The Purpose of a Garden

Why grow a garden besides for yourself?

To strengthen relationships with your neighbors and your community.

During the month of May we learned all about growing gardens with our Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum.  As I have been reflecting on gardening this month, I have come to realize having a garden is all about community and sharing your abundance.  What better way to get to know your neighbors than to stop by with a fresh basket of veggies or flowers from your own garden?

We have a row of zinnias next to the fence that borders our neighbors and us.  The other week we found out that one of our sweet church members was having surgery.  Avaleigh and I cooked them some lasagna, and my girl went out to our zinnia garden to pick some fresh flowers for Mrs. Susan.

I received a sweet text of gratitude later that day from Mrs. Susan thanking Avaleigh for the beautiful flowers.  Sharing is caring, right.

Our neighbors move today.  The ones we picked carrots and onions from their garden.  The ones who allowed us to cut fresh herbs from their herb garden.  I am so sad to see them leave, but excited for their new adventure of retirement and traveling.  They sure were wonderful neighbors sharing their garden with us. Sharing is caring.

On Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip to my hometown to see my parents and their amazing garden which is pictured above.  The past few years my parents have become quite the avid gardeners.  My dad built raised beds and tilled areas in the backyard to grow all sorts of produce throughout the seasons.  They live outside Houston, so the weather is very accommodating toward year round gardening.  For the past few years, Avaleigh has been able to pick fresh veggies from their garden over Memorial Day weekend.  Mom wrapped up Avaleigh's pickings and shared some canned pickles and marinara sauce she had made from this season's abundance.

Sharing is caring.

A garden shares.

Caring for the garden allows us to share and care for our friends and community.

A beautiful reason and purpose for gardening.

Happy Gardening!

Homeschool Preschool: Learning the Value of Money

About 2 weeks ago, my 3.5 year old and I played a game, encouraged from our 

Growing Gardens unit from Mother Goose Time.  

It has now become a highly requested game that we play for at least 

30 minutes each time we play if not longer. 

It's called "Penny Produce Market."

All you need are some vegetables, fruit, and some pennies.  The veggies and fruit could be real, fake, or even made out of paper! Do what best suits you.

We grabbed some fruits and veggies from her play kitchen and I threw them into a basket.  I handed my girl 5 pennies and let her shop at the "store."  Each time she purchased something she had to give me a penny. We played until she had spent all her money.

The best part was when she realized she couldn't buy any more because she had spent all of her money.  This led to the question,"How do I get more money?"

Which led to a great discussion on work.

To earn more pennies, she would look for things that needed to be put away or picked up even if she didn't make that particular mess.  When we played the other night, she went around finding her baby brother's toys and put them away to earn pennies.  

Was it her mess? No.  But she did whatever it took to earn more pennies. 

She even picked up my shoes and took them to my room! 

Here is our game and her learning in action <3 

She played and our house became cleaner through playing.  How often does that happen?  

Usually the house gets destroyed during playtime, but not when playing "Penny Produce Market."

All the while, she is beginning to understand that earning money requires work. 

A perfect lesson to learn at such a young age.

DITL Homeschool: Preschooler and 5 Month Old

**This is a long post.  But it is exactly what happened last Friday.**

I roll over and look at the clock. 7:03 am. 

I glance at the monitor.  Everett is still asleep in his crib, but Avaleigh's bed is empty.

"Are you on the floor," I say groggily.

Up pops her little head like a wack-a-mole.  

"Go tee-tee," I tell her.

My husband, Jason, knows I was up 4 different times throughout the night nursing our
teething 5 month old.

He lets me sleep and prepares breakfast for our 3.5 year old girl, Avaleigh.

At 7:55 he kisses my forehead and tells me bye.

I look at the monitor.  Everett is moving. Time for me to move.

Get to the coffee.

In the living room, I sip my caffeine infused go juice while nursing my little boy. I let our dog, Bailey, outside.  Avaleigh finishes watching Super Why! and eating her cheese quesadilla her daddy made her.

We have a play date with some friends at 9:30.

It takes us 18 minutes to load into the car but we make it on time!

