Gardening with Kids: Garden in a Glove

The kids and I joined the Northern Plains Botanical Garden Society for their Garden in a Glove With Kids event this afternoon.  What a great kids event & kid friendly garden learning opportunity!  (Thank you to Gail for sharing her knowledge, time & afternoon with us.)  I love the idea of creating a mini-green house with a plastic glove so that all the sprouting and growing is visible to young inquisitive minds! :)

I love the idea and simplicity so much that I decided to share it with you so you can inspire the future gardeners in your home.


Supplies:
plastic gloves (kind used by food servers; nothing fancy)
permanent marker
5 cotton balls
water
5 seeds (5 different varieties is optimal but 5 of the same variety would work)
bread bag twist tie


How To:

1.  Write the names of each variety of seed on each finger.
2.  Moisten the cotton balls so they are just wet.
3.  Place seeds on the cotton ball.  (Choose the number of seeds based on the size of the seeds.  For example, a bean probably only needs one seed while carrots several.)
4.  Slide the seed and cotton ball into the labeled finger.  Do this for each variety.
5.  Gently blow air into the glove and twist to seal in the air.  Wrap a twist bread bag tie around the end to keep it closed.
6.  Place or hang the glove in a warm window and watch what happens.
7.  Once the seeds have sprouted, you can cut off each fingertip and plant the cotton ball and new seedling in soil for further garden/plant learning.

Consider including a few great book to read with your activity and make it a great science lesson. :)  Some great gardening books we have read are:
"Zinnia's Flower Garden" by M Wellington
"Jack's Garden" by H Cole
"From Seed to Plant" by Gail Gibbons
"The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds: A Book about How Things Grow" by Joanna Cole

I truly believe that memories are made when hands are involved and I love when we are making garden memories whether it is using the garden to learn, do a craft or harvest together.  Take time to share your love for gardening with the young people in your life!  For other kid friendly, education friendly ideas check some of my other posts here.

Happy Garden Learning!!! :D



Check other garden learning ideas at these link-ups as well:

 How fun!  This post was featured on the following sites...    :)
' The Ultimate Homeschool Linkup #16'
'Kids Science in the Garden'

2nd Annual HSV Garden Challenge: Final Linkup

 It is time for the final linkup for the HSV Garden Challenge and we have really enjoyed gardening together again this year.  We started the season with intentional garden and associated lessons in our school time, and then we spent the 3rd month planting and watching the plants grow.  Now we have just begun to harvest this week.

Our reading during the first month has come to life as, unfortunately, Peter Cottontail has also spent time investigating our garden and eating.  The kids now realize that the cute visitor(s) are destructive in the garden and are chasing them from the yard when they see them.  The other evening I couldn't help but secretly smile as I listened and watched my youngest run across the yard yelling "Go away, Peter Cottontail!". 

Memories are made when hands are involved and I love when we are making garden memories whether it is using the garden to do a craft or harvesting together.  Today we had our first real harvest of peas and enjoyed harvesting together and eating the fresh peas together. :)


Happy Gardening with your Kids! :)

Garden Crafty: Potato Stamp T-shirts

I was inspired by a good friend and Pinterest last night and so today we are feeling patriotic and crafty today!  As part of our summer school program, we are studying the flag and our nation's foundation today, so what is better than including a few fun activities to go along!  :D  Besides, it is terribly hot outside and some fun inside activities are just what we need to keep us all sane.  If you too are feeling the need to stay out of the heat today, try your hand at creating potato stamps.

Here's how...

1.  Gather supplies:  potatoes, t-shirt (new or old), acrylic craft paint, paper plate, large piece of cardboard, surface covering (newspaper, cardboard, plastic)

2.  Cut potato in half the shortest direction and then carve the desired shape into it.  In my case, I cut two potatoes and carved a star into all of the ends.

3.  Slide the cardboard into the t-shirt to prevent the paint from passing through more than one layer of fabric, and then lay it flat on the work surface.  (When working with children, be sure that the work surface is covered and 'mess safe' in case of the inevitable spills and mishaps.)

