Mushroom Math tutorial and More

In case you missed it I wrote a post a little while ago called Muscaria Mushroom Madness which you can read HERE. 

Since finding all those mushrooms to photograph I have been in a mushroom mood :) This week I made a Mushroom Math game. It only took a few minutes to make and is super simple to make and lots of fun play for your little ones. Good math skills and good fine motor skills too. For fun kids could use chopsticks to add the pom poms.

All you need is

-construction paper (red, green and white)

-glue stick, scissors, marker

-15 white pom poms for 5 mushrooms (coloured ones work too!)

-My pattern or draw your own

Here's my pattern. Use can use it or draw your own mushrooms.

1) Cut out 5 red mushroom caps, 5 white stalks and 5 white  ring pieces.

2) Glue the stalk to the bottom of a green piece of paper.

3) Glue the ring piece to the bottom of the red cap and then glue on top of the stalk.

4) Write the numerals 1 to 5 on the base of each stalk.

5) Provide a bowl of at least 15 pom poms.

6) Children count the pom poms and put the correct number of pom poms on each mushroom cap.

If you want to study mushrooms a bit more here is a great diagram to learn the parts of a mushroom.

As well as this sweet puzzle which can be found HERE by mamaroots on Etsy.

We also made little mushroom treasure boxes.

To make them paint the outside of little wooden bowls red and the insides white.

Then add dots ontop of the red. We used the end of a paintbrush.

Paint a small wooden vase white to be the stalk and allow everything to dry.

When they are dry you can hide small treasures inside :)

We added our new treasure boxes to the rest of our wooden goodies and have had a great week of playing.

I LOVE our wooden toys maybe even more then the girls do! All of our wooden goodies come from many artists on Etsy. Some of my favourites are Mamakopp, Mamaroots, Jalu Toys, Pretty Dreamer, Rjabinnik, Little Red Whimsy, and Your Inspired.

Sweet Sunflowers

Here a simple but cute craft to try.

Supplies you will need:

Yellow construction paper
Tape (I used green masking tape)
Scissors, writing utensil like pen, pencil, marker, glue stick
A small twig/branch
Green and yellow feathers
Sunflower seeds
Clay pot or other small container (you could recycle a yogurt container, or small tin)
Playdough (not pictured in supplies photo....sorry)
Circular object about 5-6inch in diameter

1) Gather your supplies.

2) Trace around a circular object onto the yellow paper. I chose to trace around our green masking tape as it was a good size. You need to trace 2 circles and cut them both out.
3) Glue around the edge of one circle. Now carefully place the yellow feathers into the glue circle. Be careful not to get the glue on your fingers or you will turn into a yellow feathered birdie!
4) Cover the second circle with glue and firmly press it down on top of the feathered circle you just finished.
5) Cover that top circle with glue. Put it on really thick. Now press your sunflower seeds into the glue.
6) Allow the glue to dry. Turn your flower over and secure it to a twig using the green masking tape.
7) Turn the flower over, and tape on another smaller twig or two to be the branches. Tape the green feathers on to be the leaves.
8) Now take your pot and place a clump of paydough in the bottom. (I used playdough that was getting old instead of bran new playdough.) Sierra decided to plant a little seed in her dough soil too, then she pretended to water it to wait for it to grow. (Love her imagination!)

9) Next pick up your flower, press it into the dough soil. You may need to press the dough into the branch so it stands straight and is more secure.

10) Now you have a beautiful sunflower! (ours is headed to the nature table)

We also made a simple daffodil from yellow paper, muffin liners, and paint. Then put it together in the same way as stated above.
I also found this sunflower project going on. I am not sure if Canada can join but I am inquiring and if we can, we will.

We will be building one of these sunflower sunrooms this year too! What a great way to study the growth of sunflowers, discover bees, and other birds and animals who will use the sunflowers, provide a fun place to play, and yummy snack to eat! The learning just keeps growing and GROWing and GROWING!

I hope you have fun with these ideas. Leave a comment and let me know how your project went, or any other great ideas you have for sunflowers.

Sicko Sierra and intro to our first nature table

It's been a long week. Sierra has been sick for about 5 days now. She has never had the flu and it was hard for her to understand what was happening to her. I feel so helpless as a parent trying to explain to a 2 1/2 year what is happening to her poor little body, and there is nothing mommy can do to make her gurgling belly stop, but cuddle together and wait it out!

Today there is a bit of hope, as she is in much happier spirits but still not feeling good. I decided to break out the set of wooden Brown Bear Brown Bear toys I bought from mamakopp which I was going to save for her birthday. She adores that story. It is so fun to watch her read it to her little sister. But she's been so sick and so good about it, I thought she needed a little treat!

She has been snuggling up on this bed in our spare room/craft room alot this weekend. (Really though her favourite spot has been in her daddies arms. He has been her biggest source of comfort.) Please excuse the quality of the photo. Sierra hates her picture taken lately and with her being sick I didn't want to push her for a great shot.

She had fun with a set of owls that mamakopps son Lucas made. (Sierra calls them kitties which I think is cute) She enjoyed matching all the colourful animals from the Brown Bear story to the coloured animals Lucas made.

I am also posting a picture of my current project. I am trying to put together a nature table. I think nature tables are a wonderful way to bring the outside in. I am very intrigued by the the Waldorf philosopy lately and have been spending any spare moments I have looking for good websites about Waldorf. If you have any sites to recommend please leave them in the comments section or email me at siaylaaa@gmail.com.

I found a green scarve at a thrift store to use as the grass until I get a green silkie. This picture is just the begining, a hint of what is to come as the table we are using is the top of an old dresser I store my material, wool felt, embroidery and sewing stuff in and is about 5 feet long. My current project though is my first big needle felting venture and I think it is turning out OK.

It will have removable leaves so it can change with the seasons, it's my version of this one from Manyharmonytrees on Etsy. (I just bought this book from her and can't wait for it to arrive.) I have a long way to go with finishing my tree but it's a glimpse into our first nature table. The wooden animals pictured are from mamakopp, as are the mushrooms. The pine trees are from a dollar store find, the crystal I received in a wonderful swapbot swap months ago, and the curly knotted wood was a recent beach walk.

Hopefully this week when Sierra is feeling better we can go for a walk to to collect some items for our table, and then we'll post some finished pictures. Until then, I hope all is well, enjoy the rest of your weekend.