Wacky Wednesday: Spring Fever!

Wacky Wednesday

Spring Fever!

Crafts:

• Magical Beans Mosaic: Pencil, canvas boards, small paintbrush, glue, dried beans, ruler

1. Start by drawing a pattern in pencil on the board.  
2. "Paint" a thin layer of glue in one area of your pattern, and sprinkle the area with colorful beans.  To keep the look graphic, use a single color in each area.
3. Use the ruler to tidy up the edges of the beans before moving on the next area.
4. Repeats Steps 1 through 3 until the board is covered.  Let dry for 1 hour.

• Crafty pots: Terra-cotta flowerpots, acrylic craft paints (colorful), glue or hot glue, small mosaic tiles, glass stones, beads, sticker, glitter

1. Paint the pots with the paint and let them dry.
2. Glue the tiles, stones, beads in a pattern or any design your child chooses for their pots.  Let dry.

• Tidy Garden Starter: Toothpicks, a dozen eggs, potting soil, flower or vegetable seeds, plastic-foam egg carton, paper, markers

1. With a toothpick, poke a hole in the end of each egg.  Carefully enlarge the hole and remove the eggs and rinse the shells.  Poke a small drainage hole in bottom of each shell.  Fill each with potting soil.  Plant a seed in each shell.
2. Cut a bottom half from the egg carton, and place the planted shells into the cups.  Use flags made from toothpicks and paper to label each shell.  Decorate the carton with markers.
3. When the seeds have sprouted and the weather is warm enough, the entire shell with sprout can be planted outdoors.

• Plant Projects:  Clean empty milk carton, craft sticks, construction paper or felt, potted plant such as an ivy

To Make A Plant Caddy:

1. Cut away the top half of a clean milk carton so it's a little shorter than the length of a craft stick.  
2. Glue craft sticks side by side around the carton.
3. Decorate with construction paper or felt.  
4. Place a small plant in the caddy.

To Make The Craft-Stick Trellis:

1. Glue two craft sticks together, end to end, to form a long stick.  
2. Center and glue another craft stick across the top of the long stick about 1 inch from the tip.
3. Center and glue another craft stick across the long stick about 1 1/2 inches down from the first.
4. Repeat with a third craft stick.  
5. Glue one craft stick on the left side and one on the right, forming a V shape.  Let dry.
6. Stick the trellis into the dirt behind a small ivy plant.

• Custom Containers: Magazines and catalogs, plastic or cardboard containers, ribbon and other trims, glue

1. Cut out your favorite words or pictures.  
2. Glue the pictures over the container.
3. Cover the pictures with a coating of glue to hold down the edges and protect the pictures.
4. Decorate the top and bottom of the container with ribbon or other trims.
5. Add soil and some seeds or a plant or fake flower arrangements.

• Works Of Art: Comic section of newspaper, construction paper, glue, yarn, markers

1. Cut circles, triangles, and other shapes from the comics section of the newspaper.
2. Arrange the shapes on construction paper to make a picture like flowers and a sun. 
3. Glue the shapes to the paper.
4. Use yarn and markers to add details.

Activities:

• Pineapple Plant: Whole fresh pineapple, decorated pot with sandy soil

1. Cut the top off of a fresh pineapple, two inches from the top.  Let this piece dry out for about a week.  
2. Then put it into a pot filled with damp, sandy soil.  Make sure the soil stays moist.  
3. Several weeks later, notice how the pineapple piece has sprouted roots!  Then transplant it into a larger pot, give it plenty of light, and keep it watered.  It makes a great indoor plant!

• Vegetable or Fruit Painting: Any kind of vegetable or fruit, paint, paper

1. Cut a vegetable/fruit in half or whatever way you wish.  You can cut little designs into them too.  
2. Have your child dip them into the paint and stamp them onto the paper.
3. Look at all the cool shapes they make.

• Vegetable Soup Game: Soup pot, wooden spoon, chef's hat

1. Print out Let's Read At Home Printable
2. Read Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.
3. Grow Seeds at Home.
4. Make Vegetable Soup.
5. Play Game: Children stand in a circle and choose a vegetable they want to be.  
6. Place a large, empty soup pot and a wooden spoon in the middle of the circle for props.
7. One child is the cook and pretends to stir the soup.  They can say,"I need more (name of vegetable)."  Children who have chosen to be that vegetable go to the center of the circle,  touch the soup pot and then go back to their place in the circle.
8. The child stirring the soup tries to run to one of the places left by the children.  
9. The child left standing without a place in the circle then becomes the cook and the game continues.

