Sprout Scouts Playcamp: Grow Your Own Green Thumb, From Farm[ers Market] to Table

Here at the Sprout Scouts Playcamp, the garden is in its next phase of harvest. Many things are blooming and growing in spite of me and we're enjoying a small but bountiful harvest of fresh herbs, tomatoes, green beans, flowers, and even still some hot peppers. We have faced and organically fought squash bugs and have one mini pumpkin and one mini gourd to show for it. We have done a fair amount of taste testing, cooking, baking and preserving in our kitchen, but when it came to the next part of our Grow Your Own Green Thumb play-theme, taking it from the garden to the table, I decided to leave our home altogether and head to the local Farmers Market. We've made occasional visits to farmers markets here this summer and when we had an unexpected day freed up to visit one of my favorites, we brought our bags, our appetites and a great free printable scavenger hunt from Natural Beach Living. You can print off your own and other great farmers market themed printables here! S and Y both got to pick a fruit or vegetable to taste and bring home. S wanted nectarines and Y wanted cucumbers (probably to make pickles, his new favorite food).

Getting out in the garden is a great way to get kids involved in growing, tasting and cooking with their own fresh produce. Whether you have an adventurous eater or a more tentative taster (I've got one of each now), experiencing the full process of seasonal eating is a valuable experience. If you live near a farmers market, I highly encourage you to take your family on an adventure. Try something new. Talk to the farmers. Get excited about fruits, veggies and flowers! If you do not live near a farmers market, consider a trip to a U-pick farm (we went strawberry picking earlier this summer) or even a trip to your local grocery store. 

Scavenger hunts are a great way to explore the colors and flavors of the season. Consider researching recipes for a new to you fruit or vegetable. We even made an adventure (and a bracha) out of trying a new fruit from a produce stand in Brooklyn, NY while on vacation! Another option if your location and budget permit is to join a CSA and have locally grown produce delivered right to your door (or another nearby location) year round. We subscribe to one on a bi-weekly basis and adjust our grocery budget accordingly. This helps us to eat in season and be a bit more creative about recipe planning and using what we have.

Summer is a great season to grow and harvest a plethora of produce. As it comes to a close, we will enjoy the flavors of Autumn and get creative about savoring and preserving the remaining summer abundance. We will also get creative about continuing to garden both outdoors in our longer southern summer season and then indoors once the cool weather arrives. It feels important to still be surrounded by growth, life and fresh flavors! Until the next time...

Happy Playing!

Miniature Playgarden: BIG Fun for small Hands!

Growing your own garden is a BIG deal, involving some BIG tools and BIG movement and if you're lucky, a BIG harvest to reap. Small hands can definitely be a BIG help in a garden and sometimes, when you need to water or pull weeds or re-pot some starter plants in a BIG hurry before it gets too dark out, you need your little hands to be busy with something. And there's something so magical and whimsical about little things. Little hands just love to hold and play with little things. Even my "bigger" sense of wonder is awakened when little things come to life through play.

Fairy gardens and miniature gardening is so popular among the world of big people today that I am inherently reminded of the powerful nature of play with nature. It is undoubtedly vital to little people and big people alike! I admire the sight of whimsically set up fairy gardens and miniature scenes, but the little person who still exists within me does not just want to look and admire, I want to play! So we gathered some materials from indoors and outside and created our own living miniature playgarden. And with some materials and toys you already have on hand and in your own yard or garden, you can, too!

The Bare Bones Basics:
Plants:

The world of our miniature playgarden extends into the grassy forest of our yard...

I love the idea of a living playgarden. I chose to use real succulent plants for this purpose for a few reasons. One, is that they are fairly low maintenance in terms of water needs and climate. They do well outdoors in the summer where we live and just as well indoors in the wintertime. Secondly, they are pretty sturdy when it comes to meeting little hands. S is pretty aware of how to be gentle to growing plants. Y is not so aware...and being that this playgarden also involves a lot of tiny miniatures, it is more an activity for S at this point. To adapt for younger ones, you might choose some larger wooden peg dolls (unpainted) and furniture and allow for play in an outdoor grassy area or garden space. Finally, succulents often come in miniature size. Now, they won't stay that way forever (you should see my "tiny" aloe plant!) but it's a great place for them to start until they require a larger home! Alternatively, you can use any small-scale plants, even herbs would be lovely. If you prefer the look of a garden without the maintenance, you can opt for artificial replicas. Some are quite realistic! This is also a great option for indoors (although our playgarden can be maintained inside or outside, year round).

Soil:
When gardening with and for children, especially with a garden they be tending to, I prefer an organic, untreated soil. These are not necessarily more money than MiracleGro type soils and for some reason I worry a little less about my kid eating dirt with worm castings than I do about dirt with mysterious green pellets... (I never said there was any logic to this!)
A Container:
Our miniature playgarden world is not limited to a container or to the garden itself. However, planting your playgarden in a container of some sort does allow for mobility. I have heard and read about amazing miniature gardens planted outdoors in a full size garden--even one including a remote control train! Since we are container gardeners in our shared yard space, a container playgarden is the perfect accessory. As an added bonus, it can be played with indoors on a rainy day (like the day we actually planted it and set it up) or brought outdoors for play. I chose a metal tub but any type of container will do. It can be as simple or elaborate as you like! You could even set up a few containers with different plants for your miniature gardeners to explore.

