scrapbook, mixed with the display qualities of a shadow box, and I love that you can really interact with it. I can pull out the map, the five-year-old (who was in utero at the time of this particular trip) can play with the feathers... it's fun! And it's pretty, if I do say so myself.

If you want to try something similar, sewing photos onto fabric, my one caveat would be to remember that fabric stretches and paper doesn't. You have to be willing to accept some puckers and irregularities. Although, honestly, I think that kind of adds to the charm of this project. I kind of love how homespun mine looks.



Now that I've started messing around with this technique, I'm excited to explore the possibilities. I wonder what else I can put through my sewing machine? This could get interesting.