• The Seeds and Flower Dance: 

1. Ask the children to pretend to be seeds so they can do "The Seeds and Flowers Dance." 
2. First, ask the children to make their bodies small and round like tiny seeds.  Tap each child on the back and explain that you are planting them in the soil and pressing soil on top of them.
3. Tell the children that you have the watering can and that you will pretend to water them (walk to each child and tickle the child's back lightly with your fingers as if you are watering them.)
4. Explain that the seeds need to be in the light for a long time before they will sprout (count to ten very slowly).  Tell the children that after pretending to wait ten days the seeds are beginning to sprout and that when you count to three they should poke one finger out of the soil up toward the sky (1 2 3).
5. Continue counting and tell the children that when you reach 10 the tiny sprouts will have grown into tall plants(children slowly stand up). 
6. Walk around the room pretending to water the plants and tell them that as you count to 10 the flowers will begin to bloom (children raise their arms above their heads)
7. Tell the children to look around the room and see all the beautiful flowers.  There are marigolds, zinnias, pansies, roses, and snapdragons.  What a beautiful garden you've made.
8. Continue the role play by telling the children that there is a gentle wind (children move their arms slowly, swaying in the wind).  Explain the wind is blowing harder (make the whoosh-whoosh sound of the wind with your voice).
9. Tell the children to keep their roots(feet) planted in the soil and move their body from side to side. Explain that sometimes the wind carries seeds from the flowers to different parts of the garden and they will pretend that the wind will gently scatter these seeds to different spots in the garden (count to 3 and tell the children to gently blow(move) to another place and land gently on the ground!
10. Tell the children that they just danced "The Seeds and Flowers Dance."

• Rainbow Garden: Variety of seed packets, 3" x 5" index cards, construction paper (variety of colors), tape, glue, scissors, Book: Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

1. Read the book.
2. Compare the different type of bulbs, seeds, and flowers, especially note the shapes and colors of the flowers.
3. Show your child the index cards (with seed packet and sample seeds taped to each card) so that your child can compare the seeds and the pictures of the flowers and seeds will become when planted.
4. Plant the seeds.
5. Then trace your child's hands on construction paper.  Add a stem and leaves to the hand tracing so it will look like a flower.   Glue the flower onto another piece of paper.
6. You can learn play a matching game with two identical sets of empty seed packets taped to index cards.

• Seed Art: Seeds(pumpkins, sunflower, variety), glue, construction paper, pencil

1. Design a simple picture with a pencil.
2. Glue a variety of seeds onto the drawing.
3. Can use construction paper to add details to the picture.

• Spongy Garden: Sponge, birdseed or grass seed, clean spray bottle, water, empty container.

1. Place sponge in container
2. Sprinkle the upper surface of the sponge with seeds.  
3. Water it and watch it grow.

• Ups and Downs of Plants: 6 beans,(the kind sold for growing, not for eating), soil (potting compost is best), a pot or bowl, a plastic bottle, black paper, a rubber band, scissors

1. Fill the bowl or pot with earth or compost.  Press it down with your fingers.  Fill the bowl with water and wait until it has sunk into the earth.
2. Press the beans or peas into the earth.  Put the bowl in a warm, light place and wait for the seeds to sprout.  They will take about a week to split and grow.
3. When the seeds have sprouted, cut the top and bottom off a small plastic bottle. It should be big enough to slip a bean or pea in easily with room to spare.
4. Push one bean or pea into the bottle.  Push damp earth in at each end. Pack it well round the seed. Drip on a little water at each end.
5. Wrap a bit of black paper round the bottle, leaving the ends open.  Keep it in place with a rubber band. Put the bottle in a warm, light place.  Look at it every day.
6. When two shoots come out of the bottle, one grows up and has tiny green leaves.  The other, the white root, grows down.  Turn bottle over for a day and a night.  The shoots will grow the other way.  
7. Whichever way you plant seeds, the stems will always grow up to the light.  The roots always grow down into the earth for water and food.

• Waterways of Plants: A stick of fresh celery, a table knife, food coloring, glass or jar, water

1. Slice a bit off the end of the stick of celery.  Put the stick in a jar or glass with a little water.  Add food coloring to the jar or glass.  Stand the jar in a warm, light place for a day.
2. Wash the end of the celery stick in clean water.  Slice the stem about every 3 cm.  Look at each cut.  You can see dots where the stem has taken up the colored water.

Snacks/Foods:

• Any Fruits or Vegetables or Seeds(Pumpkin, Sunflower), Nuts, Vegetable Soup, Spring Ritz Crackers and Spring Oreo Cookies, Blueberry Muffins or Pancakes, Fruit or Vegetable Juice, Carrot Cake

Books:

• The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton
• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
• The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
• Eat the Fruit, Plant the Seed by Millicent Selsam
• Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

Wacky Wednesday: Spring Fever!