Optional Add-ins:
This is where the fun starts! I like to mix in a collection of natural and man-made materials. Start with less and your little gardeners will know what more is needed. Here's a list of ideas of items you might add in for play, but do not feel limited or overwhelmed. You can use what you have on hand and a lot can be done with natural items like rocks, pebbles, seeds and pods alone!

• toy people or wooden peg dolls
• toy animals, birds or bugs
• miniature doll furniture
• miniature doll accessories
• miniature dishes and food--or you can make your own from acorns, tiny leaves, seeds, pebbles and flowers...
• mosaic tiles and shapes
• acrylic gems
• tree circles or blocks
• driftwood
• rocks, pebbles, stones
• pine cones, seed pods, acorns
• leaves, weeds, wildflowers

With fairy gardens being so popular, you might find some cute additions in your local craft supply stores (and even dollar stores) that are intended for crafting. These can be used at play as well, though some items may be more delicate. I find that most children can be made aware of this and handle "real" materials ever so gently. 

Play & Between-Play Storage

Watching the way S weaves stories and adventures through our miniature playgarden is so exciting to me! It is an activity we revisit almost daily, especially during the time that Y is napping (so no tiny, yet giant hands are plowing their way through his play scene). 

"I'm planting a popsicle garden," he explained, sticking long, colorful glass stones in the soil. "I don't know if it will grow..."

Sure enough, the next morning, the popsicles were ready to harvest and a hungry raccoon was all too eager for his freshly picked ice-cold treat!

Storage is an important consideration, especially if you are using your miniature playgarden outside where it will be exposed to the elements. I learned (the hard way) earlier this year that wooden toy furniture is not waterproof when it is glued together by non-waterproof glue! Oops... I store non-water resistant toys and materials in plastic shoe-box sized containers with a tightly sealing lid. This also makes it easy to transport wherever you wish to play--even miniature people like to take an exotic vacation or go camping on occasion... 

Hope this gives you a little inspiration for some BIG fun this summer. We will be back soon and until then...

Happy Playing!

Sprout Scouts Playcamp: Taking Inventory, Collecting, Cutting & Arranging Your Garden Harvest

Gardening comes with a lot of hands-on work and care as you dig, plant, water and weed. But then there is the hands-off aspect--the parts that involve waiting and watching and walking around carefully. Surely, gardens are meant to be appreciated but they are also meant to be used. Food gardens are an obvious source of fruits, vegetables and herbs that can be harvested and used in the kitchen when the time is right, but our gardens provide us with a lot of other ways to appreciate our harvest throughout the seasons.

Flower gardens especially tend to be in the category of "hands-off appreciation." Weeds are pulled and tossed away. Even parts of food gardens that we don't necessarily eat or use get quickly composted or tossed aside. Through the eyes of a child (and an adult), these can be objects of beauty! Even if you do not have a garden, you likely have access to a lawn with some interesting weeds or a nearby area with wildflowers. When it comes to picking flowers and plants in nature, I do teach children a few core rules:

• Always ask a grown-up before touching touching a plant. Some plants can be unsafe.
• Always ask a grown-up if it is OK to pick or cut a plant. Some areas, especially nature preserves, may have rules about this.
• When you are cutting or picking a flower from nature, try to choose ones that are abundant in supply so that many will be left over.
• When you are cutting from a plant, try not to cut the outermost blossom or leaf, as this can alter the future growth of the plant. A grown-up can help show you a good spot to cut.
• Some plants and flowers are edible and safe, but not all of them. Always check with a grown-up before eating anything you pick outside.

Pansies were one of the first things we planted early this spring and they are still growing strong out front, now accompanied by some petunias and salvia plants. As We've enjoyed their beauty in our garden, it occurred to me that we could clip some blossoms to bring inside and enjoy! Not only would this bit of the outdoors bring life and color indoors, but it also makes room for new blooms to blossom. As we settle into our summer rhythm here, it has worked best for Y to have a short morning nap and S has loved this time with just the two of us. Often we take a morning garden inventory to see what is growing, what is ready to be harvested and collect any "garden treats" we can find. This morning's garden inventory revealed a small crop of beans ready to be picked, a sweet pepper, a nasturtium and some green tomatoes in waiting...

As we enjoy the hands-on experience of gardening, S especially loves using a collection of toy animals, peg dolls and accessories in our mini playgarden and surrounding yard...

We headed back through to the front yard with scissors carefully in hand and a small glass vase. It was time to cut some flowers for arranging! I, the adult, with the less discerning eye, of course headed straight to the flower garden. S, the child full of wonder and an untainted sense of beauty also found the most lovely clovers, tall blades of grass and other interesting weeds. He asked each time whether it was OK to cut and where to clip.

Herbs can also make a lovely bouquet or addition to a bouquet. They are so very fragrant and lovely and especially ones that bolt and flower (like basil, dill, parsley and cilantro--even lettuces) can make a gorgeous addition to your indoor arrangements. Even carrot tops, overly abundant green tomatoes and other greens that you don't intend to use from vegetables in your garden can be arranged alongside flowers in a vase. They will surely be conversation starters at your dining room table!

