Playing/ Free Exploration Archives - Page 2 of 3

Tactile Play Part I

Grandma Jan and Cousin Ruby got the children Perler Beads last week.Â I have fond memories of making Perler Bead crafts with friends as a child, and was pleased to see how much the children enjoyed them, too.

Hal spent the first few minutes just running his fingers through the beads in the pie tin.Â As a 3 year-old, he really enjoys the process of tactile play more than completing a project.Â When he settled down and started to work with the form, applying each bead one by one, fine-tuning his hand-eye coordination and fine-pincher grip.

The girls, being 7 and almost 9, focused on the design element, and did the ironing themselves.Â And we all helped clean Perler beads up from every corner of the living room floor afterward.Â 🙂

For more on tactile play for the preschool child, please come back and check out tomorrow’s post here on sensory play, and also this thoughtful post by Not Just Cute.

Nothing To Do

The children are really enjoying this book.Â It’s those days where we have “nothing to do” that the kids engage in deep, meaningful learning on their own terms.

This week we’ve been playing a lot of card games (Bea’s favorite), which reinforce cooperation, strategy, addition, subtraction, memory recall for the girls, and help Hal ( age 3 1/2)Â with number recognition.

Our friend Dr. Ellie gave the children this paper punch-out book, and Hal has particularly been enjoying the city play mat in it.Â It has been really neat to see him maturing in his play, and listening to the detailed conversations his toys have with each other.Â 🙂

In the mornings, when it’s been too cold for the kids to play outside, and we have down time, all of the children have been sculpting with Bendaroos.Â Bea likes to create her own designs (a “long neck” dinosaur, above), while Ruth prefers to follow the directions in the pack (a Toco Toucan, below)

What learning are your kids engaging in when they have nothing scheduled to do?

Top Secret Adventures

Many thanks to my mother for getting the kids a subscription to Highlights Magazine‘s Top Secret Adventures!!Â Ever issue brings a new mystery to solve in a new country.Â It’s one of the best structured homeschooling activities we’ve ever worked on as a family.

We’re currently making our way around China attempting to solve a crime, and in the process learning geography, history, anthropology!Â We’re solving logic puzzles and mazes, and breaking secret codes!

We can’t wait to solve the mystery, and look forward to next month’s adventure!

Hippie Snack

Just a quick post to share the recipe for my favorite childhood snack.

We were given 40 lbs of honey (albeit, crystallized, so I’ve had to de-crystallize it in batches), so I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use it in my cooking.Â We’ve made several batches of jam, substituting honey for a portion of the sugar (more on that later this week.), and tomorrow we’ll be canning peaches with honey instead of sugar and also starting a batch of mead.

I wanted to pass along a recipe that my mom used to make me for an afternoon snack – it’s super simple and quick to make, uses whole, natural ingredients, and kids love it.

Larksong’s Energy “Candy”

Time: less than 10 min start to finish – no baking!

1 cup natural nut butter (we use the grinder at the grocer’s – no added sugar, just nuts – peanut, almond or cashew – all are yummy!)

3/4Â cup dry powdered milk

1/4 cup wheat germ (I keep mine in the freezer – it goes rancid easily)

1/2 cup honey

Additional 1/4 cup wheat germ (to roll balls in)

Directions: 1)Â Combine first four ingredients in a bowl and let your kids use their hands to knead them together until a homogeneous, non-sticky dough forms.

2) Pinch off scant tablespoons of dough, roll them in your hands until they form a ball, and then roll the ball in additional wheat germ to coat.

3)Enjoy now with a big glass of milk, or store in the fridge up to 3 days.

On the wheel, on the map

We’ve been studying a lot about map reading and map making, and yesterday afternoon I brought out a huge sheet of posterboard and let the children create and label their own “treasure map”.Â (Little Hen’s idea is to re-create the map in real-life in the backyard and then use their map to find the “treasure”. Â Pretty clever idea, actually.

My only concern is creating the “grape soda lake” they drew on the map…Â Â 😉

If the rain holds out, I think the girls will have a great time with their treasure hunt this afternoon.

I was feeling a bit under the weather, so while the kids worked on the map, we all listened to some Grimm’s Fairy Tales on book CD, and I had a chance to sit down and rest and work on the wheel.

The roving is some Brown Sheep mill-end roving we dyed with leftover Easter egg dye (for instructions, see here.)Â I’ll ply the singles and it’ll make a nice pastel sock yarn.

