Nature Lover Day Three

Last day of our summer camp crafty craziness. Starting the day with a colored pencil finale. We created many large bouquets of flowers the children could draw from. They practiced drawing with paper and then we gave them a special card that they could draw their own botanical drawing on, and then give to someone special.

Terrariums, terrariums, terrariums, everywhere. This was incredibly fun project. I enjoyed making my example one many weeks before. This is certainly a project for all ages. We tag teamed this project with our pet rocks to put into the terrarium. The kids were able to paint a rock and while that was drying they made up their terrarium. They first filled the bottom with rocks for drainage, and then dirt and 2 or 3 plants into their terrarium. We gave them each a little frog or lizard to place into the terrarium as well (plastic of course).

To end the day and the summer session we created wiggly worm ranches with the children. We love the idea of taking something and turning it into a dessert somehow. So we thought the wiggly worm ranch would make a perfect dessert. I guess this might seem a bit unusual, but to me it screams chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. We first had the kids make a sign for their worm ranch to make it appear official. We then had them do layers of chocolate pudding, and crumbled chocolate cookies. Then on top they put candy rocks and a gummie earthworm. They looked great, and I loved, let me rephrase that, LOVED it. Though to my dismay some of the kids, shockingly, didn't like them so much. I think because the pudding was a super dark chocolate that I made, as well as the cookies that were homemade. It was a chocolate lovers dream, if you ask me, but if I had to do it again for kids I would lighten up on the chocolate, and probably get an easy mix. Partner that with some chocolate wafer cookies. I think that would be more child friendly. Still yummy either way. Next summer we'll know better. That's it folks, next up fall after school craft kitchen!

Nature Lover Day Two

One day down two to go. Today we worked with the children on blending with colored pencils and practiced on flowers. We went over primary and secondary colors, and how they can achieve those colors with blending colored pencils. Some of the drawings turned out quite amazing. It is interesting to see how children can be drawn to different mediums. Colored pencils are certainly more controlled and exacting. Last week with watercolors those children who like controlled mediums had to let go a bit. I think it is good to let them try all different kids of mediums because it challenges them to think differently about how to achieve what they want to produce. Below are some photos from our session.

Tweet, tweet, or these days I guess I should say chirp, chirp so web savvy people don't get too confused. Birds are all around and certainly in the east bay. We get so many birds that come into our backyard. Some even get brave enough to come into my kitchen. They quickly realize they are in the wrong place when our small dog Bento goes chasing after them. While researching projects for the summer we came across so many birdfeeders, and we really liked the idea, but we wanted to do something that didn't use plastic bottles. My partner in crime remembered doing them as a young girl with lemon rinds and nailing them to a tree. We really liked this idea, and since I have two orange trees we thought it was a perfect match and compostable. So we sliced the oranges in half, and had the kids scoop out all of the meat of the orange leaving the rind. All of the students then got to fill their "birdfeeder" with birdseed and peanut butter. Then we spot glued some string to hang the birder with. They turned out cute, and they attracted some other living friends as well, particularly a bug that looked like a ladybug but was green and black.

Our last project for the day was our posable frogs. This is one of those projects I was really looking forward to because I wanted to have them around the house. We gathered some really great fabrics for them to, and being a fabric fiend it was fun going through all of our fabric and creating groupings that would work really well together for the kids. The kids picked out two fabrics that they liked best, and traced to pattern piece onto the fabric. Promptly then utting out the pieces, and then we assisted the kids in sewing the two pieces together and helped them turn the frog inside out. We used buckwheat hulls to fill up these frogs. They picked out pony beads for the eyes and we sewed them on for them. Some of the children wanted to help sew them on which was a great help. I just love how they turned out.

County Fair Day Three

Last day of County Fair week, and I feel like we have almost been to the fair. We only needed a pig, chickens, and cow and it would have been complete. We ended this week doing watercolors of a bouquet of flowers. We did two different techniques with the watercolors still life. First, we had the children paint a wash on the background, and let it dry. While that was drying we moved on to floral painting number two, and it was supposed to be wet on wet, but the sunny day tended to dry out the paper rather quickly. The results still looked beautiful. The kids really had fun with this. Some attempted only a couple flowers and other the whole bouquet. I requested they try at least two. I was happily surprised with how detailed some got, and what color other were able to attain. Note to self, spend more money on quality watercolors. I bought some that I thought would last for a few weeks, but these doosies I bought only ended up making it through the three days barely. Thank goodness we had some better backups, my own beautiful kit I hoard, and some others that really helped round it out, and the children didn't at all mind sharing. Who can't love that?

