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!

An Autumn Afternoon Story Stretcher

With the busy holiday season just behind us, we were all in need of some fresh air and afternoon fun here. Our southern heat has given way to some cooler and crisper days and some gorgeous Autumn foliage! The last of the big Jewish holidays is Simchat Torah, the day on which we celebrate every preschool parent's and teacher's worst nightmare dream come true: a child's request to "read it again!" We complete our yearly cycle of reading the Torah, roll it on up, and begin again, with one of the most important parshiot, Bereishit, the story of Creation.  Because of the timing of this Torah portion falls directly on the heels of a huge holiday season, it is often a struggle to "fit in" learning about it in Jewish homes and classrooms. I tinker each year with whether to rush through it, knowing full well that we will read it again (and again and again, G-d willing), or to extend it beyond its space in the yearly rotation just as more very important parshiot are rolling on by (like the story of Noach). This year S is learning a great deal about the parsha in school. At home I have decided to slow the pace down and introduce some play themed afternoons for each of the days of Creation even beyond this week--there is great benefit in repetition!


And speaking of repetition, this week's story stretcher was a rerun from last Autumn. Lois Ehlert is a favorite author and illustrator of mine and we all loved her book Leaf Man so much last year that I decided to pack it up along with some Autumn themed fun for a story stretcher on the go! We picked a favorite local park and packed up our target story along with some other easily transportable materials and activities:

• a basket for collecting colorful leaves, acorns and nuts, pine cones and whatever else your little ones may wish to collect--do make sure that removing natural materials is permissible at your park location. If not, it can be a great opportunity to practice leaving items from nature in nature when you are done!
• masking tape for making Fall leaf bracelets
• a clipboard for transporting a work surface
• white paper & broken, peeled crayons in Autumn colors for leaf or tree bark rubbings
• a sheet of clear contact paper for collecting colorful leaves
• a large recycled brown bag for easy transport and collection of items that may be too large for your basket!

S is just about always game for a story being read, but if and when he's not, a change in location or routine is the perfect way to sneak in reading together. He loved reading at the park while enjoying a snack! 

One of the easiest and most transportable take-along materials for outdoor exploration and nature walks in all seasons is a roll of masking tape! Simply wrap a strip around your children's wrist (and your own!) with the sticky side out. In the Fall, small, colorful leaves make a lovely bracelet. Spring and Summer wildflowers look beautiful as well!

Last year we made and laminated our own Leaf Man. He came along with us for an afternoon of play and story stretcher fun and to be re-united with some of his closest friends and cousins.

Y had a good time with Leaf Man, too!

You can use clear contact paper to collect beautiful leaves and flat objects from nature. They will look quite lovely hung in a window, but also make a wonderful surface for doing leaf rubbing.

The leaf rubbings came out beautifully--especially the oak leaves! A park and playground truly provide all the entertainment that S requires without any additional activities being included. If this is true for your little ones as well, I don't suggest "forcing" participation in take-along activities. Many times, if I stop to try an activity out, S will join in as he wishes. Other times, he chooses not to, and that is OK, too!

No kid collects leaves like a kid who isn't ready to leave the park! We enjoyed a slow-paced walk back to the car as S filled our basket with leaves of all colors, shapes and sizes!

He decided to send this collection in to his teachers to use in their classroom activities this week. We will likely go on a second nature walk next week to fill our own sensory table with some Fall themed finds!

 Wishing you all the fun and wonder that this season brings, and, as always, Happy Playing!

Beyond the Book: Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

Check out Leaf Man from your local library!

 We checked out Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man from our local library and loved it! It has gorgeous illustrations (typical to Ehlert's work) and a beautiful, flowing story line. We took our reading beyond the book with some fun with process art and nature exploration.
Here's a peek at some of our activities in relation to this wonderful Autumn-themed book:

We started off with a stroll through a nearby park. In addition to some
larger leaves, pine cones, seed pods and nuts of all kinds, we collected tiny leaves on masking tape bracelets. This wonderful method of nature collecting was suggested in Trish Kuffner's The Toddler's Busy Book.

 Without giving instructions or an example, I set out a recycled container of glue and a brush along with a tray of some of the most unique and colorful leaves we found on our nature walk. He had at it! Older children might have fun actually creating animals and people with the leaves. My little one had a great time gluing them on the paper and I resisted the urge to point out when they happened to take shape of animals I recognized! To best preserve collages made with leaves, you may wish to press/dry them beforehand and/or laminate the finished product. Left naturally, the leaves with dry and curl and likely crumble over time.

I laminated my son's bracelet from our nature walk, cut it out and attached a yarn tassel to make a keepsake bookmark he can use in his homeschool journal.  

With some of the other leaves we found, I created and laminated my own Leaf Man to use for story telling and play. Now I must resist the urge to make a whole Leaf Family...