The garden is truly a place of wonder and curiosity. Although we garden on a small scale due to small space, a tiny taste of our tiny harvest is truly a treat! And even the more particular taste testers are eager to take at least a little nibble!

I hope this inspires you to enjoy and savor every bit your hard work and harvest. Happy Harvesting & Happy Playing!

Sprout Scouts Playcamp: Grow Your Own Green Thumb, Part 2

Exploring Plants & Flowers Through the Five Senses

Gardening is certainly a hands-on experience and anytime we engage our children's senses, we appeal to the variety of ways in which they learn and grow. In Part 2 of this play theme, we will explore plants and flowers through all five senses!

Touch: 

Digging in the dirt, sitting in the grass, the cool water of a sprinkler, the variety of textures of a rock or a stick--gardening is a tactile smorgasbord! So often, however, when it comes to gardens and plants we tell our children "look with your eyes, don't touch!" If you have the space to allow for it, I highly recommend allowing a plot for children to garden on their own--mistakes, learning experiences and all! If not, planting your own "Please Touch the Plants" Garden will be a great way to introduce a variety of textures to little fingers in your yard, in a container or even indoors.

What to Plant:

Select a variety of succulents from your local garden center. Aloe, lambs ear, yucca, hens and chicks, desert rose, burro's tail, and snake plant are all popular options. Avoid cacti with sharp thorns. Do opt for a variety of textures, heights and colors.

We planted a few pots with a selection of succulents. I used permanent marker and some garden tags I had on hand to make some "Please Touch the Plants" signs and voila! I have to say, this feels like a grown up version of touch & feel books for me! From fuzzy to feathery, bumpy and smooth--this a wonderful way to explore textures and related vocabulary.

Petal Potions Water Table: Playing with real flower petals is so much fun! We love to give our fresh cut flowers one last hurrah before they head to the compost heap and this is one wonderful way to do that. Alternatively, you can pick some wildflowers from outside or hit up your local florist for rejects and flowers that can't be sold.
Truly, water, flowers and maybe a dish and a spoon (or long stem) are all you need. We added some glitter and food coloring along with a bit of lavender oil for scent. It was a huge hit with both my boys!

Sensitive Plants are a fascinating wonder of this world! If you can get your hands on one (literally), it truly is an amazing thing to experience a plant respond to touch. It's definitely on my gardening wish list!

Sound
What to Plant: 

• With an eye toward the Fall, plant some mini gourds this summer to grow your own shakers in the fall! Once harvested and dried, the seeds inside a gourd create a natural and beautiful homegrown musical instrument.
• In the interim, plant flowers and plants that will attract songbirds to your garden. Marigolds, sunflowers, daisies and asters are just a few. Read about others in this article from National Geographic.

Take a Sound Scavenger Hunt Walk: Whether it's through your own yard, your neighborhood, a park or nature preserve or even your local botanical gardens, taking a nature walk with an ear toward the sounds of the garden can be fascinating! Can you hear birds? Bugs like bees or cicadas? Can you hear frogs or toads? Ducks or geese? What about man-made noises like lawnmowers or hedge trimmers? We often go to the garden for some peace and quiet--and peaceful, it certainly is--but rarely is it truly quiet. When you open up your ears outdoors, you can truly discover the orchestra of your garden!

Make Your Own Windchimes: This is great activity to empty your recycling bin with. You'll need a variety of items (particularly tin/metal) like cans, bottles, lids, CDs, even old spoons and forks. Use an old hanger or an overturned colander and some twine and have an adult help with any necessary handiwork with tools. 

Build a Garden Sound Wall: If you have the space for it (and no neighbors super close by), building a sound wall with interesting recycled and upcycled items is a great way to encourage budding musicians of all ages outside. If there is one thing I have learned from both my boys so far, it is that anything can be a drum! Grab a spoon, a stick or your hands and play away!

Smell:

What to Plant: Plant or purchase starter plants of a variety of herbs. I recommend some familiar varieties and a few unique ones as well.

Identifying Herbs: You can release the aroma of herbs by gently rubbing a leaf between your fingers and thumb. You can demonstrate and teach children how to do this even without removing a leaf from the plant. Thyme can be quite aromatic simply by brushing your hand over the tiny leaves!

What's That Smell? You'll really need your sniffer for this game! Have each player rub a leaf of familiar cut herbs between his/her fingers and thumb and try to guess the smell.  You may need to provide a visual or written key. You can add an element of challenge by blindfolding players so they can really hone in on their sense of smell.

That Reminds Me Of...  What smells like lemons but isn't? How about chocolate? Pineapple? Cinnamon? Licorice? Herbs, of course! Lemon thyme, chocolate mint, pineapple sage, cinnamon basil and fennel are all great herbs to trick your sniffer and enhance your dinner (or tea)!

Mortar & Pestle Play: One of my very favorite gardening tools that isn't a gardening tool at all is our mortar and pestle sets! These are great for grinding all kinds of things, but especially fresh cut herbs are amazing in this along with some elbow grease from little hands. It is great fun to grind and smell herbs individually and in combination.

Sensory Play with Herbs: Add in some water and take the aromatic experience of exploring scent with herbs to a whole new level! Choose a variety of herbs that smell lovely in combination like a few types of mint, or lavender and rosemary.

