Club Day. The Nature Version.

Today's Club meeting could have gone with the tagline, "Just Play With Your Food."  Which is exactly what we did today.  But it was all with a purpose.  You see, we were experimenting with different bird beak designs and discovering that certain beaks are engineered specifically for the preferred food of its owner.

First, let me introduce you to the tools of our discovery snack.  We used toothpicks (for the birds that like to stab at their meal), spoons (for birds like pelicans that scoop up their food), clothespins and tweezers or chopsticks (for those that grab their meals) and straws (for those who suck their meals, like hummingbirds).

Next, let me share the exotic fare we dined on today.  Cheese transformed itself into caterpillars (you could use marshmallows too); raisins became grubs (any dried fruit would do, though); chocolate sprinkles were the most delicious ants I've ever tasted; puffed rice became insects; sunflower and pumpkin seeds were, well, seeds; oranges were for the fruit-lovers; and apple juice was nectar.  Other things to try include cooked macaroni and peanuts with or without the shells, but I opted to avoid those due to allergy concerns.

The table was set with each clubber having their own set of tools laid out on a napkin, a plate and a glass.  The morsels of delectable food were gathered in the middle which I served.  We tried each of the tools for each kind of food to determine which worked best and wrote our answers down on the chalkboard.  The only rule was to have one hand working the tool while the other hand was firmly behind one's back.  And we had a lot of fun as the Clubbers tried to slurp pumpkin seeds through their straws, stabbed their puffed rice with toothpicks, and attempted futilely to pick up chocolate sprinkles with a clothespin.

 

Yes, it was an action-packed, fast-and-furious snack.  And, as a warning to you if you try it at home, it will most likely leave a big mess on and around your table.  But such is the way of scientific experimentation!

 

As the club went about finishing their snack using their tool of choice, I read the book Beaks!  It has beautiful illustrations.  The reader can read the basics of the different types of beaks and their functions or can deep dive to learn about different bird species, what they eat, and how their beak has evolved to make it easier to enjoy their food of choice.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

After an extended hiatus due to family vacations and my own continuing professional development, Nature Club was back in business.  I committed to working through the Feathered Friends materials from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  I started the program late, though - it is a program with activities for September to May, but we didn't really get into it until we started up in January.  Aside from the activity about migration, which is listed as an October activity that I will postpone until April, the topics haven't been too dependent on the seasons.

Our focus at this meeting was moving like a bird.  We watched a few select videos of birds that have developed distinct ways of moving (this link has a select video for each bird that highlights its specific adaptations, while this one gives you a whole library to look and listen through).  Each Nature Clubber got to act out one of the birds we watched, and then we talked about how the bird was built for its movement.  For example - the ostrich is built to walk or run because its size prohibits it from flying.  Loons are at home in the water, partly because their feet are built to make them excellent swimmers.

We took our bird movements one step further by heading outside to play "Birdy Says", inspired by Simon Says.  We worked out a few bird movements for other birds - hummingbirds, vultures and penguins, then had fun flitting and jumping and waddling around in the snow. 

Club Day. The Nature Version.

What is a habitat?  How does one explain what plants and animals need to seven year-old kids, most of whom have been inside lots owing to our string of cold days?  Reading a story seems to do the trick more often than not.  Or perhaps I'm just lucky that this group of Nature Clubbers seems to have a love for learning, whether it's after the school bell's rung or not.  At any rate, I introduced the concept of habitat by reading the book, On Meadowview Street, by Henry Cole. 

On Meadowview Street is the story about a family who moved to Meadowview Street, but there wasn't a meadow to be found...only well manicured lawns separated by fences.  The heroine in the story, Caroline, finds a flower growing and asks her dad to mow around it.  Soon there are two flowers, then four.  And soon, the dad has decided there isn't much lawn left to mow and sells his lawnmower.  The butterflies and bees who find the yard pleasant appreciate less noise.

The seasons change and summer's hot sun beats down on the rows of houses and Caroline's little meadow.  Caroline observes there are no trees and soon a maple is planted with care, birdhouses are built, and a wren has moved into the neighbourhood.  Then they dig out a spot for a little pond and make sure there are lots of nooks and crannies for creatures to call home.

The neighbours notice Caroline's yard, and appreciate it's beauty.  Soon there are other families making their yards more friendly for the plants and animals who need a place to live.

Using the story, we talked about the plants, insects and animals that we saw in the pictures at the start of the book.  We only saw people.  Then we walked through the changes that Caroline made and what happened as a result.  When the grasses grew long and the flowers bloomed, who moved it?  Why did they move in - what was there for them now that there wasn't before?  Was it food?  Shelter?  Did other creatures move in once the tree was planted?  Why did they move in after the tree - what purpose did it serve?  Why would the creatures need a pond?

From that, we put together the portrait of what makes an ideal habitat - food (flowers for the insects, insects for the birds), cover (shelter, a place to hide), water (to drink or bathe in).  In order to have food, cover and water, there needs to be space - space for the animals to hunt or forage for food, space for the animals to move about, space for them to call home.

