Tie dye surprise from plants in your own backyard, window sill or patio pot

 

Science or art? It's both!

Surprise- it's green!

Cruise and some friends decided to find out if they could tie dye fabric with the dye from smashed flower petals. With chrysanthmum blossoms to spare (checked for toxicity, all I could find was that people used the plant leaves in salad) , I decided, why not? Here’s what they did:

1. Pulled the flower heads off the plant (premature dead heading, which didn’t hurt the plant).

2. Pulled the petals off each flower head.

3. Smashed the petals into a paste using a mortar and pestle (another outside the toybox toy favorite!).

4. Added a little white vinegar and table salt to make a dye bath that would better stain fabric.

5. Tied a scrap of old t-shirt with cotton string.

6. Soaked the shirt scrap in the dye bath for a few minutes.

7. Still wrapped in the string, let the balled up fabric dry for a few days.

8. Cut the string off, smoothed the fabric and surprise! what started as a purple liquid had dried green. 

Try dying fabrics from plants in your own backyard. Will your flower petal  change colors, too? Let me know!

fun with cardboard boxes

giant cardboard cut out aka: secret passage way

Every few months I head to a local furniture store with my utility knife to ‘harvest’ some sheets of cardboard Cruise can play with. This sheet here comes from an empty plasma TV box. I cut a few boxes up and bring them home in my CRV.

Here, I used my utility knife to cut out an interesting shape Cruise can walk through into his room. 

Other things we’ve done with large sheets of cardboard:

1. Using markers, we’ve drawn a little town Cruise drove his toy vehicles on.

2. Using blue painter’s tape (my favorite kid toy!) taped three cardboard sheets  into an A-frame triangle as a cardboard tent (two sheets lean on each other, one sheet is the floor- tape the seams). 

3. One large cardboard sheet is leaning against a tree in our backyard, a few trimmed branches from another tree are leaning against the sheet to camouflage it- another secret shelter.

You don’t have to wait until you buy a stove, fridge, etc. for your kids to have tons o’ cardboard fun. This is what I did to find out free supply of large cardboard boxes:

1. Called a local furniture store and asked if they had boxes. They do, at the back of the store where the trucks load (shipping/ receiving/ loading?). Asked permission to come down and take some with me.

2. Park in shipping receiving area. Ask nicely at that desk if I could take any empty boxes home with me (mention it’s for my son to play in). Most empty boxes are from items they plan to display and they break the boxes down for recycling pretty quickly. Usually there are some empty plasma tv boxes, which are limiting in their narrow shape, but great if you cut and use the large sides of the boxes. Also, much easier to get flat sheets v. box home.

Happy cardboard hunting! Feel free to contact me for more tips or post/ write here about what you made.

yours in outside the box creative play-

DeAnn

Insect graveyard

  

Bug burial

I don’t know whether it’s cooler nights, the poor air quality, or just the end of life spans, but bugs seem to be dropping dead smack in the middle of our sidewalks lately.

Over four days we’ve found a dragonfly, several types of bees, a long-legged mosquito (?) type-bug, all with no obvious injuries- just stiff preserved looking little bodies, which we carry home.

It was Cruise’s idea to have funerals for them. I expected some of the conversations we’ve had before about life/ death/ birth, but no. These events are all action: dig a hole, drop a body, find a headstone. So far, we’ve buried five bugs. If this continues, we should have quite a cemetary by Halloween.

So- are bugs dropping like flies now where you live? Could be a great opportunity for some nearby nature with your child. Examine the tiny hooks on the backs of their legs (maybe pull out a microscope?), discuss life and death and ponder the meaning of it all. Or simply- complete the ritual: dig a hole, drop a body, place a marker and move on.

bee grave w/ headstone

Easy make confetti (aka: 20 uninterrupted minutes to myself)

I opened Cruise’s bedroom door the other day to find this ”project” at my feet.

“It’s confetti, Mom”.

“Yes. I see that.”

