Three Child Friendly Spring Salads – Children will have fun trying three fun and fresh salads that they can help you make.
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{Gardens for Kids} Spider Web Trellis
The idea for this spider web trellis came after reading about a spider web trellis in a book about gardening for kids. The book suggested using bamboo poles and twine to create a web. They went on to recommend that you plant a sweet pea plant to weave into the web.
JDaniel and I headed to Home Depot with the book in hand to see if we could find the materials and planst that we would need to create one for our backyard. We found out very quickly that they didn’t carry bamboo poles and that the customer service lady wouldn’t recommend using them. They will fall apart so quickly she said.
What did she recommend that we use instead? She pointed us to the metal poles that farmers used to make barbwire fences. “The poles have hooks built into them to attach the twine to,” she said. They were perfect. The fence poles are solid, won’t rot, and have those wonderful hooks.
The book then recommended a sweet pea plant, but they didn’t have any pea plants for sale. We then looked for the next thing on the list twine. They had a gardening twine so, we grabbed a roll of that before heading to the register.
JDaniel and I must have visited three other nurseries and didn’t find sweet pea plants. One recommended I buy seeds instead, but they didn’t carry them. The second nursery suggested we try Martin’s Nursery in the next town over so, we headed there.
They didn’t have them, but I wonderful lady there suggested that we try the Trumpet Creeper. “It will grow up to thirty feet long and will be flexible enough to weave,” she told us. When I told her about the twine I was going to use, she told us that was a bad idea. “It is going to rot,” she said. She recommended that we use a heavy string.
It was decided that we stopped by to pick up the string later in the day. JDaniel was ready to stop looking for spider web trellis materials by then. This gardening for kids project would have to wait awhile before getting started.
When we did have everything we needed, we headed into the backyard with our fence poles, string, Trumpet Creeper, and a variety of gardening tools ( large shovels, small hand shovels, scissors, a hammer and more)
The first thing we did was to plant the poles. It was a little tricky. We found that after about eight inches of dirt we have clay. Digging through the clay was a workout. JDaniel and I both took turns trying to dig through it.
Once we got the hole as deep as we could, I put a folded washcloth over the top of the pole and hammered it in. While I did that, JDaniel started the hole for the second post.
Creating the web was JDaniel’s favorite part. I had to show him how to pull the string tightly around the poles and attach it to the hooks at the beginning. He got the hang of it very quickly. He took the string across around and down over and over again.
The web got bigger and more elaborate as he wove it. The string went over and across our plant a couple of times. When I felt like we had a enough string on the web, I tied it off tightly and we both stepped back to look at it. We were both very pleased with it.
Would you like to make one of your on?
Here is our gardening for kids web supply list:
- two green metal fence posts
- a roll of heavy white string or twine
- a plant that will creep or spread like a vine
This is a wonderful garden for kids. I hope you will try to make a spider web trellis too.
>This post is link to Dig Into Gardening. ( A gardening link up for kids that I am co-hosting)
Here are some more gardens for kids projects:
Yes, Mom is Part of My Name
I sat quietly confused by what she had said. What I write about on this blog may shift over time and JDaniel may decided he doesn’t want me to write about him as much. He will grow up. He has already become a “big boy”. He informed he of that just yesterday. What won’t change it that I will always be his mom! I will always write with a mother’s heart, because that is one of my favorite parts of my heart to share.
I know she meant I am so much more than a mom, but the way she said it hit me wrong. Writing about motherhood is a gift that not all women get the opportunity to write about. Being JDaniel4’s Mom is one of my most favorite things to be.
{Dig Into Gardening} M.O.M. Herb Container Garden and Link Up
Why not give you a place to see and explore the wonderful posts that I was discovering I thought? Five amazing Kid Blogger Network bloggers agreed to join me in sharing not only their gardening themed posts, but those created by others.
You will find that some of the posts are actually about gardening projects while others are activities, crafts, food creations and more that have a garden theme. If you have posts with a gardening theme for children I hope you will link them up below and add the Dig Into Gardening badge.
Mother’s Day Plant Idea – M.O.M. Herb Container Garden
We didn’t need to look for very long before we found the area to dig into. The herb section actually had five or six kinds of mint sitting right next to a pot of oregano that was right next to some marjoram. It was like they were placed right there just for us.
It was hard to decide which variety of mint to select. We ended up having to decide between an orange mint and a chocolate mint.We ended heading home with a pot of marjoram, a pot of oregano and a pot of chocolate mint. The car smelled wonderful.
Unfortunately it rained all weekend. We ended up having to transplant our herbs in the garage. I am so glad we had the space in the garage to work on this project.
Cute Snack Idea – Tangram Rose
Dig Into Gardening a link-up I am co-hosting starts tomorrow so, I have had gardening on my mind a lot lately. JDaniel recently found a set of tangrams on his nightstand. I started wondering if we could create a flower with them.
How I Made the Tangram Rose
After searching on the internet, I found a worksheet that showed the rose above. With the worksheet as my guide, I cut out the pieces for this rose.
The link below is an affiliate link.
It was hard to see that it was supposed to be a rose when it was just pieces of bread pieced together. I dug out my set of food markers to create the outline of each shape. The rose really jumps out with the outlining.
After putting the tangram rose together, you can help your children place their favorite food spread on the bread. Jam, peanut butter, or cream cheese would be great!
While I was working on this food creation, JDaniel announced he was going to make his own food creation. His creation would have microorganism meal.He headed to the fridge and searched through the shelves the way he has seen me do millions of times.
