The Rowdy Pea

a book for papa

For Father's Day, Ivo and I made Josh a book about our recent fishing trip up north. Ivo dictated all of the text to me, and then I picked out the pictures and put the pages together. When I asked him what he wanted the title to be, he said "Moby Dick" because that's a grown-up book about fishing. So here are some excerpts from Moby Dick:

To create the text, I put a slide show of our fishing trip pictures on the computer and as we watched it together I asked Ivo to tell the story of our trip. Then I wrote down his words. This was a really fun project and very easy to make.  Ivo loves hearing his story, and Josh said it was his favorite present ever.  Here's the whole story of Moby Dick:

We are going fishing.

We bring my life jacket, the rowers, and a tackle box.

We bounce the oars. 

In the canoe the fish swim under my seat.

We are rowing.

Papa casts his line.

We see a turtle, a line, and a loon.

All the fishes that we caught is model.

Then we row back to the dock.

We feel happy. 

 

We tried to make the cover look like an old-timey leather bound edition (it looks better in person than in this picture). The binding is a pamphlet stitch, which is very easy and only requires a nail and some string. Here are some good directions for making a book with a pamphlet stitch in case you want to make your own story.

 

milkweed pod babies

I went back and fixed the links, so they should work now. Thanks for letting me know.

These milkweed pod babies were inspired by this amazing post from The Little Travelers.  I lovewhat she says about fostering connection, not collection. And that not only makes a lot of sense, but also rhymes. How completely perfect.

These babes were so simple to make. I just put a wooden bead on an inch or two of pipe cleaner and felted wool roving into a little bundle around the pipe cleaner. Then I added the acorn cap and a little more wool to make the milkweed pod cradle nice and soft. They look so sweet I almost wish they were real.

for nana

Making a necklace for Nana's birthday . . .

Happy Birthday Nana!  We hope your special day was full of fun and surprises. We love you!

tissue paper flowers

 

These flowers were so much fun to make and they really turned out pretty, so I thought I would share them here in case anyone else wants to whip up a bouquet of their own.  We made these as a group project with five people--two moms and three kids, all three years old but with varying degrees of dexterity. Everyone was able to do all the steps of the project without frusteration, and with beautiful results all around!

Here's a look at how we made them:

Tissue Paper Flowers

supplies: colorful tissue paper, green pipe cleaners

prep: Cut the tissue paper into squares or circles about 3 inches across (it doesn't have to be exact).  For each flower you will want about five pieces of tissue in varying colors.  I cut all the paper before hand and then just put a pile of squares in the middle of the table for the children to choose from when it was time to get started.

To make the flowers, take the end of a pipe cleaner and gently push it through the center of the tissue paper like in the picture below. For very young children you can hold the tissue pieces taut for them to push the pipe cleaner up and through from below, that makes it very easy to do.  When you have all the issue pieces on the stem, bend the top inch of the pipe cleaner into a little loop, and then use your whole hand to crumple all the layers of paper into one big mish-mash. This has the children amused and befuddled the first time they see it done . . .

And we say, "gee that doesn't look like much of a flower, does it?" But wait and see . . . You can gently uncrumple the tissue mish-mash and you will discover a beautiful bloom . . .voila!

 

If you want to, you can use a dot of glue at the bottom of each bloom to secure everything in place. A little bead pushed up the stem will also do the trick.

For older children and grown-ups, this is a great book about making tissue paper flowers of all kinds. I've used it as a project book with kids ages 6-12 and they loved it and really took off with the ideas. Like the other Klutz books, it comes as a kit with all the supplies, but I noticed that our public library has a copy of just the book part, and the supplies are really easy to find at any craft store. So if you like flowers, check it out! (Does that sound like one of the kids from Reading Rainbow? I was kind of going for that feel. du-dun-dun!)

a little stroll through the neighborhood . . .

Sometimes I can go a few days without the chance to hop online and visit my favorite blogs, and then when I finally do sit down I feel like I'm in some magical neighborhood going on door-to-door visits up and down the block. Sort of like a version of speed-dating but in this case it's ok to be interested in everyone! And since I love a good linky post (doesn't everyone?) I thought I'd pass on just a few of my recent favorites to my neighbors in this neck of the woods . . .

Jenny from Wildwood Cottage recently posted a slew of links to great children's book resources on her blog.  Did you know there are websites where you can actually look at every page of a book online, like you can really read the whole picture book from cover to cover if you want to? Very neat! Jenny uses it for previewing books for buying or borrowing, which I think is a great idea. Her blog is chock-full of book reviews and recommendations, and lucky for me Ivo is about the same age as her daughter CJ.  We often take her reading list with us to the library and have found some great books that way.

Jessamyn from Love This Life had me nodding along and saying, "yes!" with her Love Thursday post from last week. Which I find myself doing a lot when I read her lovely blog. I would totally sign up for her podcast if she had one.

We will be copying Denise from Mom in Madison with the arts and crafts projects featured here and here. It's so great to see these art ideas that are unfussy, inexpensive, and yet totally creative and clever.  I know Ivo will love to make those texture stones; I can almost picture them in his little hands. And another way to use all of these watercolor paintings I could wallpaper our living room with? yes please and thankyouverymuch! 