What's a trip to the fair without coming home with a blue ribbon? We couldn't let that happen to our little contenders. The only catch is they had to make their own. So we had them each make their own crepe paper blue ribbon that we glued magnets to the back of. This one below was one of my favorites I suppose I might be a little biased, but I love the saying.

Next up, and most important project of the day was the apple pie in a jar! The kids couldn't wait for this one. Some were disappointed when they couldn't eat the pie dough and apples right away though. I told them they wouldn't be disappointed after it was baked in the oven. Yummy goodness. I pre-sliced and peeled all of the apples, but demonstrated with one more on how to peel and cut up an apple for pies. They got the chance to add sugar and cinnamon to the mixture and stir it. I then rolled out the pie dough, and each child was able to cut out a round for the bottom of their pie and place it in their jar. We then sent around the apple filling and they scooped up a cup of filling into their jar. I then rolled out the pie dough, and cut it into strips for the top lattice, and gave the kids each 6 strips to weave on top. They all did a fantastic job, and the pies turned out beautifully.

Lastly for the day we made bean bags for our bean bag toss game. Since the pie demonstration went a little longer than expected we had to rush through this project so we could get to the game, and all the kids could go home with their own bean bags, but we finished. Whew! They picked out fabric with solid backs and patterned fronts. They then went on to stamping their initials on the solid side so we wouldn't get the bean bags confused. Sewed up three sides and then the children filled their bags with a mix of beans, peas, and barley. Finally sewing up the closure, and done. We set up three buckets in the backyard put points on each bucket, and then the kids took turns throwing their bean bags into the buckets. It is actually really fun, and there was bean bags flying literally everywhere. They landed in the trees and on the roof (?) go figure. We sent each kid home with a folder filled with printouts of coloring sheets, mazes, dot to dot and word finds all based on the county fair, as well as, some little prizes from the bean bag toss game. All in all it was a super fun week filled with yummie treats and fun projects!

County Fair- Day Two

Onto day two County Fair. Thank goodness the weather has been staying nice so we can still hold classes outside. Today was filled with yumminess, blackberry jam, butter, scones, and blue corn muffins. Starting the day out with a refresher course on watercolor techniques. They children put all the different techniques on one page today to help them remember, and for today's object they painted farm animals. We gave them little plastic animals to look at and some pictures of farm animals to do their watercolor with. Too bad it would have been nice to have real goats, cows, and chickens to paint, unfortunately our small space doesn't really allow for that. After that they had free painting, and some did some abstract stuff.

Next up jam and butter. One of my most favorite things is fresh jam. I grew up with my grandma always mashing up some fruit to make freezer jam. It is so easy and it taste so fresh, I love it. Freezer jam doesn't gel up as nicely as cooked jam, but I find with freezer jam you can taste more complexities of the fruit, because it doesn't get cooked down so much. Don't get me wrong though I like it both ways. Today we used blackberries which I hadn't tried before. I usually go for raspberries. They are a little bit harder to mash down, but once you get those little guys all smashed to bits, it's a delight. Mix in a bit of sugar and freezer jam pectin bag and you are good to go. Right after the jam we went straight to making butter, since we needed to let the jam refrigerate 30 minutes before diving in. So butter, I just love the word, butter. It is the pillar of baking and goodness. So, it might clog an artery or two, it is just so darn tasty. The children each poured in the heavy cream into the blender, after it had come to room temperature. Once in the blender tossed in a little bit of salt, and blended. You can visually see it go from liquid cream to fluffy whipped cream to breaking down and separating into butter and buttermilk within 3 minutes. We then dumped out the buttermilk, and washed the butter with some ice water until it ran clear, or nearly almost. The kids got to taste the butter on our homemade blue corn muffins, and the blackberry jam on homemade scones.

The children taking turns stirring the blackberry freezer jam, while I am explaining what is happening to the fruit.

A photo of the jam and butter chilling in the fridge. The butter was super creamy.

A couple photos of the scones getting made and the final product. I actually bake mine in a round and then break them apart after they are baked.

Since, we like to cook and bake we made hot pads with the kids in the shape of a mouse or chicken. The kids picked out their fabric traced a pattern and cut out the fabric piece. They also picked out brads for eyes, seam binding for tails or hanging loops, and ric-rac for those that made a chicken. We sandwiched all of the fabrics together with the thermal and regular cotton batting in the middle. Then each child was able to help sew in all together on the sewing machine. I think they are incredibly cute hot pads and can't wait to use my girls'.

After all of the kids were done with the hot pad sewing we had some spare time. The kids suggested we play the game of telephone. A great game where you whisper a phrase into the persons ear next to you and the phrase get whispered around the circle, and the last person says aloud what the phrase is. Typically the phrase gets all distorted, and doesn't come out the way it originated. We also had a brief game of Simon Says. A great way to end the day.