Taking all this knowledge, we then drew pictures of a familiar place.  It could have been a schoolyard, a backyard, a park, or an imaginary place.  Then we looked at the spaces the Clubbers created to see if it would make an ideal habitat for birds.  Was there cover?  Was there food?  Was there water?  Was there space?  It didn't matter if they could say "yes" to all these questions - if they said "no", then we talked about what could be added to make it an ideal space for birds.

Finally, we attempted to take a short walk to check out potential habitats in the neighbourhood.  But after being inside so much lately, they just needed space to play outside, with the crisp air freshening their spirits and colouring their cheeks.  What a lovely way to end the meeting!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Welcome back, Nature Club!  It's been awhile since we've seen all of you, and we're happy you could join us today.

I've been planning for our winter Nature Club activities since attending a webinar with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the fall.  They were introducing a new resource - Feathered Friends - and as I flipped through the activities I felt they were just right for Nature Club.  Even though the activities are organized by month, the introductory activity, What Makes a Bird a Bird, could work in any month, whether it be September or January.

We read through the book What Makes a Bird a Bird? to get thinking about the characteristics that birds share with other animals (the ability to fly, sing, lay eggs, build nests) and the characteristic that is unique to birds (feathers). 

Then we donned snowshoes and walked to the park, stopping to listen when the songs of the chickadees caught our ears.  It was there we played a game of bird true or false.  We stomped a line to divide the field into two - one side of the field was the "true" side and the other side was the "false" side.  Then the clubbers took their places on the line.  I read out a statement and the clubbers had to decide whether the statement was true or false by running to the appropriate side of the field.  In their snowshoes.  By the end of the game, everyone was thoroughly tired.  But not too tired to hike over to the playground and pretend to be wolves.  Or a girl who lived with wolves.  A low howl from the alpha meant it was time to return to our den.  And while their legs were weary from trudging through the snow, they magically transformed into birds and their wings carried them back to our house just in time for their parents to come get them.   

From Hectic to Harmonious...Day 3. And Nature Club too.

Today Mama was on a mission.  I'm in a bit of a race against the clock and when the clock strikes zero, gifts for out-of-town relatives need to be in the mail.  Today's project to start and finish was dying play silks.  We worked on yellow ones dyed with turmeric yesterday and they look fabulous - bright and bold.  Today I tried using Kool-Aid mix as the dye and the colours are soft and gentle.  We came home from supper tonight and were greeted by the strange scent of Kool-Aid infused vinegar.  I must admit, I'm feeling a little nauseous.  There are great instructions for dying play silks with Koo-Aid here.

Indeed, the pulse in our household had a "mission" vibe to it.  In a good way.  In a working with purpose kind of way.  There were homemade snacks to make for the birds.  There was an art class to be had at my kitchen table (our instructor today was Jaelyn, who tried out what I imagine wet-on-wet watercolour painting is.  Self-taught, that one).  There were books to be read and letters to write to Santa.  There were freezer-paper stenciled shirts to be painted too.

Somewhat ironically, today's From Hectic to Harmonious challenge was to remove three things from my to-do list.  Note that says remove things, not do them and scratch them off.  It's about prioritizing and letting go of the stuff that doesn't matter.

Today's challenge is tough for me.  I think I've already made great strides to make this year's holiday a little simpler than last year's.   The number of handmades is down, and what I have made was simpler to make in the first place.  There won't be a lot of Christmas baking going on here, and the holiday countdown garland hanging in our living room feels more like a way to be intentional about the activities we want to share with our children and prioritizing time to do them.  So while the garland is new, the activities in it would happen anyway with or without the garland to guide us as to when they happen.

So, after much pondering, scratching my head and furrowing my brow, here is what I've come up with:

  ~ I will turn off Facebook until December 28
  ~ I will keep the computer games turned off too, until December 28
  ~ I will only have one errand morning or afternoon a week.  All of us will need to be super-resourceful if there is some "gotta have" thing.  If something is needed right now, it will need to be found within the four walls of this house.  While I would love for this to apply to everything, I will be practical and reasonable...if we need milk because for some mysterious reason there is none left in the fridge, we'll go get milk.  But I'm not running out at 10:00 pm to get something like, say, glitter.
  ~ I will, without guilt, buy premade stuff if I need to.  The holidays will still be wonderful if we buy premade pie crusts instead of the ones from scratch.  Or if the whole pie is premade. 

And I'm pleased to report I've already had success in purging things from my to-do list.  I was planning to make snow crystals inside today with Nature Club.  This would have required me to pick up dry ice and Styrofoam containers, as well as get the experiment set up and, optimally, test it out.  But with most of our evenings full of other goodness, which I wouldn't trade for a second, I pulled the plug on making snow crystals.  Instead, we read the book, The Story of Snow and made snowflake cutouts from last year's left over printouts.

