14Apr 2023 by catbird
Tube Knitting with Plarn

Tube Knitting with Plarn

Craft Project, Earth Day, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Recycled Materials
What you ask is plarn? It's a combination of the words yarn and plastic, so it's essentially "yarn" made from discarded plastic grocery bags. Those plastic grocery bags are a scourge on the environment, they always seem to find their way into woods and waterways, where they are often mistaken for food by wildlife. One of the things we like to do to celebrate Earth Day is to make use of materials that are traditionally discarded and/or littering natural areas. This can be from trash collected during clean ups (my first first public sculpture when I was in high school were giant trees made from trash collected during a big clean up!) or trash from your home and school that you can divert from the landfill and make something useful…
Read More
14Apr 2023 by catbird
Plogging Hike

Plogging Hike

Earth Day, Hike Ideas, Learning, Play, Recycled Materials
I swear all of my Earth Day posts aren't going to have funny words in them... but here's another one! Plogging is a combination of jogging and picking up litter, it was originally coined in Sweden (merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog). In our case its really more hiking than jogging, but I 'm not sure piking has the same ring to it. Sadly this is a tremendously easy hike to do-- there is litter nearly everywhere we hike. The only trick is to remember to bring a bag to collect litter in, and possibly some gloves so no one is touching trash directly. I didn't used to be squeamish about it, but covid and the proliferation of discarded face masks in public parks has…
Read More
05Apr 2023 by catbird
A Basket for Bunnies Made from Trees

A Basket for Bunnies Made from Trees

Craft Project, Foraging, Nature Collection, Play, Spring Equinox, Spring Portfolio
When I was researching spring holidays for my spring book I was particularly intrigued by a German custom wherein children build a nest in a field or garden in which a hare would lay colored eggs for them. This idea came to the America's with German settlers and seems to be the precursor of the modern Easter basket and the rational for rabbits laying eggs. Eggs and hares were both of course ancient symbols of spring and fertility that predate Easter. All of that to say... I love the idea of making secret outdoor nests for a magical hare to leave gifts in!! I started making a proper basket, but I wanted to simplify it so that it was do-able for kids (and frankly adults...) What I ended up with…
Read More
29Mar 2023 by catbird
Fast Dyed Natural Easter Eggs

Fast Dyed Natural Easter Eggs

Craft Project, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox
I love to make natural dyes and I love to naturally dye easter eggs. When my kids were super little they didn't mind waiting overnight for the eggs to change color, but as they've gotten older and heard the siren song of the grocery store kits, they have lost interest in the natural dye process and requested the tablets more and more. (They usually humor me a little bit anyway...) I stumbled on this method by accident really, when I was making my conventional naturally dyed eggs post I was muttering to myself about how much better turmeric dye bath with alcohol is. I happened to have some already prepared so I tested it out of curiosity. It worked so much better than the water based dye- the color was…
Read More
26Feb 2023 by catbird
Magical Color Changing Violet Lemonade

Magical Color Changing Violet Lemonade

Foraging, May Day, Play, Recipes, Spring Portfolio
Violets are at their best this time of year around us so we pick tons of them (and leave plenty for our pollinator friends too!) to make crafts and recipes. Flowers are an important part of May celebrations historically and people decorated their houses, themselves and their animals. Color changing lemonade is one of our favorites and we make it almost every year. Violets are a pH indicator, so to make this magical drink you’ll actually have to make two beverages and then mix them in front of your adoring fans. We do this by the glass so that every kid gets to perform the magic trick. What is actually happening is that the acid from the lemon is changing the pH of the drink, turning it from purpley blue…
Read More
25Feb 2023 by catbird
Dying Eggs with Natural Materials

Dying Eggs with Natural Materials

Craft Project, Foraging, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox, Spring Portfolio
Eggs are a classic symbol of spring, while they seem fairly ordinary to us these days, they must have felt magical to ancient people. One minute they look like a cold and lifeless rock, the next they explode with life. It's exactly what the landscape if doing, one minute its winter, cold and dead, and then suddenly new life begins cropping up everywhere. Traditions around decorating and dying eggs substantially predate the easter eggs we now think of. It's a perfect way to celebrate the Spring Equinox. There is always a rash of natural egg dying posts this time of year, but I feel like they often fail to really explain the difference between natural and chemical dying. With those grocery store kits you can pop an egg into dye…
Read More
24Feb 2023 by catbird
Singing (Playing, Crafting & Learning) in the Rain

Singing (Playing, Crafting & Learning) in the Rain

Craft Project, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox
It rains more in spring. The earth seems to need it to wake up. It's a much gentler sort of rain that we tend to get in the summer. It's some of the best rain to play outside in because there is rarely thunder and lightening with it. There are a million ways to enjoy spring rain- not the least of which is just walking around and jumping in puddles! Below are some of our favorite ways to play in the rain. Rain Painting Rain painting is simple and uses supplies that you probably have on hand already. The only thing that can be tricky is explaining to younger children that the rain is going to change their picture, but once you've done it once or twice it makes sense.…
Read More
20Feb 2023 by catbird
Kindness Bread

Kindness Bread

Learning, Nature Art, Play, Recipes
Mother Holle is a classic Grimm’s fairytale in which a mistreated step sister falls down a magical well to a fairy realm in where she is rewarded for being kind to Mother Holle with gold. (There is of course also a “bad” sister who does everything wrong and is punished in proper Grimm fashion.) The moral of the story is that "industrious children are rewarded and lazy children are punished" although I like to view it in a more modern sense- that kindness is rewarded. Nerd alert- Mother Holle is cataloged as AT 480 in the International Folktale catalog, under "Supernatural Tasks." It is one of a large number of folktales that focus on the industrious/ lazy dynamic. For this project we decided to focus on kindness and some of…
Read More