Outdoor Fun and Learning

Our outdoor patio garden grown from scraps is doing really well. The celery has the most growth and our green onions have been harvested 5 times now!

Keep a garden tray with soil in your kitchen and have your kids drop seeds into the pots as they get a decent grouping together! We have peas and cherries growing so far! Who knows what may happen! Use popsicle sticks to identify what seeds are where.

While transplanting hostas from one part of our yard to another, the littles found these baby ferns! How cute! We transplanted them into a yogurt container for now.

A nature basket is always at the ready for when we head outdoors but it can also be slipped easily into a nylon backpack for a hike! I include homemade nature journals, small flexible ruler, marker, tweezers, sample collection vials and labels.

Enjoy the long weekend my friends!!! Enjoy every minute!

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Fun in the Sand!

The weather was outrageous today, so we headed off to the sand park! We have this fabulous park that has walking trails and a man made waterway for fishing and the like. It at one point also had a carved out area for a beach, but after only a few truckloads of sand, they abandoned the idea and left it as is. This small area is awesome for beach play on a day not hot enough to go in the water and it's quite the hidden gem, that there is never anyone over there! PERFECTION!

 I snagged one of the mesh bags from the 5 pack I got at the Dollar store and filled it with all kinds of recycled goodies that would be perfect for sand play. As you know, I LOVE using recycled items for the kids playtime and the best part? If they break or get lost, no big deal!!!

 Kids cups from restaurants are so easy to wash out and toss aside to keep for the kids to play with! Crystal Light containers, yogurt cups, plastic spoons and other goodies can go such a long way!

 I threw in a ziploc baggie of coffee stirrer straws and scrap paper triangles and the kids made flags with them too!! It was such a blast to see them put 2 and 2 together!!

 I also added in scoops and pitchers picked up at tag sales! I never spend more than .25 for each item, so that they can have more and it's no biggie if it gets lost!

All recyclables and so much fun! These items mostly were free and some as much as .05 and yet they equaled hours of fun and play!!

What's your thrifty secret?

In The Rain!!!

With so much rain falling constantly this week, I said to heck with it and we headed outside anyway!

Sometimes flip flops and ice cream in the rain is a good thing! A memory that will stay with them for awhile was created and to those people that asked if we needed a ride, thank you, but no, we are busy creating moments that will play in our minds years from now!

~Michelle!~

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Our Bubble Station!

This Easter brought us over 20 bottles of bubbles!! Can you believe that?! There was just no more space to store these odd sized jars, bottles, jugs etc. This was even AFTER I sorted and separated and put things in the car!

I decided I needed one central location for bubbles and remember seeing something similar on another blog, I had an idea! I found an old water jug we had laying around and tossed all the solutions inside, then mixed them up and added a little water and glycerin too! I had the kids screw on the top and we shook it all up!

I then made a central bubble 'station' for all things bubbles! This holds a large cup holding all the wands (This cup is free with GIANT and Yummy Mai Tais at Bob Chinns!), 1 cup for pouring solution into a using the wands in(old measuring cup!) and 1 tupperware container for the wider wands! (One store brand one that was missing it's lid after too many uses!!).

Easy and Fun! We have found that having stations for everything outside, just as inside helps keep things organized everywhere! Everything here is also portable, as it all  fits in a small rubbermaid container with lid that can be easily put away or taken somewhere!

~Michelle!~