I knew there would be little nuggets of success scattered throughout this holiday challenge!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

In the busyness of our days I find myself writing this post a day late.  Amid making a supper on the fly, preparing for a homeschool co-op class the next day, dreaming up a little bit of science love to carry us into December, and casting on the next project, yesterday was full, full, full.  And that was just after 5:30!

Before all that busyness though, in the afternoon yesterday, we hosted Nature Club.  As I was tidying the kitchen before Nature Club arrived, I pondered that our part of the world looked much different than it did when Nature Club met last.  And that's where I took Nature Club this week - on a sensory scavenger hunt to discover just how much different our world is this week, with its heaps of snow, bitterly cold winds, and shorter days.  Different than the dusting of snowflakes, the mild days and evenings, and the rich smell of rotting leaves of two weeks ago when we made lanterns for Martinmas.

The Clubbers turned into feral wolves as they walked, ran, and crawled to the park.  They howled at passersby, pretended to be playful cubs, and snuck up on unsuspecting prey.  When it looked like they'd worked off all their pent-up energy, we started our scavenger hunt game. 

We started out by sitting in silence for a minute to see if we could hear different sounds than we heard last meeting.  We then walked for a distance in silence to see if we could hear any other different sounds.  And different sounds there were...the breeze, the crunch of snow under our boots as we walked, the sound of ski pants rubbing together, the sound of running noses.

We moved onto bringing our awareness to our sense of touch...whether we could feel anything different.  Most told me about how their toes and fingers felt cold.  We also talked about if we could tell which direction the wind was blowing from, whether we could feel the sun on our faces, or whether our skin felt itchy in our dry winter climate.

At about the half-way point of our walk, we turned our attention to what we could perceive with our noses.  Did the world smell any different?  When first arriving at the park we noticed the aroma of popcorn, which was an oddity.  I was hoping we could catch the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, but I think it may have been a bit early for folks to have lit their evening fires.  Further along, we did notice that the world smelled a bit cleaner...like there was an absence of smell.

Lastly, we used our eyes to look for differences in our natural world from two weeks ago.  As we turned to the west, we noticed a fantastic sunset (and noticed how different it was just five minutes later).  We noticed tracks of animals.  We noticed icicles hanging from the eaves of houses.  And yes, the obvious covering of snow, too.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

I knew that neglecting to clean out the corn from our garden was a wonderful choice.  All summer and so far this fall it has stood guarding our potato patch and our back yard.  I loved coming around the corner and seeing all those long green leaves swaying back and forth in the breeze.  I loved the sound of the leaves rustling together.  I loved the splash of green colour it gave to an otherwise boring fence.

But we kept it in late for a reason.  Two meetings ago, Nature Club read the book We All Gather Together.  It describes the autumnal equinox and how various cultures celebrate the harvest at this time of year.  One such celebration is Sukkot, an eight-day festival of thanksgiving celebrated by the Jewish culture.  Often, a sukkah - a hut built by Jewish farmers in their fields so they could be close to their crops - is built and decorated with fruits and vegetables. 

Sometime between that meeting and now, I read an article in the Fall 2013 edition of Living Education magazine that described building a sukkah.  Hmmm, I thought.  That could be an interesting project that could tie in nicely with some of the other celebrations we could organize to honour the seasons.  But the actual instructions for how to build that particular sukkah felt a bit daunting.

Fast forward about a week.  My family was hiking around on a local hiking trail.  And what did we find?  A little fort built quite simply with fallen branches.  It didn't make much of an impression on me at the time, except that it was a cute little hideout for little ones in the woods.

Eventually, the two ideas came together.  What if we made a little Nature Club hideaway?  We could use our old, dried corn stalks for the walls and the longest piece of wood in our garage for the center beam.

Fast forward today.  We briefly reviewed the Sukkot celebration and I showed them the picture of Astrin and Jaelyn in the fort in the woods.  "Have you made one of these before?" someone asked.  "Nope, but we'll figure it out" was my response. 

We tromped outside after our snack, armed with a pitchfork and a couple of spades.  We worked together to pry the corn out of the cold damp ground and made a huge pile of stalks...it definitely looked like a pile that would be fun to jump in, save the cement sidewalk lurking not too far underneath. 

Then we hauled the stalks over to the spot in our yard that Jaelyn and I had chosen earlier...a spot that would hopefully stand up to the elements until at least the next meeting.  A spot where the branches we wedged the end of our wood between would be high enough for people to duck into comfortably, and also wide enough to have seating for more than two.  We alternated the stalks as we stacked them - one on the left, followed by one on the right of the beam - and the leaves naturally tangled themselves so we didn't need to lash the stalks and the beam together (at least not yet...we'll see how it's doing in the morning). 

Once the space was nice and cozy, the Clubbers began to decorate and make it just right...the spot for the fire circle was created...any leaves on the inside of their hut were cut away...the tassels of the corn were cut off and gathered into bouquets to scatter around the hut.