Here’s what I got done yesterday.Â Not too shabby for my second attempt at using the wheel (after some serious practice with scrap roving), don’t you think? Â Â I hope to get some more done later today as we listen to the rest of Grimm’s:

A budding artist

Look who decided to help himself to the craft supply box while I was attempting to make dinner (and the girls were having a tickle war).

It’s hard to believe that Tum Tum will be TWO next month…he’s outgrowing so much of his sweet baby-ness.Â I loved watching him drawing intently and singing to himself all the while – he’s growing into such a big boy so very fast…bittersweet, really.

Little Ragamuffins

We scrapped all other plans for today,

and simply played in in the dirt.

As Firecracker said, “There’s nothin’ more natural than gettin’ dirty.”

Somehow, in the midst of playing “dirt fairies”, “cruel dirt queen who makes her workers dig all day”, “climb dirt mountain”, “search for worms and buried treasure”, and “fill and empty buckets of dirt over and over”, we managed to spread just shy of two yards more compost over the front beds, finally completing them.

Tomorrow – chard, beets, kale, mustard greens and potatoes are sown out front.Â The coming weeks – finish backyard beds, plant more veggies, mulch paths, plant a few fruit trees, and finish chicken coop/run.

Our front yard before this weekend’s garden work day:

And this afternoon:

Many thanks to all of the volunteers who helped on Saturday!!Â We are excited to see the garden grow and develop in the coming months!

Why I haven’t been blogging the past week or so

We’re working on a converting our front lawn into veggie beds, and the unseasonably warm and dry weather has helped us get a jump start on sheet mulching.Â Goodbye lawn, hello permaculture landscape!Â While Tum Tum and I spread cardboard, straw, manure and compost, Little Hen and her Daddy were busy building cold frames out of scrap wood and old windows from the ReStore. (Firecracker was either resting inside, or resting curled up in a nest of blankets on the driveway, since she not only had strep throat, but then a head-to-toe reaction to the amoxicillin meant to cure the strep.Â Poor kid. )

(Collage posters Little Hen made calling for Garden Volunteers – I wrote the words, but she went to town with the scissors, a stack of old issues of Mother Earth News and a glue stick.)

Last year we worked at Penelope’s Garden, but this year, we’ll be hosting a community-building garden of our own. Â It will be years before our seedling fruit trees and berry bushes obscure many sunny patches of our yard, so we thought we’d make good use of it all and put in veggie beds to grow fresh, organic produce for families of limited means.Â This weekend, a team of volunteers will help us finish installing the front yard beds and create many more in the backyard, so that the organic veggies grown here and cared for by volunteers can be delivered to the families at Birch Community Services, a local non-profit serving needy families in Portland.

We saved a little time for planting poppies and sweet pea seeds, rhubarb and asparagus crowns.Â We also started tomato, artichoke, and cardoon seeds in pots in the basement.Â Â The dry evenings allowed me to plant blueberry bushes, dozens and dozens of strawberry plants, and a red currant after dinners last week.

As Little Hen’s sign (which she hung on the front door) says -“Gardening – You want to sign up?”Â If you’re interested in volunteering to grow food for needy families in the Portland area, and teaching those families to grow their own nutritious, organic produce, please e-mail me at

angela(dot)baker(dot)knits(at)gmail(dot)com

I’m working on setting up a little blog dedicated to the garden this year.Â More on that soon. Â If you have any ideas on a nameÂ for the Birch Community Services’Â educational and food producing organic garden hosted at the Baker’s house, I’d LOVE to hear them (short, sweet and whimsical is best).

Happy gardening!Â The rains and cold weather are on the way, so I’m sure I’ll be posting more from indoors later this week!

Morning reading

This photo pretty well sums up our morning literary activities of late.

First thing this morning, we had to get a bit pot of chili blanco going on the stove, and batch of brownies in the oven, since it’s our turn to bring dinner to our homegroup.Â Â While Firecracker helped measure out the spices and crush the garlic, Little Hen was in the living room, practicing some yoga with her Yoga Pretzels cards (she says “Warrior 1” is her favorite pose).Â She does 3 or 4 cards each morning, when she remembers.

After the brownies came out, we sat down for a little reading.Â We are trying to read two stories a day, and the children all really enjoy and look forward to our snuggle time on the sofa while we read and discuss the stories from Scripture.

For Christmas, my mother surprised us with a copy of my favorite book of children’s poems – Tirra Lirra: Rhymes Old and New, published in 1932 and now out of print (I have scoured used bookshops for it for years, but she was able to quickly find a copy used on Amazon.com for next nothing.)Â It is a wonderful, whimsical book fo children’s poems, and the girls got a big kick out of reading some of the poems today.