Added to a batch of homemade playdough, cut herbs become decorative and add in a lovely scent and texture. In this simple invitation to play with herbs and playdough, we used some sprigs of fresh cut herbs, scissors and rolling pins. The result was a heavenly aroma and hours of fun!

Sight:

What to Plant: Visual appeal is a huge part of gardening, and what could be more visually appealing than planting a rainbow? Read Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert and then head to your local garden center to choose your own rainbow of flowers, plants and maybe even vegetables.

Plant, Grow & Eat a Rainbow Collage: To prepare for this activity, you'll need a large sheet of drawing paper with the outline of a rainbow drawn on. You can set up six or seven sections depending on whether or not you will include indigo and violet as in a true rainbow or just purple. Enlist the help of older children to cut colorful pictures from recycled seed catalogs or gardening magazines. Children can sort the pictures into color categories. With younger ones, I like to isolate one color row at a time. We love double sided tape for this project but you can also use a glue stick or white glue. 

Garden Scavenger Hunt: We love a great scavenger hunt here! You'll really need your sense of sight to find pollinators, songbirds, flowers, herbs, vegetables, worms, a rock and any number of other things in your own garden. You can create your own scavenger hunt list or try one of the great Spring Nature Scavenger Hunts at I Heart Crafty Things. You can search your own garden or yard, walk through your neighborhood or visit a community garden, park or botanical garden center.

Through Their Eyes: How do our gardens look through the eyes of an ant? Or a butterfly? Or a bird? Using storytelling and dramatic play, try to imagine how plants and flowers look to the little critters and creatures in our gardens. You can also add in some viewing tools to the mix like binoculars, prisms, magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes.

Art in the Garden: Nature is its own art form and gardens can be a true masterpiece. Incorporate children's art into the garden and even invite children to create art outdoors. For more ideas, check out our Art and Artists in the Garden play-theme!

Plot Plans: Whether you're actually planning and designing your garden or just drawing up a dream, graph paper is the perfect base to this art activity to design your own garden. Add in your favorite drawing utensils (we love oil pastels here) and perhaps some stickers or magazine clippings of vegetables, fruits and flowers and design your own garden blueprints.

Taste:

What to Plant: When it comes to growing your own edible garden, I highly recommend planting at least one thing you know you like and at least one thing you know will grow well! This year, we tried (and succeeded!) at growing our own strawberries. We are on year 3 of very successful cherry tomatoes. If you want to mix it up a bit, grow a pizza garden with tomatoes, peppers, and favorite savory herbs. Or try a salsa garden with tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and onions and perhaps some hot peppers. Try a traditional Three Sisters Garden with squash, beans and corn. Growing our own produce has been a way to encourage trying new foods while also providing a unique and personalized "farm to table" experience in our own backyard.

U-Pick Plot-Luck Playdate: Summer is just beginning and our own garden is just beginning to provide us with a small harvest of arugula, sweet peppers, strawberries, and herbs, galore! Radishes are just a couple of weeks away and we have a steady crop of microgreens in our kitchen window. We pick and enjoy what we can as it comes, but at a certain point, the bounty exceeds our own plates and pallets! That's when it's time for a Plot-Luck Playdate! Gather some neighbors or friends and enjoy the harvest together. You can invite others to bring tasty treats from their own garden or provide the produce yourself. Build your own pizza parties are a popular choice and even pickier eaters might have fun with a garden salad bar! Children can be involved in as much of the process as possible--from harvesting and picking produce to washing, cutting, preparing and baking--and most importantly, eating!

Extra, Extra, Eat All About It: Pair some fresh picked produce with a popular children's book. Here are a few of our favorite pairings:

• Fresh Picked Jam Berries go quite nicely alongside Jamberry by Bruce Degen, Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban ,and The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood. They're so yummy right off the plant, but they are also quite delicious made into jam. Try out this easy recipe for Quick Refrigerator Strawberry Jam.

• Blueberries are great for snacking and delicious in pancakes. Mix up a batch of your favorite pancake recipe and see how many blueberries are left to add in once you're done munching! You'll definitely want to read Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal while you're waiting for them to brown.

• Pick a Pickling Cucumber and read Pickles to Pittsburgh, the equally wonderful sequel to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Ron and Judi Barrett. Then whip up a batch of Easy Refrigerator Dill Pickles!

• Quick and Easy Fresh Mint Tea is the perfect way to use some of super easy to grow mint leaves in your garden or kitchen window. Enjoy it warm or iced or even mixed with lemonade and read Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk! 

Gardening with children is a full sensory experience. This is just a sampling of activities to accompany and enhance that experience. We will be back with more activities to take you from Garden to Table next time (although this post probably gave you a little taste of what's to come). Until then...

Happy Playing!

Sprout Scouts Playcamp Bonus Activiity: Four Colorful Ways to (Re-) Use Your Old Seed Catalogs

We are getting ready for our first theme based week of Sprout Scouts Playcamp. Picking up a container of worms is actually on my list of things to do today and I can't wait to dig in to our Digging in the Dirt theme tomorrow morning with the boys! We have been starting our mornings with a table time activity both boys can do each day per S's request to have "Morning Work" as he did in his preschool classroom. Right before Shabbos this week, my husband retrieved a seed catalog I'd ordered from the mailbox. I pored over every colorful page on Friday night and the only way to keep us safe from me ordering a $400 plant tower with built in vermicomposting bin is for me to cut that thing up ASAP! So this morning, my husband took both boys out (THANK YOU!) and I curled up with a cup of coffee, scissors and my seed catalog and I introduce to you today...