**This is a first and is NOT TYPICAL**

My friend enjoys baby snuggles while the 3 other kiddos (4 and under)
destroy her house with toys everywhere.

After 2 hours, it's time for us to go home and make lunch.  Daddy will be home for lunch soon.

We walk through the door at 11:38.

I quickly prepare Avaleigh's lunch.  I grab a frozen peanut butter and jelly and place it on the counter to thaw (I made a bunch earlier in the week), place some yellow peppers , broccoli, and a cheese stick on her tray.  I grab a container of a leftover pasta dish from the refrigerator and get it in a dish for Jason to reheat when he walks through the door.

I grab my fussy baby and take him to the living room to nurse.

12:10
Jason gets home and enjoys lunch with Avaleigh.  After his lunch and while I am still nursing, he makes me a taco quesadilla from leftover taco meat I made earlier in the week  

Everett finally finishes nursing, and I can eat. Avaleigh plays, Everett sits and babbles, while Jason and I talk some.  I quickly finish lunch, and get Avaleigh down for her nap.  I set her alarm for an hour and 20 minutes and tuck her in.   I hear Jason washing the dishes in the kitchen.  I am so thankful for him.  Our dishwasher went out in August 2 days before we had to put our beloved golden retriever, Peyton, down.  We just never replaced it.

I talk to Jason for a bit while I play with Everett in his bouncer.  It's close to his nap time-
I might get them both to nap at the same time!  

Jason leaves to go back to work at 1:00, and I put Everett in the only place he naps- his swing.

I open up my laptop debating about doing a post... 

It's been 10 minutes... I peek at Everett- he's asleep!

The house is still, peaceful, and I need a shower.

I can't tell you the last time I showered... gross I know, but it's the life I am in right now.

I shower.  I dry off enjoying the silence of the house and wrap my hair in a towel.

I head back to the computer in the dining room.  Bailey spots me out of her peripheral vision and I spook her.  She leaps up, barking nonstop, tearing into the living room while I'm running to shoosh her.  The silence is gone. The baby awakens. Ugh.

Bailey calms down after a bit.   Everett is wide eyed in his swing.  I give him his pacifier and he falls asleep again.  Whew.

I check the news on the my laptop and see what has happened in Santa Fe, Texas.  I have time to pray before I hear Avaleigh's alarm beeping.  I race to her room to turn it off.

It's 2 pm.  She shifts in her bed.

"Momma, what we going to learn about today?"

Most of the time we do our Mother Goose Time in the afternoon.

"I don't know.  You'll have to choose, but first you need to go tee-tee."

As she goes to the bathroom, I place 2 of our discovery bags from our Growing Gardens theme on the playroom floor.  I check on Everett- still sleeping.  I check on Avaleigh- she's pooping.

"You want to come read me a book?" she asks from the potty.  

I squeeze reading time wherever we can, so I grab Sunny Day- one of our Usborne books.

It has a lot of info about flowers and gardens and I think it'll be a great start to our MGT time.

I read.  She poops.  Momlife.

Afterwards, we quietly head to the playroom.  She decides she wants to learn about flowers.

She completes the calendar, finds the day of the week, and places our weather card on the window before she sits with me at the play table to discuss what she knows about flowers.

We sing a song to the tune of muffin man, and it hits me! 

We have flowers on our tomato plant.  I turn to my girl, "Let'ts go look at our garden real quick."
We grab shoes and head outside.

Yikes!  The leaves are wilted and I tell Avaleigh we have to water our plants.  We talk about how important water is for our plants as we hose them down.   Then we inspect our grape tomato plant.

She locates the little yellow flowers, and I tell her that in that spot there will soon be a tomato.  She finds a green tomato growing where a flower once was.

It's hot.
We head back inside.  Everett is crying.   The clock reads 2:53, and our MGT stops.

I get my girl some snacks and turn on Magic School Bus: Goes to Seed.  She'll learn about plants while I nurse. We watch and talk about how the bees pollinate the flowers while I nurse her brother.
After her show, and he's done, we head back to the playroom to finish our flower lesson.

I set up the Pollinating Letter F game and remember her bee costume from Halloween.