The poems in this book are full of delightful imagery, tell rich stories, and crack us all up. Â I think we’ll keep reading a few every day for now – they enjoyed them so much.

I’ll leave you with the poem from this book that was my favorite as a child – Eletelephony :

Once there was an elephant,

Who tried to use the telephant –

No!Â no!Â I mean an elephone

Who tried to use the telephone –

(Dear me! I am not certain quite

That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk

Entangled in the telephunk :

The more he tried to get it free

The louder buzzed the telephee –

(I fear I’d better drop this song

Of elephop and telephong!)

– Laura E. Richards.

Christmas tea

The dolls hosted a little Christmas tea party for their sparrow, cardinal and swan friends yesterday morning.Â Â Pretend mint tea, fruitcake, gingerbread, and bird seed were served under the Christmas tree.

The girls were inspired by my favorite childhood Christmas book – Tasha Tudor’s, A Doll’s Christmas.Â If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.Â It is out of print, but you may be able to find it at your local library.

Paper crafting – freestyle

The past month has left me feeling stretched pretty thin because of obligations and responsibilities to my family and others.Â Â Â Â Tackling domestic duties andÂ “home schooling” the girls while my non-stop motion toddler “explores” the house into a distaster zone has also been a challenge.Â Crafting has been particularly tricky – Tum Tum either attempt to eat or destroy anything the girls are working on – and he’s especially good at climbing up on the kitchen table and flinging art supplies across the room in a lightning flash.

This day, he took a nice long nap after lunch, so as soon as he was sleeping,Â I quickly whisked out some craft supplies for the girls to do a little fall paper crafting.Â We didn’t have anything in mindÂ – I put out some supplies with a vaguely autumnal theme and let the girls’ creativity lead them.

We had a huge pad of fall-coloredÂ scrap book paper (on clearance for $3 this past summer at Michaels),Â paper scraps, some oatmeal and coffee tins, glitter glue, sequins, etc, chrysanthemum and maple leaf punches (I am addicted to the Martha Stewart craft punches – whenever they have one of those 50% off the sale price ” coupons and the Martha Stewart items are on sale, I snatch one up.).Â After punching out some maple leaves for them, I went into the kitchen to make brownies, and let the girls explore on their own.

I love what they came up with – Little Hen’s (left) is a “treasure box” (it’s hard to see in this shot, but she wrote “treasures” on it) and Firecracker’s is a bank for “collecting coins for Heifer”.

We saved the last canister for Tum Tum, who was happy to turn it into a drum after he woke from his nap.Â 🙂

Note : I hope to get back to some more regular posting by the end of the week.Â Life has been a bit overscheduled I just haven’t found the time to sit down at the computer much the past few weeks.Â We have some family birthdays, out of town company, and a trip coming up, so I hope to squeeze in some blogging late at night!!

Safari Girls

We’re studying Africa off and on lately, primarily because the girls’ interest in the continent was sparked by their favorite musician’s recent work in Malawi.Â I picked up this felt Africa playset at the thrift store on sale for a quarter, and it was a big hit. Â Along with Dana’s music, we’ve been listening to some African music while the girls played with the felt set and throughout the weekÂ – Acoustic Africa, Ladysmith’s Long Walk to Freedom, and the girls’ favorite Gift of the Tortoise.

The girls decided they would take turns setting out pieces for the other sister, who would then have to arrange the pieces and tell a story.Â I think it was a great idea!Â That way, they both had a chance to be to be the storyteller.

(Please excuse my pajama-knee in the shot.Â Yes, I was still wearing my PJs after lunch.Â It was Tuesday, which is technically PJ day at our house, although the girls decided to get dressed anyway.)

Firecracker’s favorite was this baby antelope, by the way.Â She wanted to be sure it was included in this post.Â 🙂

We’ve been watching The Life of Mammals bit by bit, a few afternoons a week, to supplement the study of Africa’s wildlife.Â I highly recommend it.Â Although it covers mammals from all over the planet, the girls have gotten a lot out of it, and we’ve stopped to focus on, and discuss the mammals of Africa as they are presented.