And that was where Nature Club played for the rest of the meeting. 

Eventually, Nature Club was over, yet my children continued to enjoy the outside space that was created, expanding it to fit their needs.  They insisted upon eating outside, equipped with homemade flashlights (courtesy of a recent Cub Scouts meeting), camaraderie, and toques and mitts too, of course.

 

I certainly hope this little hidey-hole we created lasts for a while!  Thanks Nature Club for a bit of fun, and for helping stretch those corn stalks out just a wee bit longer!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

There's a lot of inspiration for nature-related projects around this time of year.  I have a bit of a line-up of projects that would all be good for right this very moment, but only so much time before the weather becomes uncooperative.  Given the blustery days we've had and the abundance of leaves that have fluttered to the ground of late, I decided I couldn't wait another two weeks to make leaf tiles, which were a project featured in the 2013 Fall Living Education Journal from Oak Meadow.

There was so much in this project that was fun.  A scavenger hunt for leaves, mushing and manipulating clay, dreaming of what the tiles would look like when they were dry...oh, there was goodness at every turn.

While we didn't need to go far to find just-right leaves - tromping through our front yard was good enough - we still needed to be selective.  We were hunting for leaves that were not too big, yet not too small, combined with enough definition that they would leave a print behind when they dried and peeled out of the clay.  The leaves still needed to be pliable - the leaves that crackled under our feet were best left for raking into piles for jumping in.  Most of the clubbers chose leaves from the raspberry bush, the strawberry patch, the old elms, the baby maples invading my garden boxes, or the high bush cranberry.

Then there was the task of squishing the clay out of its brick shape and into something that could be rolled out with a rolling pin.  We used Sargant air hardening clay, which had a better consistency than other air hardening clays we've used in the past.  It needed just the slightest bit of water to be malleable enough to roll out. 

The project instructions described making a border from wood that was 1/2 inch thick.  I opted not to do this, partly because I didn't have any pieces that were that thickness, and partly because I didn't have enough clay for the Clubbers to make large tiles that were half an inch thick!  We simply cut away the edges with a butter knife and then proceeded with the rest of the instructions.
 
I don't know why I thought this project would leave a simple self-contained mess at best, but that was an error of judgment on my part.  If I were to do it again, I would do it all outside...that way, I could simply hose off any outdoor furniture that got clay or clay-coloured water on it.  And I would have lots of rags handy for spills or clay inadvertently getting here, there, and everywhere.  I would also think a little harder about buying the grey air hardening clay instead of the terra cotta that we used...the red clay really wanted to stain everything, although it is such a gorgeous colour.  Something to think about for next time!

 



I'm looking forward to seeing what lies beneath!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

A gentle rain drizzled down upon our part of the world for the better part of today.  Many soggy leaves now litter the ground in colours of rust and gold.  Nature Club was cozy and dry, though, as we celebrated the harvest season with homemade pizzas.

We kicked off our meeting with the story By the Light of the Harvest Moon.  It is a beautifully illustrated tale that shares what really happens when the leaves are swept off the trees...leaf people in the pumpkin patch celebrating autumn with a dessert party!  There are lots of pies to be shared, which was the segue into our pizza pie making.

Some of the vegetables we prepared for the pizzas were from the pizza garden the clubbers planted seeds for...tomatoes, onions, green pepper, basil.  I offered a choice of pizza sauces - homemade marinara sauce or homemade salsa verde made from our prolific tomatillos.  I stuck with store bought cheese and crust, mainly because the late night preserving have limited my time and energy for other time-intensive projects which would be nice, but not necessary.  I also supplied other store bought ingredients that are kid tested and loved in our home - ham, pineapple and salami.

As our pizzas cooked we gathered together to read We Gather Together:  Celebrating the Harvest Season.  We talked about the equator and how it divides the Earth into the northern and southern hemispheres, and how the tilt of the earth changes the hours of daylight as it travels around the sun.  The book also contains ancient customs adopted by various cultures, and we pointed their origins out on the globe too.  I think we'll explore some of these customs in more depth in future meetings.

A little bit of science, a little bit of geography, a little bit of sharing, and a lot of tasty food made for a wonderful Nature Club. 

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Part of getting back into the summer-winding-down swing of things is getting the children's clubs back up and running on a more consistent basis.  We kicked off the 2013-2014 club year with the first Nature Club and a trip out to the community garden to check out how wild, luscious and abundant the tomato plants the Club started from seed had become.  I wanted the Club to have some sort of a connection between the seeds we planted and the pizza we soon will make, most of which coming from the pizza garden we dreamed up so many months ago. 

We also "foraged" our own snack by searching for cucumbers hiding underneath their lovely large green leaves, digging for carrots, and discovering the last offerings from the pea plants (peas in September seems unreal).