 Autumn is a great time to explore the glorious colors of nature hands-on in your own backyard or front yard studio. We took a collection of nature's "paint brushes" in the form of pine needles, seed pods, leaves, pine cones and even a real paintbrush (at my son's request) outside along with a large sheet of craft paper and a tray of Autumn colors to mix and explore with. Again, in favor of encouraging process art, I left out instructions and examples. When at first my son seemed hesitant, my husband and I joined him in trying out some of the "brushes" in the paint. We didn't verbalize directions or our own ideas and before long, he was confident to dig in! The different strokes and prints of our Autumn nature collection was amazing and the ideas that inspired my little one's art and play in the time we spent with this activity even more incredible!
He started off using different leaves as brushes on paper and rolling the pine cone in the paint to make prints.

Then he took a whirl at painting the pine cone with his paintbrush! We brought the colorful creation inside to dry and decorate
 our home for the season.

He especially loved painting with this pine needle brush...

Which led to a game of sweeping and painting the lawn as well!

We had such a wonderful time taking Leaf Man beyond the book. I've especially loved the opportunity to include more process art in our homeschooling this week as well as the invitation to take our learning and play outdoors as the season change envelopes us with color, texture, and all kinds of inspiration! Happy playing, creating and exploring!

Beyond the Book: Extension Activities for "Growing Vegetable Soup" and "Planting a Rainbow"

Sharing a love of literacy was something I wanted to pass down to my son from before the time he was born. While I was not much one for reading to my pregnant belly, I did try to sign up for PJ Library while I was in labor. Then I realized I needed to know the gender, birth-date and name of my child--none of which I knew at that point, even though my contractions were getting closer together. Instead, I added that to my list of things to do in the first week postpartum. I imagined daily story times would be one of my daily anchors, that we would snuggle up and read together every day and read favorite children's books in every room the of the house. In reality, this didn't happen. We do have daily anchors--little things we've done from day one and do every day, no matter what, that ground us and make us the family we strive to be even on the most hectic and exhausting of days. We've taken my son to the library from the time he was very little, and one of our favorite activities this summer now that he is two is attending local story times at our county libraries. My son does love books and he has some definite favorites. We do have books and read in many rooms of the house, but we don't always do it in the way I imagined. Sometimes he wants to sit for twenty minutes and read the same book again and again, cover to cover. Other times he wants to play while the book is read in the background. We listen to audio books, I read him chapter books before nap/bed, and we keep books accessible and at his reach throughout the house. Our story times are a lot more mobile and hands on than I had originally imagined and I love that.

Because our story times involve so much movement and I recognize the value and importance of expanding on my son's interests and experiences on a multi-sensory level, I've sought a lot of extension activities for the books that we read together. Beyond the Book posts here will include a variety of those activities for various children's books. Many activities I come up with on my own and others I find in a variety of resources available online and in your local library. One of my favorite resources on reading to young toddlers is the book Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s for Infants, Toddlers and Twos: Experiences, Activities, and Games for Popular Children's Books by S. Raines, K. Miller, L. Curry-Rood, and K. Dobbs. There is a series of books under this title aimed at different age groups. Pinterest is also a valuable resource for creative extension activities. Overall, I go with my son's interest and attention level. If he is in the mood to read and reread a book again and again, I try to oblige. If he is not in the mood to sit and listen, we kick it up a notch and try a project or game or activity--perhaps we come back to the book later. As he gets bigger, he likes to be able to hold and handle the books we read. When I can, I try to check out two copies of a book at our library, perhaps a paperback/hardback for myself and a board book for his smaller hands. 

During our gardening theme this summer, we read several books by Lois Elhert. Her illustrations are bright and captivating and her story lines are very toddler friendly. Two of our particular favorites were Growing Vegetable Soup and Planting a Rainbow. These were particularly good picks as we progressed with our own home vegetable garden (a fabulous place to play and learn). We also took the themes from these books on the road as we visited our local Botanical Gardens and went on a "rainbow scavenger hunt." I provided copies of both books on my son's bookshelf as well as a variety of materials related to planting gardens both indoor and out. Among his favorites were a collection of seed packets inside snack sized ziplock bags through which he could observe both the size and shape of different vegetable, herb and flower seeds as well as the photograph of "finished product." This was also a handy way to store the seeds we didn't use for our home garden. 

This gardening sensory bin was another favorite activity

We often use toys and props to act out stories or parts of stories

Here we are preparing some pretend vegetable soup

and here we are again preparing some real vegetable soup

washing veggies is a favorite activity and also keeps this little one very occupied in the kitchen

I encourage my son to handle a lot of different foods in the kitchen in the hopes that exposure prior to plate will lead to trying it once it's on the plate (or bowl in this case)

Quality Control Department: Occupational Hazard--and I'd love to say he was this eager to try the soup once it was on the table, but he was mostly interested in feeding it to his parents and practicing with the spoon

I prepared this ladder style book ahead of time and my son enjoyed planting a rainbow of fruit shaped stickers to their matching colored page with my support after we read Planting a Rainbow