Four Colorful Ways to Re-use Your Old Seed Catalogs:

Suggested Materials:

• seed catalogs
• scissors
• double sided tape
• clear contact paper
• glue or glue stick
• masking tape, painters tape or scotch tape
• washi tape (optional)
• large drawing paper
• markers, pencils, crayons
• DIY Rainbow Nature Journal 

A couple of things before we begin--
Children who are old enough to use scissors can definitely cut out pictures independently. It's a great cutting practice activity and recycled magazines and catalogs are a great addition to your scrap paper bin. Recycling, re-using and up-cycling are all integral parts of our Sprout Scouts Playcamp themes and our family values all year round. If you do not have a seed catalog or don't want to cut yours up (please send the Garden Tower 2 to the following address...), you can recycle any home and garden magazine, clippings from store ads, old seed packets or even print off pictures from your own photos or the internet. Many libraries also have old magazines on sale for less than a dollar. Your funds would support the library and give new life to an old publication.

Suggested Reading:

• Planting a Rainbow, Growing Vegetable Soup and Eating the Alphabet all by Lois Ehlert

When it comes to children's literature about nature and gardening, Lois Ehlert is one of my favorite author/illustrators! Her children's books truly inspire get outdoors and read with my kids in every season. These are just a few great titles to check out from your local library or add to your personal library.

• The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller
• A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Aston & Sylvia Long
• What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz

I set our pictures in a bag hung over the doorhandle
right beside our sticky wall. You can store yours on a
shelf nearby or in a basket or tray depending on where
your sticky wall is located. You can also tape a large
envelope to the wall and store pictures inside.

1. What's Growing in Your Garden Sticky Wall: In our first activity, you'll set up a sticky wall using clear contact paper on any vertical surface at child level. You can tape it to your wall, a door or even an easel. I love using a colorful washi tape border to make it pop (otherwise it really blends in!), but you can just use masking tape, painters tape or even clear scotch tape. Using cut outs of colorful vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs and gardening supplies, children can stick pictures onto the sticky wall. This is especially geared toward the 2 and under crowd, but my almost 4 year old also loves the sticky wall!
2. Garden Wish Collage: In a variation of the previous theme, children plan and plot out their own dream garden using markers or crayons to draw the background and pictures cut out from seed catalogs to add what they wish or hope to grow. Older children can be shown garden plans and blueprints and you can even provide graph paper for a more realistic approach. Younger ones may be more inclined to glue on pictures and use markers or crayons for adding in background details.

3. Plant, Grow and Eat a Rainbow Collage: Although this involves a bit of prep work from adults or older children, it's a really fun way to explore the rainbow color by color. Before you begin, you'll need to use pencil to draw the outline of a rainbow onto large drawing paper. Provide enough sections for each color. If you are being true to the colors of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, you'll need seven sections. If you are combining indigo and violet, you'll need only six. I like to introduce one color in isolation when I do rainbow collages in this way or at least two non-consecutive colors so that it is easier for children to see where the materials belong. More advanced artists can likely do the whole collage in one sitting, but I prefer to do only one or two colors at a time--and with the very young (like Y) only one. You can provide glue or a glue stick or even prep the area yourself, but I love using double sided tape strips so that the area is sticky but not in danger of drying or spreading stickiness to unwanted areas before artists can finish their work. A little pro-tip with larger picture sizes is to cut them into multiple squares or rectangles so they will fit into your allotted space. Your finished work will make a lovely poster to hang indoors or even laminate and hang in your garden.

4 .Growing a Rainbow Nature Journal: We are using our Rainbow Nature Journals with seed catalog cut outs and double sided tape to collect pictures in each color that we particularly love. It's a beautiful way to capture the rainbow of things we can plant, grown and eat!

These are great filler activities and ones you can pull out or set out over the course of multiple days. I'll bet you can think of even more great ideas and I'd love to steal hear about them! Until then...

Happy Planting, Growing, Eating and PLAYING!

Make it At Home Monday: Rainbow Nature Journal

Hooray, hooray, it's finally today! The first "official" day of our Sprout Scouts Playcamp. I'll bet you think I had a million and two things planned out for today to kick off our amazing summer. You probably think I executed them all exquisitely in a graceful dance that resemble some freakish crossbreed between June Cleaver and Teacher Tom. Actually, no. Not even close. With all of the planning I have done for our Sprout Scouts Playcamp (insert shameless plug to join our Facebook group and share in our activities this summer), I really felt strongly that we all (myself included) need a week to ease into this whole being at home together thing. S has very mixed feelings about school ending. He is "nervous" about not having school (it's like we're related or something!), he misses his school friends and he wants things to be the same--including the routine of having "Morning Work."

All things we can deal with here! This morning, both boys sat at the little table (thank you, Tatty, for helping with this while I eased into the morning with some coffee and oatmeal) and played with playdough using our favorite garden playdough mats from Picklebums. Playdough is an activity that can easily captivate their attention for a whole morning, but today everyone was excited to pack up and head to our local Botanical Gardens. It's the kind of place I drool over. I have been quoted (accurately) in a preschool graduation speech as referring to it as "my perfect classroom." Yes, I would live there if we could but we shall have to settle for visiting as often as possible this summer (and all year round).