While we munched on our found goodies, we talked about the important role of bees.  We talked about how the bees pollinate the plants so that they will bear fruit, and how they might unknowingly cross-pollinate them and create fruit that looks a wee bit different than expected (like the few baseball-sized Roma tomatoes we found - they look suspiciously like a mix between my Romas and the neighbour's beefsteak tomatoes).  We also talked about how the cucumbers protect themselves by being slightly prickly.

In the next couple of meetings, I'd like to make cheese with the group (now that I know how to do it), and then make our garden pizza.  Looking forward to the upcoming mouth-watering meetings!

   

Club Day. The Nature Version.

When we awoke this morning, things looked a little on the grey side.  I hurried over to the weather network and received a prediction that there would be rain in the morning - thundershowers, in fact.  Hmmm...that forecast wasn't what Nature Club called for this morning.  I headed over to Environment Canada's website, where they predicted rain in the afternoon.  Much better news!  And within ten minutes of reading that news, the skies did clear up and the sun was shining down upon us.  It was like an omen telling me to simply trust the latter prediction.

Now that it's summer and our Nature Clubbers are available morning or afternoon (or evening too, I suppose), we're soaking up the opportunity to be outside before our little part of the planet heats up too much.  I learned from last year's summer club days that the beautiful little people in our Nature Club tended to wilt under the sun's hot, hot rays.  We also have much more time to do an activity and have free time, so we can plan more elaborate outings.  Today's outing took us to a little berry patch just outside the city limits to pick some saskatoons.

Yes, our family has already picked many saskatoons this season.  Soon my freezer will be full and I'll be wondering where I can store the blueberries that will come in the next couple of weeks.  But the children who joined us today aren't as familiar with this humble berry, being from another province where they don't grow.  So what better way to learn about local, seasonal, good foods, diversity, and the joys of simply being outdoors than to experience it?

For those of you who aren't familiar with saskatoons, they look similar to blueberries but have a taste that is all their own.  They have a small seed inside them and while the seed is quite fibrous, it is edible.  Here are a few of the ways we enjoy saskatoons...

   ~ saskatoon berry muffins
   ~ mix fresh or frozen saskatoons with yogurt, cereal, oatmeal or granola
   ~ saskatoon crisp or crumble
   ~ dropped into pancake batter, or served on top of freshly cooked pancakes
   ~ saskatoon berry jam
   ~ saskatoon berry syrup (we will be mixing our syrup with club soda, as an alternative to pop.  A recipe for berry syrup is in The Homemade Pantry).
   ~ in fruit smoothies (but make sure there is a lot of liquid in your smoothie, as the saskatoons tend to absorb liquid and thicken the drink considerably
   ~ fruit popsicles
   ~ pie
   ~ just eaten by the handful!

The only thing I do not do with our saskatoon berries is dry them or make fruit leathers with them.  For me, the seed tends to take centre stage when they are dried and they do not seem to keep their sweet taste when they are dried.  Perhaps I dry them out too much, as I've read that others have successfully dried them.

If you're still not sure what to do with your saskatoons once they're picked, here are a few sites with recipes to get you started:

   ~ Recipes for tarts, scones, saskatoon berry loaf, crisp and syrup
   ~ Recipes including muffins, pudding, tea, vinaigrette, bars, squares and pancakes, just to name a few
   ~ Recipe for jam

Club Day. The Nature Version.

My, yesterday was a busy day.  On top of the birthday crafting and celebration, there was also Nature Club.  Our mission yesterday was to make a driftwood boat that would float and keep its sail out of the water.  I loved this activity because it gave us plenty of room to experiment and try different variables, without being too overwhelming.

Supplies for this activity were minimal - smaller chunks of wood (that the Clubbers found by rummaging through our bin of kindling), small sticks for the mast, scrap fabric for the sails (courtesy my scrap fabric basket), plasticine, scissors and glue.  Oh, and buckets of water to test out our creations, of course.

I happened to have an already completed driftwood boat on hand, so we used it to kick off our meeting and to make a few discoveries.  The piece of driftwood used in this boat was quite narrow, and it was quite tippy in the water as a result.  This led us to discuss that perhaps a wider piece of wood would work best for our boats.  We also discovered that white glue is soluble when it gets wet, so we had best use a different type of glue when attaching our sails to the masts (we used a hot glue gun).

Our tippy example boat

Next, we attached our masts to the boat by wrapping the plasticine around one end of the stick, then forming a base so that the plasticine would stick to the wood.  We found that adding this weight, including its placement on the wood, could change how well the wood floated and how stable the boat was.

Finally, the Clubbers raided my scrap fabric basket and cut out their own sails.  I then glued them to their masts and they tried one final time to see if their boats would stay upright.  Some did and some didn't.  We found that sails that were centered on the masts worked best, as well as masts that were shorter.

