Do you celebrate Earth Day? I hope that each of us is doing our part to protect Mother Earth every day! Here’s a fun activity to do with your kids to help them learn to appreciate the earth a little better. Take a walk together with your camera and see how many interesting things you can find in nature to photograph. Look especially for flowers that are just growing wild. Here are a few things I found on my walk:
A dainty little purple flower…
A bush blooming with beautiful pink flowers…
Tiny, tiny purple flowers growing in the grass…
New growth on a tree…
A beautiful bunch of dandelions…
Tiny white flowers also growing in the grass…
Pinkish-purple flowers, growing up on stalks, even in stones…
New growth starting on a large pine tree…
Buds coming out on another tree…
Teeny, tiny bird feather…
A beautiful blue sky with the newly budding tree…
There are so many beautiful things outside that we walk past every day without noticing. My hope for this Earth Day is for each of us to take a little time and truly look around and see some of the amazing things our wonderful earth offers us. Enjoy! 🙂
Yesterday was National Gardening Day but I forgot about it. Lol I thought we would honor that holiday by doing a little gardening today. Let’s make a fairy garden! They are easy to make and so much fun. You’ll need a container which can be just an old pan or something inexpensive you grab from the store. You’ll also need some dirt or potting soil, some fairy garden figurines, and a few plants that will stay small.
A great place to find fairy garden figurines is a Dollar General store. They had a whole section of things great for fairy gardens and they were priced at $1.00 each! Other stores like Joann Fabrics or Walmart have fairy garden figurines too, but they are more expensive.
There are different kinds of plants you can get for this project and some stores even have them labeled as good for fairy gardens. I’m using some Hens and Chicks succulents for mine.
Using a nail and a hammer, make a few holes in the bottom of your pan or pot so it can drain excess water. Then add some dirt or potting soil so the container is nicely full but the dirt doesn’t come all the way to the top. Leave a little room at the top so the water doesn’t just run off but stays in the pan.
Place the main pieces of your fairy garden figurines in your pot approximately where you want them to be. And lay the plants in place, just on top of the soil. Check your arrangement and make sure everything is right where you like it.
Remove the figurines…you’ll place them back in just a couple of minutes.
Plant each plant into the dirt and pack the dirt lightly around each one.
Now place the fairy garden figurines into your garden. Arrange any little stones that you want to use in place now too. You can make a little walking path, if you like.
Gently water your plants.
And that’s all there is to it! Place your fairy garden in a place where it can be enjoyed by everyone.
One word of caution, the water will drain out the bottom of your garden so remember that when you decide where to put it. It could leave a little dirt behind. I hope you will make your own fairy garden and enjoy it all spring, summer and fall! A fun activity to do with your fairy garden and your kids is to make up a story involving your little fairy garden and who might come to visit it! 🙂
We had another friendly visitor to our house this week and he was toad-i-ly fun! He’s brown and he hops around and his skin is all bumpy. Can you guess what I’m talking about?
If you said a toad, you are absolutely right! I was working in my flower bed when he hopped out of a hole and startled me. Has that ever happened to you? People used to say that if you picked up a toad, it would give you warts…but that is NOT true. (He might “pee” on you though!) Toads are actually a good thing to have around because they eat bugs! Here is a closer look at him although he was trying to hide in the grass so I wouldn’t see him.
He’s pretty cool, isn’t he? You can see him pretty well when he is in the green grass. But look at this toad when he is in the dirt.
Can you spot him? He’s harder to see, isn’t he?
How about a couple of toad riddles to try? 🙂
What did the bus driver say to the toad? Answer: Hop on!
What do you get if you cross a toad and a dog? Answer: A croaker-spaniel!
What do toads drink? Answer: Croak-a-cola and Hot Croak-o!
The Kids Niche 