Getting Kids Excited About Gardening (or at least the Garden)

For my older child in particular, garden projects work best if they tie into an existing interest. For example, he remembers eating cherry tomatoes right off the plant last summer, so he was totally jazzed to plant a cherry tomato in "his area". Another example is art activities - he can't get enough of them, so when we were invited over to Left Brain Craft Brain to make seed bombs and decorate containers, we accepted with alacrity!

Winter Gardening

Positioning the marker just so in the pot

After my last post, I fully expected to stay indoors for a couple months. Then my gaze fell on my in-box, and on the radish seeds someone gave my daughter for her November birthday. "Come on kids!" I shouted. "Let's go plant these radishes real quick!"

"Okay!" responded my 5 year old son enthusastically. "And carrots too! They're a winter crop!"

Well. Can't argue with his garden savvy or his gusto, so the three of us spent an hour in the vegetable garden this afternoon. It was in the low 60s, I'd say, a welcome respite from the recent "bitter" (by Bay Area standards) cold. We planted radishes in a pot, and in the ground cilantro, mesclun, beets, and carrots, all from seed. I pulled out my sad, sad plants formerly known as tomatoes, clicked my tongue over my peas, and weeded. Grr. Also tried to redirect some sneaky bamboo, grr x 1000.

Any excuse to practice those kindergarten writing skills

The kids spent their time messing around with the seed packets and decorating plant markers (craft sticks). That was actually a good use of their time, as opposed to having them sow the actual seeds with me, which is a great way to have your lettuce row sprout a big ol' cilantro in the middle. It will be handy to have a visual marker of what went where, since my memory is obviously deteriorating rapidly.

I think the Vitamin D did us all good. Whether we'll reap anything more tangible, time will tell.

Of COURSE you need to bring out about 50 craft sticks to choose from. All the markers too. You never know what you'll need.

Fall Craft Mayhem

The inspiration and the perspiration

Oh, Family Fun magazine. You really are the parent's Martha Stewart Living. I cannot resist attempting your cute owls, and now my kids cannot resist whining for them every single day at snacktime.

We've also gathered lots of fall leaves on the daily walk to school for a variety of craft opportunities, including painting, glueing, and simply sorting and discussing. Endlessly fascinating in the array of colors and shapes. As per Martha in the October issue, I obtained glycerine at great personal effort in order to give our collection a glycerine-water bath, thus preserving their colors.

Look how I follow directions! Hmph

Maybe I cheaped out on the amount of glycerine (they're not giving the stuff away) but the result was sort of hit or miss. (My son sorted some into a new "do not use" pile.)  I even weighed down the bath in order to evenly distribute it. Oh well, it's good enough for a first try, and me and my family's - erm - level of crafting expertise.

How's the garden coming along, you ask? Um.... yeah.

Falling Leaves

Fall colors - preserved in a glycerine bath (upon recommendation by Martha in the October issue), ready for a project. Do I really have to share with the kids? Unfortunately for my selfish instincts, they were deeply involved in gathering the leaves on our daily walk to school, and doing the bath.