A boat that floats!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Nature Club took another step forward in making the pizza garden a reality.  We got their hands dirty today, as we moved the peppers we started indoors out to one of the garden boxes.  As we worked, we talked about why there was wood (mulch) in the garden and the purpose it serves, which is to allow the soil to retain as much moisture as possible, as opposed to it evaporating.  We walked through the steps (dig a hole, gently push the seedling out of its cell, place it upright gently in the hole, cover, and replace wood chips as necessary.  We served our little peppers a bit of compost tea, then gave them a generous watering.  I was amused that the Clubbers thought that a little water bottle of water was sufficient for their plants.  They were amused when I squirted myself in the face as I replaced the watering lid to the water bottle (I found these awesome lids at Lee Valley, so each child can have a water bottle of their own to use). 

How did the Clubbers know where to dig the holes for their seedlings?  I placed large rocks in the garden box in the spots where I wanted the seedlings to go.  Each Clubber got a row to work with - they would remove a rock and go through the steps as independently as they felt they could.  My main job was to help get the seedlings out, and warn if the digging of one child would bury the seedling another had planted.

We also prepared a pot and moved one spindly tomato into it, as I've decided the rest of the tomatoes will go out into the community garden plot, where they will receive tons of sunshine.  This way, I can do a better job rotating the produce we grow, and hopefully we'll see the same bumper crop this year that we had last year at the community garden!  The girls did most of the work to prepare the pot.  They lined the bottom with small rocks, collected some composted manure from our neighbour, poured soil, mixed some Soil Moist (which we're trying in our clay pots for the first time), then planted and watered.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

The book Green Crafts for Children has been seeing some use these past couple of weeks.  So it was literally quite handy as I sat down this weekend to put together what Nature Club would be up to this week.  As I flipped through its well-worn pages, I was reacquainted with the tic-tac-toe game made of found materials that looked easy and fun.  After all, it would be a breeze to find stones and fallen twigs, and we had leftover string from other craft projects.  Jaelyn, Astrin and I set out to the park to find enough twigs this afternoon.  It was a blissfully wonderful way to while away the afternoon.

Actually pulling off the project was easier said than done.  To assemble the board and X's, the twigs needed to be lashed together.  I had quite a bit of difficulty explaining how to lash to the group as a whole.  It didn't take long for me to break them into pairs, and then I showed each pair how to lash the twigs together, with one holding the twigs in place, if needed, while the other joined them together with the string.  The Clubbers persevered through making the board, then ran into the warm sun to collect rocks for the O's.  And it was there that they stumbled upon the ladybugs.

Yes, there were many ladybugs roaming around the rocks.  Which led to a marvellous ladybug hunt, followed by creating homes for the ladybugs in jars.  The Club very enthusiastically and lovingly placed stones, plants, raisins, and a wee bit of water into the jars, followed by a handful of ladybugs, then topped with a piece of scrap fabric secured by an elastic band.  As one Clubber ran past, she shouted, "We're going to take care of the ladybugs at every meeting!"  And then she was off collecting more ladybugs.  What a fun way to cap off the afternoon!

In other news, I found myself witnessing firsts today, as Jaelyn, Astrin and I walked to picked up some of our Nature Clubbers.  Relatively obscure firsts, but firsts nonetheless, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to witness them.  On our walk, Astrin stepped into the realm of the imaginary.  She was pushing her stroller, then stopped and informed me she needed to move the baby to a different spot.  She toddled to the front, reached in, cupped her hands around the imaginary baby, then carefully placed it elsewhere.  So sweet.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

It feels like we have been cooped up inside for so long that Nature Club just had to get outside.  So, our grand plan for today was to walk around the neighbourhood and look for signs of spring. 

At least that was the plan when I sent a little note out to parents on Sunday letting them know what we would be up to.  But then it snowed again on Tuesday, and I thought to myself that the only sign of spring we might see were sandbags lining the creek close to our house.

Luckily, fate has a way of intervening.  As I was making my way home from my morning jog, I spotted something sticking out of the ground where our lot meets the alley.  "What is that?" I thought to myself.  I didn't recall planting anything there in the fall, and I felt my heart drop at the thought of weeds thriving in our topsy-turvy weather.  As I crept closer, it looked familiar and too organized to be a weed.  It looked like garlic in fact.  Garlic that I had planted 2 autumns ago and I thought had died last summer, the cause of death being camouflaged and mistaken for overgrown grass!  What a lovely spring surprise!

Thinking my early morning spring encounter was merely a fluke, the children and I went on a hunt for spring things this morning - and were delightfully surprised to find all sorts of treasures making their way out of the ground and into the cheery sunshine!  Tulips topped the list, followed by daffodils.  There were even signs of the grass returning to life!   

Later this afternoon, the Nature Club spent quite a bit of their walk just in our yard, overturning mulch and rotting leaves in search of ladybugs.  We did eventually get out to find some other spring treasures, but the ladybugs were the hit of today's scavenger hunt!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

It seems there is a battle raging between Old Man Winter and Lady Love Spring.  Just a little while ago I was ready to dance in the streets that Spring had finally arrived!  Little did I know that Winter was not yet ready to release his grasp on us.  The melting has stopped (those wishing for a slow melt have definitely received their wish so far), the wind had a bit of a bite in it, and it began to snow this afternoon.