For children’s books on Africa – here are a few we recommendÂ –

The Field Guide to Safari Animals

DK Eyewitness Africa

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (on of my childhood favorites)

I Lost My Tooth in Africa

Akimbo and the Snakes

Africa for Kids

Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears

Jungle Dreams

Hungry Planet

After we finish The Life of Mammals, if the girls are still interested, we may watch Michael Palin’s Sahara.Â Who knows, maybe that will be a doorway into ancient Egypt – a topic they have yet to discover – or perhaps deserts in general, which could cover Antartica, the Sonoran, Death Valley, Siberia, Australia as well.

Or perhaps we’ll stay where we are, taking in some more of Africa.Â I love that we can just marinate in a subject for weeks if we want, learning all we can discover!Â For now, we’ll continue to explore the richness of Africa’s peoples, culture and wildlife (and of course, several other subjects on the side!)!

Math this week

Here’s a look at some of the mathematics we’ve been studying this week.Â The girls LOVE the Sir Cumference series of books, and even though the math concepts are technically “above grade level” for them, the girls seem to have no problem understanding the material.Â For example, Little Hen informed us that the slice of applesauce cake she had for dessert “makes an acute angle.”

We’ve also pulled out a few board games from our enormous board game stash (mostly from thrift stores) that encourage children to think mathematically.Â Despite the tedious sounding name, this Dino game is great for reinforcing the concept of place value for Little Hen, and simply counting and reading numbers for Firecracker.Â A great game for kids of diverse ages.

Hey, That’s My Fish! is a wonderful strategy game (don’t listen to the age suggestions – my girls can play it and they’re both well under 8 yrs old.Â Firecracker and I play on one team, Little Hen on the other.) Â Sudoku for Kids was a gift from my parents, and Little Hen loves to play it by herself when she needs some quiet time.Â Monopoly: Don’t Go to Jail is a fast-paced game we picked up at the thrift store.Â It reinforces place-value and three- and four-digit addition.Â It’s one of Little Hen’s favorite games.

What tools are you and your children using to approach math in a natural, interest-sparking way?

REALLY simple child’s toy

Tum Tum playing peek-a-boo with his own fingers for quite a while this afternoon.Â I love how he chuckled quietly to himselfÂ every time his finger peeked through the boxes’ holes.

Later in the day, the box was turned into a race car as the girls gave him rides around the living room, and currently it is a shopping cart full of play food as he walks it in a circuit around the playroom, adding more food every time he passes the play kitchen.

Yay for simple, free, imaginative play!

Magic Potion

At day camp this week, Little Hen made a magic potion, which she has been applying on everyone – to cure anything from splinters to a grouchy mood.Â She loves bestowing “goodness” on everyone.

Here’s her recipe as she dictates it to me ( how she remembers it from camp)

Magic Potion Recipe by Little Hen

24 handfuls of shredded beeswax

a medium sized jar of canola or olive oil (not sure which)

a whole boquet of flowers (such as roses, clover flowers, and every type of flower you can think of)

Directions – First, take some flower petals and soak them in the oil overnight.

The next day, strain the flowers from the oil.Â Then, take the oil, put it in a pot and sprinkle in the shredded beeswax.Â Put the pot on the stove and turn on the stove.Â While you do this, you tell the fairies what magic things you want your potion to have in it (like good things to help people).

PourÂ the melted potion into jars and let it cool down for half an hour so you don’t burn yourself.

To use it, get some of the potion lotion on your finger and put it on your owie or whisper a wish and rub it between your eyes.

I hope you like this.Â – Little Hen

Some Waldorf Magic

Little Hen has been at Waldorf Art Day Camp (and thus immersed in magical-make-believe) for the past two weeks, .Â Her sister misses her terribly while she’s gone (“Is it time to pick up sissy yet?Â Is it time to pick up sissy yet???”), but we’ve been trying to do something special in the mornings – just Firecracker and me (and sometimes the baby in the backpack)Â – a trip to the coffee shop for steamers, a visit to the craft store, a walk to the park, making brownies, that kind of thing.

So, here’s some of what my artistic 6 year-old has been creating this week of magic and sculpting –

A magic wand made from a tree limb, yarn, wire, and a piece of quartz

A fairy sculpture from wooden beads, wire, modeling beeswax, and tissue paper.

a wet-felted bumblebee, and rope and embroidery floss-sewn hive (which went straight on the nature table).

While camp has been a wonderful experience, it will be good for Little Hen to have a break next week, and for all of us to reconnect and plan some special outings and activities as a whole family.

Doll Journal

After a break of several weeks (during which time, she preferred to draw and paint large portraits and wildlife scenes) Little Hen has returned to drawing miniatures and creating mail for our Sparrow Post.

