Potions

I put together a simple potions set for Asher. He is loving it while River naps.

Two bottles of colored liquids, one cooking oil the other soapy water. A spray bottle with vinegar. Powder bowls with tiny spoons of baking soda, corn starch and salt.

Endless mixing opportunities. I hope to find a few more things that will be as fun to watch as baking soda and vinegar.

Color Water Play

The temperatures have cooled a bit (only 91 today) but man is it muggy. Nothing seems to slow down my boys, but I have become extra clever to try and get them to stay close to one location, then I don't have to move so much. Apparently I don't enjoy sweating as much as they do. So out came the food coloring, funnels, ladles, measuring cups and cool wet fun.

River was very strategic as posing for unexposed photos naked. We refilled the main color buckets a couple times and had a lot of mixing fun.

One hour later had us diluting a small portion of purple water with a water relay and then swimming.

I really wish I fit in that tub!

Wood Polishing

We have been really busy here trying to simplify our lives and clear out the clutter. My biggest questions is whether or not we use it, and if the answer is no, it is out the door. We have had this box in the basement for the past few years storing wine. It was one of those amazing wedding gifts, but it needed a bit of a new life. So i cleaned out the inside and River took the lead in polishing it with a beeswax wood polish we made and now it is storing blankets in our living room.

I love how invested in the project River was and the feel of the polish on the recycled barn timbers. And now we are back in coffee table world, which going into wood fire, warm beverage drinking time of year is pretty important.

Making Tracks

I thought I would get around to sealing the plaster, but it was time to use them outside, so forget the sealing, we just dug into the ground, made a trail and walked.

It was cool to talk about how different the relief of the tracks left behind is in this loose soil compared to our play dough.

Asher fully embraces becoming any given animal, I love how into character he gets. Adding the tracks to his walking certainly enhances his already strong imagination.

Into the Woods:: 4/15

This weeks hike was pretty remarkable. The kids did great on what really was a hot spring day. Lots of tree climbing- dead trees that are laying down now resembling pirate ships, or large creatures, regardless a place for imaginations to run wild and free. It felt really good to just be able to play in the woods. River has finally hit a stage where he can sit and explore a single area for a good amount of time without eating everything!

And the highlight: a salamander!! I didn't find one last year for A, and turned up empty handed earlier in the spring after really trying to build it up. But this week on a whim I rolled over one random log, call it a feeling, and there she was. Asher was to the moon. We wet our hands and scooped her up.

Shared her with friends, put the log back and then let her crawl back under on her own. Please note when handling larger creatures that live under logs not to put them back and then roll the log back on them...always let them crawl themselves back into space that they fit. Plus it's more fun to watch their tail disappear.

Full leaf out will be here before we know it. I so love all the light that hits the forest floor this time of year. Also, if you need any baby leaves for art projects to dry, there isn't much time left.

Laying Tracks

This winter we have been a little obsessed with tracks around here and bringing out the tracker in Asher.We have always talked about things in the woods as A's curiosity lead up to all those what and why's, but then we started having more fun.Ben rolled out the Busey Woods trail that he and Asher walked through.Pretendting to be all types of animals.Then things got a little more fancy around here, as a closepin is perfect for deer tracks and those plastic bathtub frogs have quite realistic prints in play dough.

And then of course all the other animals came out. It is fun to see what toys are made with accurate tracks- sadly (but not suprisingly) not too many of them.

And of course we have been studying the outside tracks as well. I will be posting this week on tracks and tracking, environmental awareness and respect for the land- or at least that's the plan.

Exploration Boxes

As I try my hardest to bring about a greater sense of rythmn to our days, I have been looking back to my roots of teaching. There are so many things that I love/loved about my chosen profession, and the biggest thing was the kids and how they responded so well to the planned and unplanned learning opportunities that we had together. Now as Ben and I enter harder parenting terrain with an incredibly smart little boy, we are in need of more ideas to occupy our days. Being winter and not able to get outside as much (we still try every day!), I was happy to know that the Urbana Free Library once again saves me.

I recently discovered the exploration boxes at the library. I checked out the gardening/growing one to help us anticipate a little bit of what will happen in the spring.

The box is filled with toys and books. I made a huge deal about bringing it home, set it within eyes view, but out of hands reach and ceremoniously took it out with River was napping, so that Asher could have some good exploration time with it on his own. He loved it. He loves that it is like going to school- learning with new materials. He loves that it is something special. River eventually joined in on the fun and got to eat the garden tools. We have read all the books and now the box is part of Asher's day. He wants to do the same thing, make a farm.
With a wooden block fence to keep out the rabbits and raccoons. He calls himself the farmer and whoever (boy or girl) playing with him, wife. Today he was growing flowers for our wedding. The farm is carefully planted each day.
and then harvested into buckets.Cauliflower Harvest
and then of course the harvests are put into the delivery truck.
Which Asher drives to the kitchen and delivers to papa who is normally cooking at this hour of play.

Of course this play has me thinking of how I can needle felt something similar and make a garden play mat for his birthday. I love these kinds of plans.

Into the Woods:: 9/25

We were a day late due to rain and a case of the grays, but we still made it for week three. Asher took creative play to a new level, one in which I wasn't sure how to supervise responsibly without interfering with his imagination.

As soon as we got out of the car we found a deer family- mama and two older fawns. Asher watched from a far and then began sneaking closer. When they finally took off he was quite distraught. He started yelling: come back for me and telling me that he needed to go with them. Where was his mama going without him? As the deer headed towards a road I wasn't too keen to follow them down the hill, so I convinced A that we needed to go into the woods to find them. This started a 30 minute play of him being a deer and looking for his "real mama" I was just a fake. It was a little worrisome to me just how sincere he seemed to be. I really thought he was going to cry from being abandoned by the herd. He would pause for moments at a time, in which I would be able to catch up to him.Then he was off again on his search. He told us that he needed to leave us to look for his mama and that we needed to let him go.River hung out, pretty chill as always.I found the prettiest, freshest acorn cap-I never knew they could be this color on the inside. Plus collected more acorn hats for my latest garland inspiration.A was off again. We never found his real mama, but we did find the fake papa and played inside for a bit. We'll be back this week to find our abandoned little fawns family.