As the Nature Club filed into our house this afternoon, I pondered out loud, "What do we need to do to make it spring here?"  One fellow, who was dropping off his sister, glumly replied that the Sun Salutations he was doing hadn't helped yet.  Maybe if more people were doing them, the balance would tip in the favour of Spring.  The rest, as if by reading my mind, replied that we should start planting things. 

And so planting we did, as we shoveled earth into our grow pots and planted the tiny seeds of some Roma tomatoes and sweet peppers, both ingredients for the pizza garden we planned a couple of meetings ago.  Spring, I'm hoping you'll win the battle and take claim to what is rightly yours, seeing as it is April after all.  If not, how will the Club grow their pizza garden?  Is it too early to start preparing this eager little troupe that the garden may fail before it's even in the ground, and to console them by reminding them the most rewarding learning experiences come when things don't work out exactly as planned?  Hmmm...sounds a little defeatist, and perhaps on the overdramatic side.  I think I'll hold off on that for a bit.

But the glum weather led me to change our plans a little bit.  I have scads of old seeds that I don't think will germinate well.  We were going to use them to make pictures with, by drawing a simple picture, covering it with glue and sprinkling seeds on top.  Instead, we opted to make popcorn.  Popcorn's a seed, right, so it was an easy substitution.  We read The Popcorn Book, then hovered over the stove to watch the popcorn seeds explode inside the pot.  By the time our late snack was finished, the snow had stopped and everyone tumbled outside to play in the fort Jaelyn, Astrin and I had made this morning.

At any rate, now the onions have some company.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Hmmm...I do think that spring is making a valiant attempt to arrive here!  The sun felt just a bit warmer and the snow is perfect for snowballs.

With that in mind, Nature Club did a wee bit more to prepare for our pizza garden, by fertilizing and watering our young onion seedlings.

I provided Nature Club with bananas, carrots and hard-boiled eggs for a snack, with instructions to save their leftover peels and shells.  As we cut the banana peels with scissors, peeled the carrots and ground up the egg shells, we chatted a bit about the worms. 

I told them the story of how the ancestors of our worms entered our lives the same year that Jaelyn was born, and how those worms were of the revolutionary variety...meaning that we often found worms who had escaped from their container when we awoke in the morning.  And while we know it wasn't that worms wanted to escape from us but rather the less-than-ideal conditions we had created in their container, we struggled to fix it.  I had nightmares about walking across the floor with worms squishing underneath my feet.

We also talked about gizzards, which the worms use to digest their food.  The eggshells we crushed help them use their gizzards more effectively.

The worms don't escape anymore, thanks to a new container system, which is actually three plastic totes stacked one on top of the other.  The two top totes have holes drilled in the bottom so that liquid can escape.  The lid of the top tote also has holes so that air can circulate.

I'm pleased to see how nice the compost looks like!  I was also pleased at how the Club eagerly dug around among our kitchen scraps, shredded newspaper and worm casing to find some Red Wiggler friends.  Eventually we fed the fellows our snack scraps, then we pulled off the top two totes to see the "compost tea" that had collected.  This stuff is potent, so I demonstrated, using a syringe, how to drop just a bit (5 drops) of compost tea in each of the planter cells, followed by a good watering.  These onions are looking good so far!

With the worms were taken care of and the onions were tended to, we cleaned up our messy hands and made our way out to enjoy that glorious sunshine!

Here's a little poem I found (in case I needed it for the transition from snack to worms).

The Worm by Ralph Bergengren

When the earth is turned to spring
The worms are fat as anything.
And birds come flying all around
To eat the worms right off the ground.
They like worms just as much as I
Like bread and milk and apple pie.
And once, when I was very young,
I put a worm right on my tongue.
I didn't like the taste a bit,
And so I didn't swallow it.
But oh, it makes my Mother squirm
Because she thinks I ate that worm!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

I had an epiphany almost immediately after our last Nature Club meeting.  As it turned out, as the week came to an end, I could see ahead to the weekend.  And the weekend was to bring "Seedy Saturday", a local event for gardeners to get together, swap seeds saved from last year's garden, or peruse the offerings of heirloom or organic seed from local vendors.  Somehow, wires must have crossed in my brain, and I thought that an epic trek through a season of gardening would be something the Club could do all summer. 

It seemed perfect.  Not much prep work on my part - meetings would kick off with a story or poem, followed by observing our garden plot, weeding, watering, and generally enjoying the great outdoors.  Diving into the deep recesses of my memory brought back the idea of creating a pizza garden, from Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots.  While our garden would not be a massive, circular, pizza-shaped plot, one of our raised beds would hold the essentials for a nicely dressed pizza. 