We’ve decided to put the Sparrow Post box out in the garden in a few weeks when it starts to take shape, but since the yard is in such a state of transition, it hasn’t happened yet.Â So instead, she leaves little sketches on the window sills, tucked into bookshelves, on the nature table – wherever a passing fairy-friend might find them.

Here she is intently filling pages of her Doll Journal with sketches of flowers and butterflies.

There’s been some more nature inspired children’s art at The Magic Onions, Syrendell, and appreciation of Tasha Tudor at Renaissance Mama, and Garden Mama.Â Check them out!

Sunday summer afternoon

Little Hen and I picking wildflowers in the yard,

and cutting out new paperdolls from Grandma,

while the little ones take a nice long nap.

I think that makes for a pretty good Sunday afternoon.

Robin Hood

The girls have progressed in their literary obsessions from Little House to Narnia, and now to all things Robin Hood. Â They (and their daddy) also happen to love collecting and playing board games of all types, so when they came acrossÂ Ravensburger’s Robin Hood Board Game at the thrift store this week (for 75 cents!), they snatched it up.Â (I love Ravensburger’s games – their beautiful wooden pieces, interesting themes, and content that is so appealing to children an adults alike.)

The kids and I are sick with a sore throat, and considering the 95 degree heat outside, today seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out our new game while we tried to take it easy and stay cool.

We all really enjoyed the game, and would recommend it to anyone with primary-aged children.Â (The game is played in four quick rounds, which helps keep a younger child interested.) Â Firecracker says the best thing about the game was “winning!!”

If you get a chance, check out Garden Mama’s games while hiding out from the summer heat.

What board games are a favorite in your home?

Farina, Mary and Elsie take tea

Farina Pink Apron had her best friends over for afternoon tea.

Hot tea, fresh milk, and sweet cream were served,

along with a lovely assortment of pastries.

“Farina likes her tea with drop of milk.”

Mary “likes honey drizzled on her scones,

but that makes her hands sticky, so she needs some help with her tea cup.”

“Would Elsie like a crumpet and a biscuit both?…A crumpet is something to eat, isn’t it?”

It was, Little Hen tells me, a pleasant little get-together by all accounts.

Strawberry-Banana Jam

This was a first try for strawberry-banana jam, so I simply used the recipe from Sure-Jell’s website, instead of fiddling with one of my own (why reinvent the wheel, right?).

The jam was beautiful, and very very tasty, and although maybe a little too sweet (I like some tartness to my jam, but the kids thought it was perfect).Â I also found less of a problem with floating fruit than in other strawberry-based jam recipes.Â This recipe is definitely a keeper (maybe with some more strawberries and one fewer banana, since the banana flavor overpowered the strawberry a little bit?).

Up next, plain-and-simple strawberry and strawberry-lime (and soon, the raspberries and blueberries will be in!)Â I make about two batches a week during the summer, and my kitchen is always open for a jam-making get-together,Â so come join me!

Shell play, and a story

The girls were playing with a box of shells from the nature table – just looking them over, talking about the colors and shapes of each shell.Â They spent a long time handling the shells, discussing them.

Then, Firecracker found this in the box, held it up and shouted, “A DRAGON SCALE!! A REAL LIFE DRAGON SCALE!!!”Â This led into the girls making up a story about how a dragon scale could end up on the beachÂ where Mama found it.Â It went something like this:

The dragon was getting ready to shed its scales, and you know that makes him itchy, so he flew to the beach in order to roll around in the sand.Â Sand makes a good place to scratch your itches, did you know that?Â And some of his scales rubbed off while he was rolling and that’s why this scale was at the beach in Florida.

Pretty awesome morning.Â I love my kids’ imaginations.

Tea and Strawberries

Spring-into-Summer Nature Table

While not technically summer, the very warm, sunny weather of late has been pointing us in that direction.Â The girls and I have cleared away the spring table and begun to gather items for our summer table.Â It’s just beginning to take shape – rocks from a nature hike, sweet alyssum from the yard, beeswax flowers Little Hen made, some shells from the beach…

We are looking forward to seeing it grow and change as the summer progresses, and also seeing and drawing inspiration from other families’ nature tables.

Some blog and flickr posts that showcase nature tables -Â Chickadee Nest,Â LadyKnit, Syrendell, Home Baked Education, Granola Girl, Madam Fafa,Â Lyneya.

A boy and his dog

Tum Tum leaning in for a smooch, and our poor poodle trying to recoil.Â He’s determined to love on her, and she tries her best to tolerate his presence.