"Would you like to become a bee?"
She jumps up and down and we head to her closet.  I help her put her Dollar Tree Bee wings on and the headband from the costume we borrowed from a friend.  Perfect.

 I place Everett on the floor and sit next to him.  Bailey tries to squeeze herself as close as she can.  I think she believes Everett is hers.  Everett works on his tummy time, while I call out letters to his sister. Avaleigh uses tweezers to get the yellow pollen pom poms to the letters I call out.  The pom poms stick to the tweezers, so she uses her fingers to remove them from the tweezers and places them on the letters.
She's good at this game, but it takes her a little while to find the letters.
She's getting bored with it and I know we need to stop.
"Let's finish the letters in your name, and then we can get out some play dough," I tell her.

"Thank you, Momma! I love play dough."

We finish, but leave everything there.  I am hoping we can play again later... maybe after dinner.
It's 4:45.  I put Everett in his swing again for a short power nap.  Jason will be home soon.  I grab the container with all our play dough and let Avaleigh pick out some colors.



We head back to the playroom.  I place jewels, pony beads, buttons, shape cutters, and a few play dough supplies in our green flower tray from Dollar Tree.
We begin to make flowers.
Avaleigh finds a bee toy and starts talking about what she learned from Magic School Bus and our book Sunny Day.  We talk about the bee gathering nectar to take to the hive, and we make sure our flowers have nectar for the bee.

5:20 Jason comes home.  Everett wakes up.
Avaleigh tells her daddy all about what we learned today.
I am so proud of her as she tells him about "First a flower then a squash, Daddy!"
She points to her toy bee on her play dough flower.  "Daddy, look.  The bee.  It's getting nectar."

We go into the driveway to play a bit before dinner.
A friend stops by who has been working on the house next door.  We go to survey his work.  It's amazing!  They are hoping to move in at the end of July.  Everett is getting fussy.  What time is it?
We head home.  Holy smokes!  It's 6:38!  I feed Everett inside while Jason and Avaleigh finish talking to our friend.  They come inside and Jason gets the leftovers together for dinner.

We eat.  Afterwards, Avaleigh plays, Jason finishes the dishes, I work on the laundry placing a pile of clean clothes on Avaleigh's bed to put away before bedtime. Everett sits awaiting his bath. It's 7:20 and I bathe him and head to his nursery to nurse him to sleep.  Jason and Avaleigh take Bailey outside to play.  At 8:15 I place my sleeping baby in his crib.  His eyes open. UGH!  I give him his pacifier and leave.  I grab the monitor and go outside to meet the rest of the family.

Daddy and Avaleigh are building a fire in the old chimenea bottom.  Sticks are gathered in a pile and Avaleigh is excited. "You want to come sit down with us?" She inquires.
Yes.  Yes I do.
Jason gets the fire going.  It's over 80 degrees outside and we have a fire.  Whatever.
"We're camping.  We need a teepee," she says.
"I think you mean tent."  She agrees.
The monitor lights up red.  Everett is hollering.
I go inside. Again. And again. Finally deciding I need to nurse him to sleep at 8:45.
Jason and Avaleigh come inside.  He gives her a quick shower and puts her to bed while I deal with Everett.  I emerge from the nursery at 9:30.  He's still awake, but my nerves are shot.  I need some alone time.  Avaleigh's door is shut but I know she's not asleep.
I scoop some ice cream.  I need some Bluebell chocolate peanut butter in my life.  I take my ice cream into the bedroom and talk to Jason.
I savor every bite as I witness Everett finally fall asleep on the monitor.
Whew.

It's almost 10pm.  I check the monitor to see Avaleigh.  She's not in bed.
I get up and find her hiding in the living room.
"I need to go tee-tee."  She's smart.  She knows when she says this we take her word for it, and she doesn't get into so much trouble.
"You better," I say as I take her to the potty.
She tee-tees a few drops.
Afterwards, I tuck her into bed and tell her she better not get up again.  It's late.

I head back to our bedroom.  It's 10pm.  I'm exhausted but want to spend some time with Jason.
We decide we need to laugh so we turn on our favorite episode of Arrested Development: Mr. F.
We both laugh hysterically as at the giant mole and rocket man part.  It's our fave.

