Blue Glue Batik

I tried this activity from Pink and Green Mama with preschoolers, and it was fun, but I think it would be a fabulous technique to try with older elementary-aged children.  It is important to use blue gel glue.  I tried it with both the typical white opaque and the clear gel with less than satisfactory results.  They both run while they are wet and shrink so much in the drying process that the lines turn into dots.

Potato Stamp Valentines

A while back, my mother-in-law suggested I try potato stamping with the girls.  It took me a while to get around to doing it, but now that we've done it, I wish we'd tried it sooner.  There's just something FUN about using food to do art.  (e.g. we liked stamping with okra and making magnets with colored pasta)

Getting the right shape in the potato can be a bit tricky.  I found that it worked best to:

A Rainbow of Carrots

Every time we grow carrots I get impatient.  It's so tempting to dig them up early to see what's going on under there.  The mystery is extra strong when you plant a packet of multi-colored carrots and you know that there is a whole bouquet under there just waiting to be uncovered.

 (This is our second year to plant the Organic Carnival Blend by Botanical Interest.)

So, again this year we jumped the gun and dug them all up a little early before they had the chance to reach their full, slender long potential.

We decided to make a game out of it: "Who could find the biggest carrot?"  Each girl had a pile.  The dirt flew and we all exclaimed over each new record-holder.  M found the largest carrot (a white one that really wasn't all that big), but her favorite carrot was actually the shapely "walking carrot"

Each girl washed her pile, and then we lined them up according to color.

  I chopped them and steamed them for dinner that night.  One big colorful bowl of them! (the purple carrots are actually dark orange inside)

Those of you who follow this blog may remember other colorful gardening projects of ours: rainbow chard and the magic purple beans.

I always wonder if the extra colors mean extra vitamins   Anybody know?

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