On my way out the door, I grabbed a book to bring along, Lois Ehlert's Planting a Rainbow, partly because I love this book, partly because it fit in my purse. We rarely need any take-along activities on our visits to the botanical gardens, but this was a good backup just in case, and both boys loved hearing it as we ate our picnic lunch.

While we were there, S and Y both tried their hands at some art under their giant tree house. Today's activity was watercolor painting at some makeshift easels. This reminded me of how much I have been dreaming of having an outdoor easel. I asked my husband if he could kind of DIY one for us this summer--even showed him a Pinterest photo--and he kind of chuckled the way he did when I asked for a wine bottle rack to store all of my sensory bottles... Nonetheless, as we all left the gardens somewhat reluctantly but sufficiently tuckered out, I had plans to figure out how to construct something in our own yard for outdoor painting and I also remembered this cute little project I did with S as a young toddler based on Planting a Rainbow. 






Well, a great miracle happened here and no one took an accidental car nap on the way home! Both boys fell asleep and I investigated the front and backyard contemplating ways to create an easel space. Ok, maybe my husband is right and we don't need any more junk really cool stuff loitering around our play garden and keeping our pop up greenhouse company... But then I remembered our door is magnetic. Our door is magnetic! Introducing the easiest, most portable outdoor easel ever, a magnetic bulldog clip!
Such a fine line between genius and madness, huh? The boys are eager to get back outside (especially S) and play in our own garden. I've set a couple of easel stations and some watercolors out for us and when we're done, cleanup is easy peasey lemon squeezy!

But I promised you a post about making your own Rainbow Nature Journal, not one about my excessive excitement with magnetic vertical surfaces...

One of the most exciting features in Lois Ehlert's Planting a Rainbow is the second half of the book that opens up ladder style into a rainbow of colorful blooms, ready to be picked and displayed. I love the idea of presenting both boys with a nature journal to begin our summer together, and I decided creating a couple of small, portable rainbow ladder books would be a great way to do that! I've done this on a larger scale before with S (pictured above) and they can be created in a number of ways. For the smaller versions I made today, I cut six sheets of cardstock in rainbow colors in half (width-wise). Next, I set each page overlapping the next with about an inch of border. Once they were all aligned, I folded the booklet in half. I hole punched about an inch inward from either end on the crease and tied a length of twine through the middle to bind the book. I glued the edge of each page down on the "cover" side and the first, red edge down in the center. The larger book (above) was made in a different way--rather than folding in half, the fold was made about 1/4 of the way in to create larger page space inside. Tape and glue were used to bind it rather than twine. You can do either method! How will you use it? Here's a few ideas...

• Use some double sided tape and take a color scavenger hunt outdoors. Collect colorful petals, leaves and blooms that can be stuck onto each matching page of your journal.
• Using old magazines or seed catalogs, cut out pictures of colorful plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables to glue onto each page.
• Take and print photos of things in nature to glue onto each page.
• Use stickers of colorful items found in nature to stick to each page.

Or come up with your own great idea! And don't forget to share it...

Happy Playing!

Sprout Scouts Playcamp: Grow Your Own Green Thumb! Part 1

Grow Your Own Green Thumb!

Part 1: From Seed to Sprout...

Gardening is truly the overarching theme for our Sprout Scouts Playcamp and as such, I'm breaking it down into four parts: From Seed to Sprout, Plants & Flowers, From Garden to Table, and Terrific Trees. Today's post is a great starting point! Whether or not you have a green thumb, gardening with children is an incredible experience for everyone involved and the advantages are plentiful. I love this Fact Sheet from the University of Colorado that summarizes some of the many benefits of gardening with children. I have incredible memories of my own childhood gardening experiences, but to be completely honest--I've had a home garden in some form each year since my eldest was born and this is the first year I have enjoyed it. On the one hand, my eldest is now old enough to help and understand more (and help "teach" his younger brother). I also did some things quite differently this year and in today's post, I will aim to sow some seeds of inspiration and encouragement for you, whether you are an avid gardener or trying it out for the first time.

Why garden with children? Here are a few of my favorite reasons:

• it gets your body active
• it encourages healthful eating habits
• it connects children to their environment, to nature as a whole and the creatures we share it with and especially to the foods on the table (or flowers that decorate it)
• it inspires curiosity, self discovery and critical thinking
• it connects families and communities together
• it beautifies your home and neighborhood
• it can be done with very little space, on a low budget
• it fosters responsibility and independence
• it can be fun for a variety of age groups and generations
• it provides an opportunity to experience success and failure as part of a process rather than a means to an end

What resonates with you on that list? What would you add? To begin with today, I'll provide a suggested materials list. I do highly encourage planting and growing something this summer. Not every home and family is equipped to have a huge, edible garden. We actually live in a townhouse style apartment and share a common yard space. We're able to plant some things directly in the ground and have quite a plentiful crop in process this year through container gardening and a pop up greenhouse in our backyard. If you do have an interest in and means for a larger garden, go for it! You might even designate a space that is just for the kids. This was something my own mother did when I was growing up and it was quite special! If you are low on space and/or time, perhaps a container garden or a raised bed is more your style. You can even keep your gardening experience indoors with an edible kitchen garden if outdoors is not an option. Perhaps you live near a community garden and can rent/volunteer with a plot there. Or perhaps you have a neighbor who gardens and would like some help pulling weeds and sharing the harvest. I have heard incredible stories of school gardens being supported by families in the community over the summer months and even apartment complexes where neighbors banded together to create a community garden in a public space. While there is apparently such a thing as guerrilla gardening (who knew?), I recommend  taking the safer route and asking permission before planting anything in a space that is not your own.