After our show, I turn in and he heads to the office to work on web development stuff.  He has a website business on the side that allows me to stay home with the kids.

I pray for good rejuvenating sleep and a baby that will sleep through the night.
Because tomorrow will come quickly and it will all start again.

Preschool Garden Sensory Bin

I've been trying to build thematic sensory tubs each month that coincides with our theme from Mother Goose Time, our preschool curriculum.  

This month it's all about the garden, so here's how we built ours and a few activities you can do with the bin.

You will need:

black beans, pinto beans, floral foam, fake flowers, little ceramic pots, floral cutters ($1 at Dollar Tree!) or scissors, a large tub and any other trinkets you want to add  to your garden.

Everything pictured below (except the beans and tub) was purchased at Dollar Tree, and I might have spent $10. 

Pour both colors of beans into your tub.  This allows it to look more like dirt and is great if you are wanting to do a sorting activity.

Build Bouquets.

Cut the flowers to where each is on it's own stem. Then let your preschooler stab them into the floral foam.  My girl started building it bouquets by scooping beans into her ceramic pots and then placing flowers inside.  (The ceramic pots are breakable!  Please only purchase if you feel they are safe for your child. My girl is very gentle and doesn't throw things around, so I didn't mind her playing with the ceramic pots under my supervision.)

Play a Matching Game.

Remove the flowers and now you have "soil" to plant all sorts of things in your garden.

We played a matching game with vegetable cards during our Soil Day, and when we had a match we buried them in the "soil."

Act out math problems.

We added some produce from my girl's toy kitchen to act out math problems from our Rabbit Day.

There is so much more you could do with the garden bin!  

• You could have your little "pick" the produce to sell at the make believe market.  
• They could also make bouquets to sell at the market. 
• You could act out stories you read.  This allows you to actually grasp your little's reading comprehension all while playing.  Win-win!
• Hide fishing worms in the bin and have your little find them.  What a great sensory experience!
• For older kids:  Plant sight words in the garden and have them pick the words to make a sentence.

I love having a sensory tub to go with the theme.

My girl loves to make believe play with it and I love having a bin to expand her learning.

Here are a few more tubs we have built:

Rainbow Rice Ocean Sensory Bin

Bug Sensory Bin

Valentine Rice Bin (toddlers)

Simple Garden Bin (toddlers)

Easter Bin (toddlers)

What kind of bin is your favorite and what is your favorite activity to do with it?

Preschool STEAM: Root Study

This month it's all about Growing Gardens with our Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum.

Living in Texas you have to establish your garden bed by March or April because if you wait until May, it'll be to hot.   While we planted peppers, tomatoes, and zinnias in our garden, my neighbors planted all sorts of herbs, and root vegetables including carrots and green onions in their raised beds. They let us pick from their garden whenever needed, so after breakfast my girl and I pulled up one carrot and one green onion to observe the roots on our 

ROOT Study day.

We had a quick discussion on roots before we made our experiment.

"Avaleigh, where are the roots?"

"At the bottom in the soil."

"What do you think the roots do?"

"Grow flowers."

I tried to explain to her that the roots deliver food and water to the plants.  We sang and acted out a little song called Roots Deliver from our MGT teacher guide.  Then I told her we would do a ROOTS Experiment that would help her see what roots do.  

9:00 am 

She set up our science experiment. 

(3 clear containers, liquid watercolors or food coloring, paper towels)

I told Avaleigh it was really important for us to not bother the experiment and just observe and look at it throughout the day. 

I asked her what she thought would happen. (hypothesis)

She knew red and blue make purple, which she stated, however she could not tell me HOW the clear water would become purple.  She could not understand the purpose of the paper towels.

10:00 am

We went out to observe our experiment.

She noticed that the clear water was changing.  "It's pink."

The blue had not made it through the paper towel at this point.

11:00 am

We went outside again to observe our experiment.  At this point I knew I needed to add a little more blue liquid watercolor to the blue water to make sure that the middle container would indeed turn purple.  I added just a little more blue water to the blue container. 

1:00pm

Before leaving on our errands, we took one more look.