4.  Pour paint onto a paper plate.  Load the potato stamp with paint and stamp onto the shirt.  (It is a good idea to first trial stamp onto a paper towel to see how your stamp works.  If you are satisfied, the GO FOR IT! ;D)

5.  HAVE FUN!!! :D

Happy Garden Crafting! :)

2nd Annual HSV Garden Challenge: Linkup #3

It is time for the third linkup for the HSV Garden Challenge and there is not a lot to report this month.  The school year officially ended the second week of May and we took the rest of May off from structured learning.

#1 lower (everything), #2 upper (no sun)

We have continued to watch our bean experiment and planted #1 and #2 into the garden.  Number 3 was transplanted into 'real' soil along with #1 & #2 but it still has not been given water proving that without water a seed cannot sprout no matter what the 'soil' is.  Number 1 was setting fruit by the time we transplanted it into the garden, but within a week a hungry critter snipped off the top, ending it's life early.  Number 2 was brought out into the light when we transplanted it into 'real' soil and it continues to thrive.  It has set small fruit and we look forward to harvesting fresh beans in a week or so. :)

#3 (no water)

We are all watching the strawberries and veggie garden that we planted this spring for the first sign of harvest-able produce.  It is always a treat to harvest the fruit of your labors and this year the kids are excited to taste from their labors as well.  :)

Are your kids involved in your backyard garden?  What are you all learning together right now?

Happy Garden Learning!  :)

2nd Annual HSV Garden Challenge: Linkup #2

It is time for the second linkup for the HSV Garden Challenge.  This last month has been loaded with Garden learning both in both the indoor and outdoor classrooms.  Yeah for spring and spending more time in the outdoor classroom! :D

We had only two letters of the alphabet, Q & Y, left to study when the garden challenge started.  Even with these two 'crazy' letters, I tried to incorporate some 'garden' learning into our lessons.  On Q week we studied birds (Q = quail) and the roll plants play in bird's lives as food and shelter, and on Y week we studied colors (Y=yellow).  The highlight of Y week was watching a celery stem draw colored water up the stem.  It is such a great illustration for young minds to grasp how water moves through a plant up toward the leaves (transpiration).

We recorded observations on our bean experiment every day for 21 days and then transplanted #1 (control) and #2 (no sunlight) into soil and placed them in the greenhouse with all my started garden plants.  This week we noticed that #1 has started setting buds and will flower soon.  It is our goal to plant both #1 & #2 into the garden and continue to follow them for the rest of the summer.

Having completed our curriculum, we are currently doing Garden Challenge inspired unit studies each week.  :)  One week we focused solely on plants, another week we studied weather and seasons and we are currently studying insects.

The weather and seasons study was especially fun.  Our studies were centered around the book, 'Bear's Busy Year' and 'Zinnia's Flower Garden'.  Every day we observed and recorded the current weather conditions and spent one day focused on each of the four seasons.  We investigated and thought about what plants are doing and what we are doing during each season and then created a book illustrating what is happening in each season.

We are following a similar pattern as we study insects and are having a great time observing the many pollinators that have been visiting our Nanking and Evans cherry trees over the last few weeks.  The kids were given a Lady Bug Land kit for Christmas.  The Ladybugs arrived the first week of April and over this last week all of the Ladybugs emerged from their pupa!  It has been fascinating for all of us to watch them transform from pinhead sized larva into pupa and now Ladybugs.  We plan to release them into our backyard on Friday so they can protect our garden from insect 'pests' (aphids) this summer. :)

Last, but not least, we had garden 'physical education' last weekend as the kids helped me move soil into our new strawberry bed .  They were very excited to help dig and transfer soil into the new bed (top photo).  It is great to have a willing and truly helpful helper for this somewhat laborious task.  It didn't hurt to know that the end result would be an abundance strawberries available for the picking! ;)  No matter the motivation, I was happy to have the help and happy to watch my child share in the excitement of an anticipated harvest.

I hope you have a chance to share some garden learning and harvest anticipation moments with your kids this month. :)

Happy Gardening (and Garden Learning)! :)

The next linkup will start on May 31st.

