Gone Fishing

Our family has found a new favorite. Fishing. I was a little skeptical at first, thinking a two year old with a hook adorned stick would be a disaster. Well, we never gave that idea a chance to present itself. I attached a heavy lure to the end of her pink pole (yes, everything MUST be pink) so she could practice casting into the water on her own. She is a very determined "I do it myself" kind of girl.
And Austin, oh my. All he wants to do is fish. We had to drag him away from the pond - and for good reason, the kid is good. He caught 4 fish this day, within an hour. Don't worry, all were carefully put back in the water to swim away.

She caught some algae here...

Have a great day!

Searching For Clovers

Welcome Back!
Today was absolutely beautiful out, and the inside of the house was not the place to be. We spent the majority of the day outside playing, and ended the great day with a walk near dusk. Our mission? To find the infamous four leafed clover... We never found one, but the kids had a great time in the process. We came across an ant colony, touched the different textures of grass, had a few bird sightings and counted the sidewalk blocks. This is a great exploring activity and serves as a good opportunity to teach your kids about nature.

What you need:
comfy shoes

1. Decide what it is you'd like to go on a search for. Some examples would include our clover idea, or maybe a robin's egg, colored rocks, and so on.

2. Point out different things that you see around you, the smells, the sounds. Ask your children to do the same for you - you'd be amazed at some of the things those tiny eyes catch that you would otherwise never notice.

That's it really, just make sure to have a good chunk of time set aside to do this - everything is amazing to a young mind and you don't want to have to rush them along.

Take care everyone!
~Lisa

Painting the Snow

This is my first post ever, so please bear with me :)

Since we have piles of snow outside, I thought it would be fun to paint it. The prep time for this took about 5 minutes, and the bags themselves lasted for about 15 minutes. This is probably better for older children (5+), but the younger ones had a blast just watching. This is a small area of our snow picture.

What you need:
-Ziploc baggies or spray bottles (we did baggies, next time I'm using a spray bottle - it was pretty messy)
-Food coloring
-Water
-Needle or pin if using the baggies

Just take the bag (or bottle) and put as much food coloring as desired (I did about 25 drops per bag), and fill the bag halfway. Bring it outside and put one to three pin pricks near the bottom corner of each bag and then let the kids have fun.

Come back tomorrow! We're making play dough (the edible version so my 1 year old can play too)