"It's purple!" She exclaimed.

I asked her how the middle container turned purple and she just said, "Red and blue make purple."  She still would not tell me that it happened because of the paper towels.

I think if we were to do this again, I would set up another set of 3 containers, except with no paper towels (creating a control).  Then we could observe how one changed and the other didn't and how the paper towel is the key variable in the experiment. 

I think if I had done this, Avaleigh probably could have picked up on the fact that the paper towels pulled the color into the middle container of water, like roots do for plants.

I guess it's an experiment I will have to try :) 

I'll let yall know the outcome.  Until then...

Happy Experimenting!

For more STEAM ideas click here.

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Building a Bird Sanctuary

I've been so inspired this past month by our Birds and Eggs unit by Mother Goose Time.

We built our own nest that my girl loves, which you can read about here.  In fact, she convinced Daddy to sit in it with her and read together yesterday.  Wish I had grabbed a picture. 

Yesterday, I taught the 2-4 year old crafts at our local co-op and I had the kids make birdfeeders from toilet paper rolls, peanut butter, and birdseed.

When we came home, Sweet Pea and I decided we needed to build a bird sanctuary. 

I hope the birds feel that way.

I dug out our old chiminea that has not been used in 9 years out of the shed and hosed it off hoping it would be a great bird bath.

I either need to fill it more, or put something in the center so the birds can easily reach the water.  

We placed it outside our dining room windows so we can easily watch the birds.  

My husband built this bird feeder last year out of some scraps of wood and left over gutters he used to build bookshelves in Sweet Pea's playroom.  My girl scooped out the seeds and placed them in the feeder.  "I help too, Momma." 

Mother Goose Time had us build a bird feeder once before out of pinecones, which you can read about here.  I wish I had done that instead of the toilet paper tube.  The minute it gets wet, it will fall apart.... lesson learned.

However, she was so proud of her work!  How could I not put it up?

2 toilet paper tube birdfeeders placed on a garden hook and outside our window provides the perfect spot to watch. 

Our completed bird sanctuary.

At least that's what I'm calling it.  

I bet it becomes more of a squirrel sanctuary though.

Now to read our book The Birdwatchers 

and make some binoculars from our Mother Goose Time unit!

You can read about us becoming birdwatchers here.

Happy Birdwatching!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

 What did we do before Pinterest?!?! It's amazing what you can find on there.  I know a lot of people can look on there and get overwhelmed especially with the comparison game, but for me Pinterest is like a visual encyclopedia.  I type something in, and boom, research is done.  Millions of ideas, thoughts, and visual representations are there to GUIDE me.  And that's the key word GUIDE.  For me, Pinterest is the best place for me to find ideas on how to guide my little girl's learning and ways to help her develop new skills I would not have even thought of.  That's why I have this blog.  A place to share ideas. I am not perfect.  I don't have to be, and friend, neither do you.  Sorry I was on a soap box a bit with that... I just think its really important, especially as mom's, that we stop trying to be perfect and start relishing each moment God has graced us with. 

 With that being said, here's a look into our imperfect but oh so fun garden sensory box.

Big bag of pinto beans I never made for refried beans became the easily scoopable dirt.  Filled with hot glued flowers (with the glue string that my girl loves to point at going "ut-oh"), and terra cotta pots from Dollar Tree.  I <3 that place. 

 Playing on a quilt makes clean up easy and our bums don't hurt.  :) 

 Working hard on those scooping skills and pouring back and forth from the terra cotta pot to other containers.  This was Sweet Pea's first attempt at transferring from one container into a similar sized container and being pretty successful.

            

This bin cost me $1.00.  I had everything else from around the house except the terra cotta pots, and she has loved stacking them into each other, transferring beans from one to the other, and planting her flowers in the pots.  I love watching her grow and learn new things.... It is such a privilege to be be her momma.

I hope you all have a wonderful day catching glimpses of God's grace in your little ones today realizing you don't have to be perfect or have everything perfect... and that is okay, mom.  <3 

This blog entry has been linked to an amazing blog I love to stalk and get idea for my tot!  Head over to 1+1+1=1 for some amazing ideas and printables!