If only someone needed a pinata…

Weapon play outside the toybox

Okay, here’s the deal, I’m not comfortable having prefab toy weapons at our house. Improvising a broom stick or fallen branch for the occasional ”sword” I can handle- as long as it’s for show and not jabbing. I’d prefer no weapon play at all, but don’t want to turn the whole issue into forbidden fruit. This is why I let Cruise bring home the plastic swords from the ninja-themed birthday party last week. They made it through the night (Cruise loved swaggering around with them tied to his waist with a bathrobe tie)  but landed in the recycle bin the next morning. I have also confiscated a squirt gun from an unsuspecting neighbor boy (returning it after the playdate).

Both situations have reaffirmed that yes, I am uncomfortable having imitation weapons at our house. Then again, I’m a person who can’t patron the zoo (or even the aviary!) because it makes me too sad for the animals, so what did I expect?

The whole weapon play issue is admittedly complicated for many of us. But, I can live with improvised objects from around the house. If you can too, here are a couple outside the toybox toy weapons we’ve come up with: 

1. Squirt “guns”:

squirt bottles

empty dishsoap bottles

2. Bow and arrows (for hunting food, Cruise says)

How we made the bow:

1. Found a bent stick ( I cut one from our bushes)

2. Using a kitchen knife, cut slits in the center of each end of the stick.

3.  Cut a piece of twine and pushed one end of twine into one slit, then wrapped it with the same piece of twine.

4. Pulled the same piece of twine tight until it was straight and pressed the other end into the slit at the other end of the stick, then wrapped it to keep it in place and cut the twine.

For the arrows: Cruise found pieces of tree bark in the yard and sharpened them into a pointy shape by rubbing each side on the driveway.

How do you feel about weapon play? What are the  rules at your house?

Who are the people in your neighborhood? Find out with a party.

A few weeks ago we met some “new” kids in the neighborhood. They live five houses away from us and we’ve both lived here for years. Not uncommon today, as kids on the same block often go to different schools and involved in different types of activities. Most of Cruise’s friends he met through the preschools he attended across town, so they live miles away. 

Whether or not he finds a close friend nearby, I want Cruise to feel able and comfortable walking his own neighborhood- to know the kids and the parents who live around us. I want to know them too!

So, a couple of weeks ago we threw a get-to-know-the-kids-in-the-neighborhood party. I knew I had to keep it simple so I would do it, instead of just think about doing it.

 The result? The party was a hit. All the parents we invited loved the idea of getting to know the families in the neighborhood better. There was even talk of  a different family hosting one every few months.

Consider hosting one of these low-key, low cost parties. 

Here’s how we did ours:

1. We started with a quick and easy to make invite and made copies on our printer.

 2. Next, Cruise and I delivered them to houses around the neighborhood based on three things: 1. houses we knew had kids 2. Houses that looked like they had kids (toys in the yard, etc.) 3. Houses other neighbors told us had kids. 

Luckily, Cruise agreed to get around via jogging stroller so we could hit many houses quickly. What happened though, was lots of conversations between myself and the parents we met- boring Cruise to death, but I definately got to know them better.

3. Party day: Mike cleaned up the house, while Cruise and I hit the dollar store before the party for a handful of helium balloons, and some pizza from Costco.

4. Party time: guests arrived with dishes and kids in tow. We shared food, swapped kid stories and everyone got aquainted better with each other.

cootie catcher puppets

The past couple days at our house we’ve had great fun making cootie catchers (visit this excellent link for the basics on what they are and how to make them http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cootie-Catcher ). Through Cruise’s five year old eyes, they mostly seemed like wide-mouthed creatures come to life. So, instead of writing numbers and questions on them, we created faces using crayons, markers, glue, a button and some googly eyes. Here are two of our cootie catcher puppets:

the "earing" is a craft supply wedding ring made of thin and bendy metal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cruise's cootie catcher puppet

Let me know if you come up with one of your own. I’d love to hear about or see it.