2nd Annual HSV Garden Challenge: Sharing the Gardening with the Next Generation

There is nothing more exciting than sharing something you are excited and passionate about with your own kids, and that is what excites me about the HSV Garden Challenge!  I love gardening and love sharing the joys of gardening with my children! When the kids were younger, the extent of their garden involvement was eating the delicious fresh produce, but over the last couple of years they have gotten old enough to share in the joys and wonder of sowing seeds, watching them sprout, some tending and lots of harvesting.  :)  Last year the kids planted Zinnia seeds and monitored their growth during our garden challenge.  It was a joy for me to see the kids check on the health and progress of their flowers all the way into the fall. :)

This year they will be starting their own vegetables (beans).  Our 'garden lessons' started last week as we studied V = vegetable (we are using the My Father's World K curriculum).  We spent a lot of time talking about what kinds of vegetables can be grown in a garden and examining how a seed becomes a plant.  Using the Gardening Preschool Pack from Home School Creations, a children's encyclopedia, and The Magic School Bus: Plant Seeds, we re-enforced that plants need soil, water, air and sun to grow strong, tall and healthy.  To further re-enforce this we set up an experiment that I tailored after an idea I'd seen on Pinterest for observing root development. 

We planted a bean seed in four different glass jars.  One was a control which has all four elements, but in each of the other three jars we left out one of the four elements.  We created a chart and have been recording our observations each day of school.

#1 - Control: has sun, water, air and soil(paper towels)
#2 - missing the sun (inside a paper bag that we closed with a paper clip)
#3 - missing water
#4 - missing soil
(Truly eliminating air from our experiment is not possible in our setting so it is not included.)

In one weeks time, we have watched the seeds that had access to water swell and either sprout (#1, #2) or spoil (#4).  It has become obvious to the kids that without water seed #3 will never sprout, but while it is obvious to me that seed #4 is rotten and will never grow, the kids are still watching and waiting hopefully.  I expect sometime in the next week I will have to put an end to #3 before we are all asphyxiated by the smell of it!

Our plan is to continue to observe these seeds until they have outgrown their jars and then transplant them into another container or the garden where we can continue to observe them and hopefully harvest from them.  To support our studies we are reading several books including, The Magic School Bus: Plant Seeds, The Tale of Peter Rabbit,  Zinnia's Flower Garden, Jack's Garden, Growing Vegetable Soup, The Carrot Seed and more.  I also hope to include the kids in planning and planting our backyard garden in the next month. 

On the fun and more creative side, early last week we took a field trip to the grocery store and looked at all of the creative vegetables that are found in the produce section.  We purchased several and had a veggie party for snack.  Later in the week we used several veggies as stamps to create a veggie and flower garden like the one Peter Rabbit raided in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit". 

Whether you home school or not, I challenge you to make a plan and be intentional about including your children in your gardening endeavors this year.  I'd love to hear how you plan to include your kids in your summer garden plans this year. :)

Happy Gardening! :)

Stone Soup

We studied the letter R in school last week & the book Stone Soup by Marcia Brown was assigned home reading that went with it.  The kids were intrigued with the idea of stone soup and asked if we could make our own.  My response? Why not?! :)  So we read through the book again to create a recipe, went through the pantry, and then headed to the store to gather the remaining ingredients.  It was a fun activity for all of us and cooked veggies have never been enjoyed more by my picky kidos! ;)  I thought I'd share our new recipe with you and let you enjoy some story and cooking time with your kids. :D

Stone Soup

Ingredients:
6c water
3 smooth, round stones
1 tsp salt
1/2 pepper
3 carrots (coined)
1 c cabbage (coarsely shredded)
1lb beef stew meat
3 medium potatoes (cubed)
3/4c pearl barley
1/2c milk
opt. 1 tsp beef bullion (not in story but fills out the flavor)

Instructions:
In a large iron pot bring water to a boil.  Add washed stones, salt, pepper, carrots, cabbage, beef,  potatoes and barley.  Add optional beef bullion if desired.  Cook until veggies and barley are tender.  Add milk just before serving.

I do have one suggestion.  I used red cabbage in our soup (pictured at the top) and it turned the broth an unappetizing greyish color.  I would highly recommend  using green cabbage!

Enjoy cooking with your kids & using some more of last seasons garden produce. :)  While you are at it, why don't you invite some friends or neighbors over and have a party like the soldiers and peasants did in the book.  Happy Garden Eating! :)