Crestwood Day School

The Enchanted Wood and A Butterfly

Today at school, just as we did this time last year, we set our butterflies free.  We've been watching them in the different stages of their life cycle  and enjoying every minute of it!  We had one or two that had some trouble with their wings, which actually worked out well today because the girls were able to hold the butterflies for quite some time.  They even sat on some of the girls' laps during our read-aloud time.  If you're interested in getting some caterpillars sent to your home, just click here (there are some other great kits and ideas on that site for your family). 

In last year's post about the same thing, I also mentioned a good book that we read, The Gardener.   So this time I thought I'd also post about a book we're reading currently: Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton.  The author is an English writer, and her books are not that prevalent around these parts.  I'm always on the hunt for quality children's books, and I found out about Enid from Jane Brocket's beautiful book, Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer.  

 

We've been reading the book after lunch everyday, and every time we have to stop I'm met with groans and pleas of "No!!! Please read one more chapter.  Just one!! Please!!"  It's a bit dramatic, but I really can't blame them.  Each chapter leads you on an adventure that makes you want to keep reading.  To me, it feels like a mix of Narnia, James and the Giant Peach, a bit of Harry Potter, and Boxcar Children.  So how could you go wrong?!  There are many more books with these same characters, and I may just have to start collecting them.  You can never have to many children's books, right?

 

I'll leave you with one last picture of our butterfly, perched on one of the cosmos we planted yesterday.  Loveliness all around.    

Our School Garden

It's that time again!  Every spring I look forward to tweaking, adding, and subtracting to our yard and garden.  This year it's a bit different, since we may be moving.  I'm really just going to do our small school garden and keep that going these next few months.  Our back yard is pretty big, so it's nice to think about just focusing on one little area! 

Today we planted a bunch of white and pink zinnia seeds and will later add some poppies and any other flowers I can fit in there.  The past few years we've done a vegetable garden, but by the time the veggies are ready for picking, it's the middle of the summer!  So this year we're doing a small cutting-flower garden.  All flowers we can just enjoy in the garden or cut and bring inside to make an arrangement.  I'm hoping we'll have some ready for the first day of May!   

Our Lenten Garden

I know I've said this before, but I love weaving in our Christian traditions and seasons into our school day.  It sets a rhythm for our day and year.

For the season of Lent, we made our own "Lenten Garden."  I know there are many different ways to do this, with different variations, but I thought I'd share what we did.  It's super easy!

Let me first say that I recently bought Ann Druitt's All Year Round, a beautiful book that gives you tons of ideas to do with kids for all the holidays and seasons through the year (the product description on the amazon page describes the book perfectly).  

So one of the ideas for Lent is to build a "Lenten Garden."  In the book, the garden is built at the beginning of Holy Week, but we just went ahead and got our garden ready.  I loosely followed the instructions in the book, which you can find here. 

On our nature walk today, we gathered the necessary supplies: lots of moss, stones, rocks,  and a small branch for our Lenten tree (my friend Lauren uses two sticks that make a cross instead of a tree).  Back at school, we assembled the moss over some rocks in a pie plate.  You could use any shallow dish you have!  

We formed a "grotto" from clay that you bake in the oven, and placed it next to the tree.  Then a patch of stones from the tree to the grotto was next.  I squeezed in a small terracotta pot dish to make a "pond," with a piece of bark as the "bridge" over the pond. 

 

We added some other rocks around and then I spritzed it really well with water (and will continue to do so in the coming weeks).  During Holy Week, we'll add the stone that gets rolled in front of the tomb/grotto. 

And on Easter morning, the stone will be rolled away and the garden will be alive with flowers!

*If you'd like to see another example, check out this site.   Also, we've been reading Helen Haidle's Journey to the Cross - I'm really enjoying it so far and would recommend it as a great Lenten reading to do with kids. 

The Garden and A Butterfly

This week at school (which  meets at my house, or in my basement to be exact) we've begun planting our vegetable garden (tomatoes, beans, lots of different kinds of peppers) and flower garden (from the zinnia and cosmo seeds we started weeks ago).  I have been waiting and waiting for the "safe" time to plant, and it was really hard to wait.  But it's been great to get in the soil and get just get dirty. 

 

We also read the book, The Gardener, by Sarah Stewart (which is weird because I have a friend named Sarah Stewart, but unfortunately she didn't write this book).  If you haven't read this book, you need to.  It's that simple.  It's one of my favorite children's books (along with one of her other books, The Library).  It's the story of girl, Lydia Grace, who moves in with her Uncle Jim and begins planting a garden in a secret place that she found, hoping she can make her uncle smile.  So, so good. 

Since this is basically a post about things we've been doing at school this week, I also wanted to share a couple of pictures from yesterday.  I ordered a caterpillar kit from this website a month or so ago (you can order them anytime of the year).  We've been watching them grow into caterpillars, make their chrysalis, and then emerge as a butterfly.  It was something I think I'll do every year from now on, with school kids and with my own kids one day.  Yesterday was the day we let them free.  And it was awesome.  Such a fun thing to see them fly out of the net and begin their journey outside of our classroom.  The last butterfly was a little stubborn, but he gave everyone in the class a chance to hold him, which was just icing on the cake. 

 

 

Eggshell Garden

Need an easy (and cheap) project to do with your kids (or just for you)?  If you do, crack some eggs, buy some seeds, and start planting!  We planted some zinnia's and cosmo's this week at school.  I found information on starting seeds in eggshells here and here.  After you plant them, put them on a windowsill and wait!