Tag: projects
Inspired By Gratitude – The Family Tree of Thanks
This Thanksgiving, we have so very much to be grateful for in our little family, with friends and our extended family from coast to coast. Our lives are filled with irresistible and sweet daily bits of joy mixed in with challenges brought our way to teach us how to navigate the wavy waters that are [...]
Digging In The Dirt: Helping Kids Grow Their Own Garden
“ Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth? Fans of “The Secret Garden” will recall orphaned Mary Lennox’s timid request of her uncle for space “to plant seeds in – to make things grow” on his huge English estate. What started with an ivy-covered door, revealed by a friendly robin to [...]
10 Ways to Enjoy a Rainy Day Outside
Lately my commitment to getting the tiny persons outside for at least an hour a day has gone the way of the dodo. I’d blame it on the holidays or the mad rush of company that invaded our house the last few weeks. But, since the holidays were actually pretty chill, and we had no [...]
Life Cycles for Preschoolers
OK, so there are a couple realities to working on “learning” projects with a preschooler: 1. Attention span that generally amounts to nanoseconds 2. The constant reminder that 37-year-old mom obviously knows far less than 3.5-year-old child 3. Permanent mess syndrome 4. Sitting at the dining room table is the LAST thing on anyone’s mind [...]
Preschool Craft – Marble Painting
As the tiny person and I keep going down the road of fun painting adventures that have no fussy mommy factor and a huge preschool messy factor, we have discovered the art of painting with marbles. We got this idea from one of our recent trips to Becky Wortman’s Creative Exploration art classes and had [...]
Family Craft – Paper Tulip Garden
One of my major small successes during the doldrums of any dark and rainy February is to brighten up the house with signs of Spring in any way humanly possible. If I could paint sunshine and blue skies on all of the windows and not know that if I went outside the sky would be [...]
Family Craft – Paper Robots
Another snowy morning in the Valley means another day at the craft table for us. The cold and our daughter have no issues. As for me, I prefer a cozy blanket and a cup of tea (actually, back to coffee) right now – and she’s currently very accommodating. When we got back from Victoria, she [...]
Family Craft – Your Animal Family Genealogy
As my belly gets bigger, there are TONS of questions about how families are made and our ongoing “Family Tree” project expands, I found myself a little stumped recently when working out age-appropriate ways to talk with our 3.5 year old about families and who goes where. Traditional genealogy – packed full of research and [...]
The Best of A Crafty 2008
I never really thought of myself as a crafty sort of gal. Seriously, I have long lived with the crafty curse, trying many a Martha-centric project and failing in expensive, ugly sorts of ways. I very much admit that my mom got the short end of the stick when it came to these sorts of [...]
Holiday Craft Tutorial – Homemade Wrapping Paper
It wasn’t an uncommon site – back in the day – for the moms in our lives to lock themselves in a back bedroom one December afternoon. I thought it was some sort of magic, how they went in and came out a few hours later rather refreshed (6 hours of peace and quiet will [...]
Salmon Journals
Editor’s note: Most of my memories from childhood – at least the ones that truly stick – live outside. The explorations, the learning, the absolutely amazing discoveries made in the woods or even just the park down the street shaped me, made me want to do one thing – get back outside for more. Giving [...]
The Paper-Bag Easter Basket & Easter Bunny
The other day I found myself cruising the aisles at an unnamed big-box store in complete awe of the piles of gear available for Easter festivities of the kid-related kind. Unbelievable…really. ..and then I left, entirely empty-handed. I was shocked at my lack of a purchase. My childhood Easters were filled with plastic eggs cracked [...]
The Babka Kitchen Adventure
Before I get started, here’s more farm fun from Day 2 at the Hands-On Farm. The place is hopping with tiny people (and tiny lambs, two that are just one-week old): Christa and I have teamed up today to offer up a Spring Break Adventure in the form of a family day in the kitchen. [...]
Nature Crafts – Bagel Bird Feeder
OK, I’m over all of this serious cold outside. Brrrrrr… In honour of coaxing Spring along, and making sure the local birds (who I think are as stunned as we are by this frosty snap) have enough to snack on, I went looking for some cool ideas for making backyard bird feeders today. There are [...]
Holiday Green Guide 2007
Pulling the trappings of the holiday season together and getting them ready for the big day is where you can really make a difference environmentally this year. Millions of rolls of wrapping and tissue paper will end up decorating presents in the next few weeks – and I was seriously shocked to learn that not [...]
Beating the Dog Days of Summer with Bubbles & Games
I was out having coffee with my pal Kathy recently when trading stories across the table turned to the topic of summer seemingly nearing its end. The cloudy coolness of the last few days makes moms like us think maybe it’s time to start talking Halloween and Christmas instead of beaches and fun in the [...]