This post from Lizz at Red Dirt Mother is really perfection.  Beautifully photographed, a great craft project, and most importantly an inspiring little window into the life of "just another" creative, happy family making their way through the day together. Lizz always makes me wish for a house full of children.

And speaking of creative family living, I'm awaiting my copy of this book which should arrive any day. Can you guess what it is without clicking on the link? I know some of you will :)

OK, neighbors, that's all for today. Don't be a stranger now!

the bulletin board again

I've been trying to keep up with my idea for having a theme for our kitchen bulletin board. Last week the theme was the American Robin(or an "American Idol Robin" according to Ivo) and we'll probably keep it up for another week or so. The problem I've been running into is perfectionism. Nasty, nasty, nasty way to live if you ask me! I want it to be so beautiful and so perfect that I end up feeling afraid to even start. So I'm challenging myself to just plow through it and get something up there and be pleased with it. This board was thrown together in a matter of an hour or so, and it's not beautiful or perfect but we've enjoyed having it up to look at. And having the poems posted where I will see them several times a day helps me memorize them, and idea I learned from Dawn at Renaissance Mama. Ivo is very auditory and loves to hear the little poems over and over again. Here's this week's favorite:

What the Robin Told

The wind told the grasses

And the grasses told the trees.

The trees told the bushes,

And the bushes told the bees.

The bees told the robin,

And the robin sang out clear:

Wake up! Wake up!

Spring is here!

This poem and more bird poems are here at Bethany Roberts's website.

To add to what we're learning about birds and nests, we made a little bag of nest-building supplies in the hopes that our neighborhood birds will find it and use some of our offerings in their spring nest-building. We used a mesh onion bag and stuffed it with bits of wool, organic natural-colored yarn, raffia, some hair from a haircut, paper cording, hemp twine, and bits of other natural fibers like those.  Ivo had the clever idea of adding a stone to weight it down so it wouldn't flip around so crazily in the breeze. He also added a little bell so the birds would have some music to work to. When we saw the first robin of spring we hung it outside to see if we'd get any takers. Nothing yet, but it's still early.

some spring nature table inspiration

Our spring nature table is slowly coming together.  It's so tempting to just sweep all the winter stuff into a box and stash it--I feel *that* done with it all!  But I know it's important to reflect the changing nature of the seasons by gradually swapping out late winter items with early spring. Our winter sprites left on Tuesday night, and after our big thaw on Wednesday the mohair snow unwrapped itself from around the felt trees and sat on the table in droopy swirls.  Our white bear left this morning and two little rabbits showed up in late afternoon. Gray squirrel stays on year-round, perched on his little oak stump. And in a very encouraging sign that the nature table is indeed the group effort it's intended to be, I noticed that sometime this week Ivo carefully placed a little playdough flower on the table.  So, so perfect.

In bringing our table together, we're finding our inspiration in the natural world around us and also here:

Denise from Mom in Madison blogged about making flower people with her sons. Very, very cute ideas here.  I love those little wooden peg people and I know I don't have to tell you my feelings on the tiny acorn cap hats (*swoon*).

Emilie from Little Nest shared pictures of her very beautiful early spring nature table and moss garden.  Ivo and I made our version of this project this afternoon.  We just need to get a little bit of moss and ours will be almost as cool as hers.

Dawn from Renaissance Mama shared her beautiful mother/daughter collaboration here. I love the flower fairies and her daughter's acorn dolls. So sweet!

These felted eggs from waldorf mama are so yummy! Her Etsy shop has quite a few of these in stock, making it so hard to pick a favorite. They are all so pretty.  A bowlfull would be perfect but I'll have to choose just one for now.   Update: I picked this one . . .wheee!

This morning I bought this little nesting birdy from Vermont Fairies at Etsy.  Ivo and I have been spending lots of time learning about bird nests so I am hoping to surprise him with this when it arrives in a few days. Here are some other very cute birds and nests that are just right for gracing the spring nature table . . . the sweetest little hungry baby birds, this little bluebird, and a simple but beautiful promise of spring.

I would love to see more links to spring nature tables if anyone wants to share them in the comments section.

our pizza party

On Friday Ivo had some friends over for a pizza party.  We used this recipe for whole-wheat pizza dough and then we rolled it into five little mini pizza crusts.  Then we pricked them with a fork and pre-baked them at 350 degrees on a cornmeal-sprinkled pizza stone for about eight minutes.  After they cooled the children added the sauce, veggies and cheese and we baked them again until the cheese was all melty. They turned out so yummy and the kids were so proud of their creations.

Spreading the pizza sauce:

Sprinkling the veggies:

Halfway through baking we realized they needed a little extra sprinkle of cheese

A little jam session before lunch:

And finally, time to eat!

My goodness, didn't I set a festive table for our guests? I guess I could have at least used place mats and silverware! Oh well, the kids didn't care. They gobbled down their pizza and went right back to music making.  After freestyling for a while the little riff they decided on was, "The band says YAH! The band says YAH! The band says YAH!"

Here are some good books about pizza:

Pizza at Sally's by Monical Wellington

Pete's a Pizza by William Steig