Baking Soda Play Clay

We discovered a new twist on making play dough I thought you’d like to know about. I read about it in Highlights for Kids magazine, but have also found the recipe in various places online.

Step 1. In large bowl, mix 1 cup of cornstarch with 2 cups baking soda 

Step 2. Add 1 and 1/4 cup hot tap water

Step 3. Mix with spoon until dough is consistency of mashed potatoes

Step 4. Add food coloring (dividing dough for different colors if you like)

It really does look and feel like mashed potatoes!

Cruise loved mixing this- bonus, this is the cleanest ‘dough’ ever! We used gel food coloring which stuck to the dough and didn’t stain our hands.

Cruise wanted to make a bowl.  Patting the dough over the outside of a glass mixing bowl made this cool globe thing, he quickly learned the dough wouldn’t stay in that shape without support. I helped him transfer it to the inside of the bowl, then he decided to ’bake’ in the sun for a few days, so we did.

After it dried, it was stuck to the bowl, so we put some pretzels in it for a few days so it could function as a real bowl (inside a bowl).  A few days after that, we put it in the sink, he filled it up with water and watched his play clay bowl dissolve down the sink.

 

easy make writing quill and ink

Cruise is interested in what he calls “the old-fashioned days”. A quaint term I’ve used for anything that’s happened say 30 to 300 years ago. He was fascinated to learn about old fashioned writing tools- especially two things: ink pens with a lever (?) that drew ink up into the pen (could be wrong about this) and writing with feathers.

First, we went online and found this cool museum store where we could order writing quills:

http://www.libertybellshop.com/quill-pens-amp-stationery.html

Then I called Utrecht art supply,  http://www.utrechtart.com/stores/ a chain store with a local feel, at least ours is, to ask if we could buy one there. This is a perfect reason I shop Utrecht, a guy named Paul said he used to make writing quills and if we went down to our local park we could find some geese feathers, we could bring them in and he’d show us how to make our own quills. Now we’re talking!

So we went to the park and found lots of potential writing quills just laying on the ground! We left with a bag of feathers (after Iread online that they’re safe to pick up, which I wasn’t sure about).

Anyway, Paul showed us how simple it was. I had to stop at actual ink though (he’s five!) instead, I watered down some tempura (for more on how much I love tempura http://outsidethetoybox.wordpress.com/2009/04/ ) it worked great! Plus, the whole thing was f-r-e-e.

Here’s how you can make a writing quill: 

1. Cut the end of a large feather at a 45 degree angle. Like this:

 

 

 

 

2. Make between a 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch vertical snip at the center (longest part) of the point of your quill, making two points instead of one. This is supposed to help draw the ink up the quill.

3. Water paint down to the consistency of ink.

4. Dip your quill and draw fancy loops, or draft principles set forth to govern a body of peoples.

 

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.."

Thumbs up: Free Range Kids

 What Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods did to validate my instincts to keep Cruise connected and comfortable with nature, Lenore Skenazy’s blog Free Range Kids does to encourage and support my efforts to raise a resourceful and confident kid. (A kid who might happily crawl back in my womb if invited, but that’s another story.)

Parents have been in a bind for quite some time. We know that in order for kids to become free-thinking, self reliant, (my translation: happy) beings, they need a certain amount of freedom to make choices, assess risks. We know this in our guts. Yet the media’s relentless coverage of the horrible, yet rare child abductions fills us with paranoia.  Let your child out of your sight for a moment and he will be next. Bad parent! Bad, bad parent! 

When I started reading Lenore’s blog last year, I was at once liberated and supported in my parenting views. I’ve been “out” about being Free Range ever since. Now, it appears the movement is gaining momentum. Common sense freedom for kids is hot, hyper-vigilance is not.

All I can say is it’s about time the pendulum swung the other direction.  Hallelujah!

 Check it out:  

www.freerangekids.wordpress.com

 DeAnn