Yay! Garden Shares!

This week and last week a couple of my families shared their garden bounty! Thank you Laura and Joel (and Laura's dad!!) and Henriikka and Eric for such beautiful and delicious garden treats! 

Playing in the Rain

Being a dessert climate, it stays pretty dry through the year here and doesn't rain a whole lot. Last week we had a fantastic thunder and rain storm. I understand for most sane people this usually means staying inside and curling up with a book. But a Summer rain storm just calls to me! So just when the daycare kids (and Alex) started getting mopey faces, thinking they wouldn't get to play outside once the heavy rain started, I had everyone take off their socks and head for the door!!

The air was cooler, maybe in the 80's, instead of the 90's, for a change, and it was quite comfy outside. The rain was so heavy our road was like a little river in places. Nothing to cause danger to the wee ones, but enough to really get wet in.

I have to say- I needed to do a little coaxing for a couple of the kids because apparently playing in the rain was NOT something they felt was officially grown-up approved. The mixed looks of uncertainty and confusion, excitement, glee, 'my dream come true!', disbelief and those knowing 'Ms. Wendy's gone crazy!' looks on our way out the door were priceless. 

Splashing, running, stomping, and laughing. This is what being a kid (and a big kid) is all about! I'm sure my neighbors didn't know what to think of us. In my world, everyone should have been racing out of their homes to play in the puddles and the rain! This was fun!!  

Coming inside to dry off with big towels, the kids, even the ones who had been hesitant at first, had a blast that I hope they'll get to repeat again soon. 

Perseids Meteor Shower

Just two short days away, we'll have a beautiful meteor shower to watch!

This is a meteor captured just yesterday!

Already you can see them, but the night of August 11th will be the best night.

Here are some of our favorite science links if you are

interested in learning more about the meteors: 

Earth Sky

Star Date

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Science News

Space Weather

Happy Viewing!

Watermelon: The Wonder Fruit!

What is Summer without juicy, sweet, crunchy watermelon?? This is a staple in our house whenever it is in season. This is our desert, go-to snack and sometimes breakfast during the Summer. I don't know any fruit I love more than watermelon!

Watermelon has so many more health benefits than most people know about, which is why this is a food that I can feel good about Alex eating in unlimited quantities.

Here are some of the good things watermelon provides:

As a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, the watermelon is related to the cantaloupe, squash and pumpkin, and other plants that also grow on vines on the ground. These are all notorious cancer-fighting foods.

Watermelon has tons of Vitamins A and C in just 1 wedge of watermelon. Vitamin B6, pantothenic acid and thiamin are also provided in significant amounts. A powerful antioxidant, watermelon helps neutralize free radicals that cause inflammation, illness, stroke and heart attacks.

The red/pink color of watermelon comes from beta-carotene and Lycopene, both powerful cancer-fighting allies.

One of the main health benefits of watermelon is its status as a powerful antioxidant, which helps to neutralize free radicals than can lead to inflammation, general sickness and chronic illnesses such as stroke and heart attack.

Because of it's high water content, watermelon helps make your metabolism work more efficiently, which in turn can aid in weight loss and fluid retention. Plus, watermelon has so much fiber and protein, your body will still work harder simply processing watermelon, which equals fat burning, y'all!

Crayon Butterflies

Using fun silicone molds from Denmark, we made these bright and colorful

Crayon Butterflies!

If you have old, broken or unused crayons, this is a fun project for all ages. My only tip is not to mix crayon brands, as they do not always mix well. Some melt at higher temperatures than others and the end result may have unmelted chunks remaining. 

Making Salt Dough

With the sun still turned to the mid-high 90's I want to make the most of our sun power!

 

Today we're making salt dough and using the sun to 'bake' them for us.

All the basic ingredients went into our recipe- salt, flour and water. But then, after we'd already started mixing, I realized we were short enough flour, so we improvised with dry oats!

I grabbed some oats we had used for a soap making project. The kids went to work grinding the oats by hand, then I used the spice mill to finish it all up and voila! Flour!!

Anytime we make salt dough the kids LOVE the rolling pin part and the kneading part. Sad faces inevitably ensue when there aren't enough rolling pins and they have to wait a turn to share. Oh the torture!! AND a happy discovery- the kitties ate all the crumbs that fell on the floor so I had less clean-up!  

Tubbs Berry Farm

Early this season we visited Tubbs Berry Farm and picked our own fresh strawberries!

We ended up with about two gallons of strawberries! I made a super delicious pancake sauce with the berries using honey and cream cheese. The kids have asked for the strawberry pancake sauce every day since!

The farm has other animals, too. Here is where the turkey chics live. The kids really had a blast trying to catch them and hold them.

They engaged is some light competition to see who could find the biggest berries.

I think they all won!

Eating Our Rainbow

Alex and I put together an on-the-go snack jar today.

Red: strawberries and raspberries

Orange: orange slices

Yellow: pineapple

Green: kiwi

Blue: blueberries

Purple: plums

Indigo: black grapes

Next time I might add a wire handle to make it easier to carry.

Happy Solstice!

Happy Suns to Greet Visitors!

Water Words

With the heat wave we had in late Spring, I decided to create a refreshing outdoor language activity for the Kindergartners and First Graders. This is a fast and easy project you can do on the fly, which is how most of my projects materialize.

We already had a wading pool, so I filled it up about half way, maybe a little more.

I sliced shapes from foam swimming noodles that I picked up at the dollar store (why would anyone pay more for these??!) to get the smaller shapes. To slice them I used a serrated knife (also purchased at the dollar store because none of my knives are sharp). I would say the sliced pieces were about 1 1/2" thick, give or take an inch since I just eyeballed them.

I used Sharpie pens to write words and letters on each side of the shapes, keeping the reading level limited to 1-4 letter sight words. Then I dumped them into the pool.

The kids enjoyed the sensory experience of the shapes floating and bumping into each other, splashing and playing word games.

Here are a few of the games we played-

Each child selected one shape, read the word, then used it in a sentence. Every so often I'd swirl the mix up so the words would rotate around, making sure each child didn't just keep reading the same word over and over.

Then we pulled out a few shapes and made up silly stories, like, "The fast lunch ran home".

Finally, the kids were having so much fun with this activity we squeezed in one more game before they had to go home. We tried to find rhyming words and word families, almost like a match game.

Easy as pudding!