JDaniel loved creating and describing this lunch to me. When he finished, I told him we would have to eat lunch. He said, “Fine! It is filled with favorites.”
I love that the loved his lunch. I love how the rose cute snack idea turned out too.
If you like the tangram rose activity, here are some other tangram activities:
Spring Craft for Kids – Weather Headband
It’s Spring Time! by Elizabeth Bennett is a wonderful board book I was sent to review by Tiger Tales. It is a book that shares signs of spring with wonderful pictures and fun rhymes. Seeds being planted, baby birds cheeping for their mom or dad, spring cleaning, spring rain are all shared in this book.
JDaniel loves the glitter that appears on every page spread. It really makes the pictures glitter. I really love the precious animals. They are so adorable.
How did we make our spring craft for kids?
Once we had all the small weather elements, we blued them onto the headband. The original was to glue the clouds, raindrops, and suns in pattern around the headband. They needed up being randomly place on the band.
There must be something about five year old and hats or headbands. JDaniel really loved wearing this headband craft. After making a spring craft for kids weather headband in April, we may have to come up with a different themed spring craft for kids headband for May.
Parenting- You Teach Me
The activity started as it was planned. He sorted through the letters and pictures. It was not a surprise to see that he wanted to start with the letter D. It is the letter that starts one of his names. I was pleased to hear him say each of the letters as he sorted through them. He also said seemed to recognize all the pictures. This was going to be simple for him I thought.
All of a sudden he decided to change the activity. He placed an uppercase G down on a circle on a pea pod. Then he put down a frog. “Frog doesn’t begin with g,” I told him. “I know, but it ends with it,” he replied. The activity was to match uppercase letters and beginning sounds so, this didn’t follow the rule of the activity. It wasn’t suppose to find the ending sounds in uppercase and lowercase letters.
I have to admit I was a little frustrated. Doing this was going to leave a lowercase g without a circle to be placed on. I was sure he knew that frog began with the letter f. This just didn’t make sense.
“You know frog begins with a f,” he declared. “We don’t have the letter f on any of the circles,” I told him. “I can make one,” JDaniel stated. He got up from the kitchen table and went to the junk drawer in the kitchen hutch. Things in the drawer were pushed around and searched under things until he found what he wanted.
“I can make the letter f,” he said wheedling an orange marker. “There aren’t any extra circles,” I told him. With that he took the circle with the elephant on it and turned it over. On the back of the circle he wrote an uppercase F.
He was so proud of himself. He had come up with his own way to do the activity. I was proud of him for a number of reasons. He had taken a simple activity and made it a little more challenging. He had taken ownership of the activity. He had seen there was a problem and he had created a solution.
While I was proud of him and enjoyed seeing how he worked out this activity, I had to wonder what his kindergarten teacher would do if he did this next year.
Technically he destroyed the game and he didn’t demonstrate that he could match the upper and lowercase letters. He prevented himself from completely using all the circles by making the elephant circle an F. The teacher won’t be able to check off that he knew the skills this activity was assessing if he didn’t complete the whole activity correctly
If I hadn’t been sitting beside him to hear he talk about what he was thinking, I might not have known what he was doing. Next year he will be in a class filled with children. The teacher may give him a worksheet or activity to do and she may only have few minutes to assess his understanding.
We will probably talking about the importance of following the directions the teachers given him at school. I will need to be working on making sure he doesn’t complete every activity with an out of the box solution at home.
He is a really smart boy and I worry that someone who doesn’t know him well would miss that he really does understand what to do. JDaniel is just one of those kids that thinks out of the box a lot. His mind is a fascinating place. Things are thought through, analyzed synthesized and developed into new and original thoughts all of the time.
I am hoping and praying that he teacher next year will look at some of his work and ask him to teach her what he is thinking. You teach me is a parenting question I am going to be asking him again and again.
Kids Lunch Ideas – Painted Milk Sandwich
A simple paint brush can be used to paint the mixture onto the bread. We have a couple paint brushes that I have set aside just for painting bread and other kids lunch ideas that need to be painted or spread. I think I got a bunch of them for less than $1. They are run through the dishwasher before we use them.
Here is a lunch JDaniel just had last week with a painted milk sandwich:
It contains a ham, cheese and spinach sandwich that has an umbrella painted onto it. The top of the umbrella was painted first. A dash or two more of blue dye was added to the milk to make the mixture darker and than I painted on the umbrella’s handle.
JDaniel also had applesauce with flower sprinkles and rainbow colored goldfish. The bento lunch had a April showers bring rainbows and flowers theme.
Here are so more kids lunch ideas:
Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch
Do you have favorite kid lunch ideas you use over and over again?
Kids Crafts – 14 Ways to Paint with Kids
Earth Day Lunch – Leftover Signs of Spring
The Annies Bunnies are leftover from Easter. The Easter Bunny placed them in JDaniel’s Easter basket. Even though he really likes them he hasn’t been asking for them for snack or for his lunch time dessert. I decided to put them in his bento box and he ended up inhaling them.
The clementine orange is one of the few left after our Spring Break trip. I brought a bag of them with me to have as snacks. JDaniel and I ate them, but his cousins didn’t favor them. That wasn’t a problem is was great to bring the remainder of the bag home. I really like them for a mid-day snack and JDaniel loves them at meal time.
Here are more Earth Day lunch ideas we have enjoyed:
Earth Day for Kids- Earth Day Lunch
Earth Day Lunch for Muffin Tin Monday
What will you be having for your Earth Day lunch?
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