Today's meeting focussed on getting some ideas of what the children liked for pizza toppings.  I was silently dreading that the only emphatic responses would be ham and pineapple, which I had no intention of trying to grow in my backyard!  Fortunately, the group came up with a pretty impressive list:

  ~ Peppers
  ~ Tomatoes
  ~ Carrots
  ~ Zucchini
  ~ Peas
  ~ Basil
  ~ Mint
  ~ Garlic
  ~ Onion
  ~ Cucumber (for on the side)

We also talked a bit about a pizza with an enormous amount of cheese.  And again, while it would be neat to have a cow in the backyard, it's illegal.  But, it got me thinking of a session where we make our own mozzarella cheese.  Hmmm....that could be interesting.  I'll need to look into that.

We finished off our reverie of all things pizza and garden by starting some seeds.  Today, we planted onions and the Club will care for them when they are here.  We agreed I should look after them when they aren't here (of course!).  We also planted some herbs in empty eggshells and origami newspaper cups (project idea from Alphabet Glue) that the clubbers could take home.

I'm looking forward to a yummy summer wrap-up party!

 

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Nature Club today was down-to-your-bones good.  Given the ridiculously hectic week we're almost through, I decided to do something easy for Nature Club this week.  We strapped on a pair of snowshoes and went to see what we could see at the park.  In all honesty, the activity itself was exactly the same as what the Birds of Prey Club did two meetings ago.  Minus the infighting, though.  And plus a few nature walk spottings of the footprint and scat variety.

And we had fun!  We giggled!  We fell in the knee-deep snow, then practically ate it trying to push back up to standing!  We played Predator and Prey where a whole family of rabbits sadly met it's demise at the hands of a crafty bobcat (and wolf and lynx). I was delighted to learn that the Clubbers had an opportunity to try something they had never done before.

And somehow today, I found an action I can take to cool my anger of the heritage school demolition I mentioned yesterday.  Sometime this morning, my mind floated back to the vacations we've taken the last two years.  Each one had a significant history component to them.  The ones that captivated the children the most were the places where we could see the buildings both inside and out.  It really made all the stories we'd read to the children come alive.  As we crossed the St. Lawrence River from Lévis to Québec City, we mused about how the British must have felt facing those intimidating cliffs and walls.  We took ourselves back to a simpler time as we strolled down Lover's Lane and explored the childhood haunts of Lucy Maud Montgomery.  My children actually stood stock still at a doorway like a sentinel for several minutes simply because we were inside the fortifications at the Citadel in Halifax.  Simply seeing exhibits describing history, such as the Acadian museum we visited, held much less fascination.

There is a business case for preserving historic sites and buildings.  To aid in building that business case, I can simply tell our story and the differences in the experiences I've seen.  A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a real-life experience is a feast for all the senses.  Given that the school was built when this city was in its infancy, it tells not only about what the school experience used to be like in the "good old days".  It tells the story of a people.  It gives clues as to how this city came to be as it is, even if those who now hold the reins of power wish it to be no more.

The clock is ticking for that old gal.  I'd better get writing.

Club Day. The Nature Version. And Valentine's too.

This one will be short and sweet, so that I can squeeze one last little bit of Valentine's spirit out to those around me.  Since Nature Club fell on Valentine's Day, we made a Valentine's-inspired craft.  We needle-felted hearts and other shapes.

This craft seemed perfect for today, for me at least.  Warm and wooly, natural and beautiful, meditative and requiring attention, what's not to love? 

Here's what you need to needle-felt hearts, stars, or whatever other shape your heart desires:

  ~ wool in two colours - one for the main shape and the other in a contrasting colour, if you wish.  Or shake it up and make your shape a rainbow of colours.
  ~ felting needles
  ~ sponge scrub pads
  ~ cookie cutters

Here's what to do:

  1.  Place the cookie cutter on the sponge, then put the main wool inside the cookie cutter, making sure that all spaces are covered.  Expect that the wool will puff out the top of the cookie cutter.  You can see from the picture about how much wool I used for the size of the cookie cutter.
  2.  Push the needle through the wool and (likely) into the sponge repeatedly.  Start along the edge of the cookie cutter, then work your way inwards.  The wool should become considerably flat.
  3.  Remove the cookie cutter, then gently remove the wool from the sponge.  Replace the cookie cutter on the sponge, then turn the wool over and place it back in the cookie cutter.  The wool will likely be larger than the cookie cutter, as it expanded once the cookie cutter was removed and it was pulled off the sponge.  Do the best you can to line everything up. 
  4.  Again, starting along the edges and working towards the centre, push the needle through the wool repeatedly until it holds its shape well on its own.
  5.  Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you are satisfied with the density of the felt.
  6.  Remove the cookie cutter, but keep the shape on the sponge.  Carefully needle felt (as in step 2) around the edge of the shape.
  7.  If you wish to add a monogram or other design, take a very small piece of contrasting wool.  Roll it back and forth between your palms, like how you would roll a snake out of modelling clay, to tighten the fibres a bit.  Place it on the main shape in the desired shape and needle felt it into place.  You may wish to tuck the ends of the contrasting wool underneath itself so that the ends are neat.


Happy heart day to you!