Many people avoid gardening with children because they fear their plants will die. I've even heard folks encourage parents and families to only plant things that will be "easy" and "successful" so as not to discourage budding botanists. I could not disagree more! Failure is a natural part of the planting process and even with "easy" crops, it's still a possibility. Let this be a part of the experience and lesson rather than something that discourages or ends it. A good portion of the fun we have had this year in our garden so far has been navigating unexpected torrential downpours and troubleshooting ways to organically combat a host of unwanted creepy crawly visitors.

So, now that you're geared up to get going, where should you start? I'd highly recommend a local nursery and garden center. These are amazing community resources. Certainly big box stores, hardware suppliers and home improvement centers all have a variety of gardening products for sale and even the grocery store and Amazon can get you what you need without much of a drive (or any at all). But the one thing all of those places lack is the sense of community and connection that comes from talking to fellow gardeners! One of our local garden centers even has a free kids club that encourages young children with a free gift each month to get them planting, growing and learning in the garden. Just perusing the aisles of the greenhouse will certainly spark your children's interest and curiosity (if not your own as well)! 

My three year old fell in love with a strawberry plant on our first visit to the garden center this spring. I honestly thought it was not a good idea to buy one (the one we saw was actually enormous and half dead). Strawberries are also very prone to bug infestations and that is an issue for a kosher kitchen (not to mention the plant itself and anything else in your garden). I distracted him, walked on and then drove to another local garden center the next morning to pick up this lovely little guy. Well that was the best $5 I ever caved in and spent! He visits his plant at least twice a day to check how many berries are red, how many there are in all and pick (and wash and devour) whatever is ready to harvest. So be bold, be brave, try growing something you've never tried before--it's all part of the incredible process of gardening with kids!

Here are a few more tips to get you started from seed to sprout...

• Don't bite off more than you can chew. I cannot stress this enough. And I mean it on a variety of levels. Don't plant a bazillion different things if you don't have the time for it or space to accommodate it (or desire to eat it)! Pick a few things you know you like to eat and start with that. If you happen to want a larger variety in crops than you can accommodate in your own garden or you feel you won't be able to use enough of one with your own family, consider partnering with some neighbors or friends. One family can grow the tomatoes, another the zucchini and another the eggplant. Also, you do not need to plant all of your seeds and seedlings in one day! And you shouldn't either--in fact, if you can, choose some crops that can be stagger planted throughout the season. Where we live, radishes and lettuce can be planted and harvested relatively quickly in the early part of the spring and beans, peas and carrots do quite well even late into the fall.
• Choose some tried and true companions that you know will do well in your garden. You may need to do a bit of research if you're new to gardening in your area. You can inquire at your local nursery or ask a neighbor with a successful garden.
• Choose some more adventurous options and wing it! I'm attempting mini pumpkins and gourds this year. I have no idea if it will work, but what fun it would be to have some gourds and pumpkins to decorate our table this Autumn if it does!
• A seed is all you need. Seeds are incredible when you think about it. Everything a plant will ever need (aside from external environmental factors like soil, sun and water) is in that amazing little package. Choose at least one option to start from seed. Some good options include radish, bean, peas or sunflowers.
• Instant gratification is also a good encouragement for the impatient gardener (hi, that's me!) so selecting some starter plants may be a good idea as well. I love choosing a few hardy flowers in the early spring (like pansies) to plant in our yard as soon as the threat of frost is behind us. I also love fresh herbs. Herb starter plants are a great investment when it comes to growing an edible garden. They can be grown quite easily with plentiful sun exposure (even indoors) and having fresh herbs at your fingertips will save you a bundle on those pricey and less flavorful bundles available in the produce section. You can take clippings of many and pass them along to friends who can then start them in jars of water until they take root. They can then be transplanted and grown! You can also freeze, dry and otherwise preserve fresh herbs when the season draws to a close. These are inherently more flavorful and aromatic than their dried or even fresh grocery store counterparts. Many herbs will die off after one season but come back the following spring so long as they are not frozen. Microgreens are also quite popular at farmer's markets and local produce shops. You can grow your own indoors, year round in as little as 10-14 days and they really are a tasty (and nutrient dense) way to spice up your next salad! Something about being able to see and/or taste the fruits of your labor right away (or soon thereafter) truly inspires a desire to keep gardening as the season continues...
  

