Building a Bug House

When I read How You Can Build a Play House for Bug Friends over at Gingersnap Alley I knew that we would definitely be doing this one day. And today was that day.

I started out by simply gathering a few twigs and trying to see if I could get them to stand up together in some kind of frame work. As I played around I talked, mostly to myself at first about what I was doing. Kids nearby began to take an interest and offer help and suggestions. Soon we had a simple little house made of twigs propped against the tree and covered with dry grass.

Then someone thought of adding some flowers to make the house prettier.

We found some pill bugs, or rollie pollies, and introduced them to their new home.

Tre brought over this toy so that that our critters could have a tunnel outside their house.

We added walnut shells that we found on the ground. Tre said they would make good sleeping bags for bugs.

A black beetle was found and added to the household.

Lauren went looking in the dirt for more friends.

Tre gave a couple yellow beetles a car ride to their new home.

By the time we went inside for naptime our bug house looked like this.

It was so much fun to see imagination and creativity come alive and I'm sure in the coming days more houses will join this one. We just may build a whole village.

~ Linking Here ~

 

Planting Carrot Seeds

Since we've been reading all week about carrot seeds and carrots I thought it would be fun for the kids to plant their own carrots. At Walmart I bought potting soil, peat pots and carrot seeds. I let them decorate the pots with foam spring stickers. As it turns out, decorating the pots with stickers was probably not the greatest idea. As soon as we watered the seeds the stickers started coming loose. And of course they will only get looser and come off with time. But it was fun anyway.

After decorating the pots we put in the potting soil.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual planting because the kids kept me to busy take any. But I did manage a few of watering the seeds. Our watering can is any empty plastic spice container.

We then took our pots outside and put them in a somewhat protected place so that they could get plenty of sunlight. We talked a lot about what the seeds need - soil, water, and sunlight. They were happy that they knew (from Curious George: The Perfect Carrot) exactly what the seeds need to grow.

This post will be linked to Craft Schooling Sunday, Creative Bloggers Party and Hop, Monkey's Doodles, Sharing Monday, We Play, Tot Tuesdays, ABC and 123, Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime, Preschool Corner, For the Kids Fridays, The Play Academy, Fun For Kids Friday,  High Paw, Science Sunday, and The Idea Box.