Suggested Materials:

Now that you have an idea of what you might like to grow, here are some suggested materials:

• seeds/starter plants of your choice
• containers, planting pots--whatever you have on hand
• gardening tools, watering can 
• soil--you don't need anything particularly fancy here, although if you're growing an edible garden with children, you may prefer organic/untreated options
• empty seed packs and any corresponding extra seeds
• snack sized ziplock bags, sandwich sized ziplock bags
• seed catalogs (these can be ordered free of charge from a variety of websites, including Gurney's and Burpee Seeds
• a nature journal, blank notebook, or paper
• glue stick, tape, scissors, school glue
• yellow and red tempura paint
• markers, crayons, pens, pencils
• magnifying glass
• paper towels or cotton balls
• a bag of mixed dried beans (often called bean soup mix)
• white paper plates
• dried black beans, poppy seeds or sunflower seeds

Now it's time to get planting and playing!

By this time, most zones are safe for direct outdoor planting. You can also choose to start seeds and/or seedlings indoors. One thing to consider as you are seed shopping and selecting is how much space you have and how much you want to grow and use. If you, like me, are short on space and might not consume a forest of tomatoes on your own, you might want to select varieties with a smaller yield or consider ways to share the wealth!

Alternatively, extra seeds can be saved and stored for the following year (they may be less potent by then) or used in some of the play activities below...

Host a community seed/seeding swap: The nature-based playgroup I run had a butterfly garden seed swap early this spring. Families were encouraged to contribute a pack of flower seeds that attract butterflies and other pollinators to the garden such as marigolds, morning glory, zinnia or petunias. Each participant went home with their own butterfly garden seed pack to grow or give away. As the weather grew warmer, we rediscovered our tomato crop for the third year in a row! Last year, it turned into an unruly tomato forest, so this year, I carefully dug up and transplanted several plants and put them up for local adoption! Later in the season you might host a community harvest swap to celebrate and share everyone's most successful yields.

Keep a Nature/Gardening Journal: One of the very best things you can gift your child with at the beginning of the summer is blank notebook! No assignments, no agenda, it can be used however they wish. They might find it enjoyable to use it to draw/dictate or write about the experience and process of gardening. This can include lists of what you're growing, drawings of your landscape or plot plans, still life drawings of flowers, fruits and vegetables, nature themed poetry or whatever strikes the imagination.

Garden Wish Collage: What do you hope to grow this year? Grab your seed catalogs (as long as you're done looking through them), some empty seed packets or even pictures of seeds, plants and flowers from old magazines. Cut and paste pictures of seeds and plants you'd like to go on a large piece of paper or in your nature/gardening journal.

Seed Observation Station and Match-It Game: Your recycled seed packets will come to play in two ways here! Save and preserve any leftover seeds and corresponding packets in snack sized ziplock bags. For your observation station, you'll combine seeds and the packet in the same bag. You may wish to staple or tape the top for reinforcement. Using a magnifying glass, you can observe the unique shapes, sizes and colors of a variety of different seeds for flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables. For the Match-It Game, you'll separate seeds and seed packets. Store and preserve seeds in a snack sized bag and keep the corresponding packets in a separate pile. The challenge now is to see if you and your children can accurately match the seed to its corresponding plant! Do small seeds always produce a small plant, fruit or vegetable? How about larger seeds? Can you recognize seeds from foods we eat (like beans or peas or pumpkin seeds)?

Do you eat seeds? It's quite fun to ask young children who eats seeds and listen as they all respond with birds and other animals like squirrels and chipmunks. Then I point out that we eat seeds as well! Snack on some popular (and less popular) seeds we eat--like pomegranate, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, cucumbers, zucchini, nuts, beans, peas and corn, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, even roasted squash seeds.

Do All Seeds Need Soil to Grow? In this indoor science experiment, you'll need a handful of different dried beans and peas (you can get a great selection from a bean soup mix). For each type of dried bean, use one ziplock bag and a wet paper towel or about half a dozen wet cotton balls. In each bag, drop in one or two of each type of bean. Seal your bags tightly--they will act like tiny little greenhouses! Hang your bags in a sunny window and observe over the next week or so which beans sprout and which do not. You can even record predictions and observations in your nature/gardening journal if you wish.

Another variation on this idea is to try sprouting sweet potatoes or baking potatoes (especially good use for ones that got a head start in this process on their own), carrots or other root vegetables in a glass or jar of water. You can also cut and sprout many fresh herbs this way.

Outdoor Seed Scavenger Hunt: We all know what seeds in packets look like and even seeds in fruits and vegetables, but can you find seeds in nature? They are in some unlikely and incredible places and packages! Go on an outdoor seed scavenger hunt to find pine cones, acorns, pods, chestnuts, milkweed, cat tails, fluffy white dandilons and other interesting seeds and seed locations!

Make a Paper Plate Sunflower Craft:

One of my very favorite gardening themed books with early readers is The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. This is a great companion craft! Older hands can assist with cutting into the edges of a white paper plate so that it resembles petals of a flower. You can use a paint brush or a sponge and yellow tempura paint (we used red paint as well and actually used real flowers as our "paint brush") to paint your plate. Once dry, you will glue your "seeds" to the center of the flower. You can use actual sunflower seeds or dried black beans or poppy seeds if you have those on hand instead. 

Recommended Reading:

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

A Seed is Sleepy by Diana Aston

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss

The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony

Miss Maple's Seeds by Eliza Wheeler

Growing Vegetable Soup and Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

We'll be back with our second part in this series next week: Plants and Flowers! Until then, happy planting, growing and PLAYING!