{Michael Devine’s garden, photo from Country Living}

If you are planning your first garden as I am, it can be all too easy to get carried away by the literally thousands of varieties of plants in those glossy garden catalogues, and the rows and rows of gorgeousness at your local nursery. But working within the framework of a potager garden, you can keep it small and beautiful. Let’s take a look at the basic elements that go into creating a French kitchen garden…

Choosing a Site – You will certainly want to choose a location that gets plenty of sun, but also keep in mind that part of the appeal of the potager garden is its proximity to the kitchen!

Garden Design – Measure out your space and then sketch out a few rough design ideas on paper. Think about how many beds you would like to have, where the pathways should go, and if you want to leave room around the edges or in the center for anything else (birdbath? strawberry pots? fruit trees?).

Raised Beds – I am a big fan of raised beds: they give your plants better drainage, they don’t strain your back while weeding, and they are the perfect solution if you have very poor soil. A raised bed should be no wider than 4-5 feet, so that you can easily reach the center of the bed from either side. Just about anything can be used to build a raised bed; I found a few good tutorials here, here, and here.

{Plan for a Potager Garden, photo from Country Living}

Plant Selection – A potager garden typically includes a mix of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and climbing plants, all mixed within each bed to add to the visual appeal. The beds tend to be quite full of plants – no neat rows, here! Try planting chamomile, thyme, and ground creeping plants below taller vegetables to keep weeds at bay. Sunset has a wonderful plant finder that lets you search by climate zone, type of plant (herb, veggie, flower, etc.), sun and water requirements, and even height and spread.

The Second Season – Another typical feature of the potager garden is the second planting – done in mid-to late summer in the East and Midwest, or from August-October in the West, these plants are meant to be harvested when the leaves are still delicate and small. Some good choices for a second harvest include radishes, lettuces, spinach, and chard.

Small Space Variations – Even if you do not have a yard, you can still keep the spirit of the potager garden on a patio, terrace, balcony, deck, or even in a few sunny windowboxes. Look for smaller varieties of vegetables that won’t feel cramped in containers, and plant a few nice big pots of mixed herbs and flowers. Just being able to snip a few fresh herbs to add to an omelet and cut a posie of flowers to set on the table can make life a little sweeter.

{Lovely Example of a Kitchen Garden, photo from Vegetable Gardener}

I hope this has inspired you to think about your garden in a new way! Feel free to share your gardening tips in the comments section, or share your gardening plans, wishes, or desires for this year.

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I was reminded of my Jimmie’s Secret Gate when I saw this post from Australian blogger Loobylu describing the fantastic gate she just installed in the fence between her yard and the neighbors (pictured above) – so now all the kids from both households can run amok to their heart’s content! Gateways can be pretty magical, don’t you think?

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“More Water Please” by Vera Levi

Touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell are our earliest learning tools. We learn to recognize our Mama by her scent and the sound of her voice. As a baby grows, he becomes extremely interested in faces, focusing on the rich visual cues that the adult faces around him provide. Our sense of hearing lets us tap into the language of our culture, and also keeps us safe – babies know to cry loudly when they need help, and likewise will react to startling sounds and the voices of trusted adults. We learn through all of our senses, and young children are especially interested in exploring their senses – this is why toddlers put everything in their mouths, and also why preschools have sand boxes and water tables!

Sensory Tubs

Not everyone can have a sandbox in the yard, or a water table – but I bet you can scrounge up a dishpan or two, right? Okay, this one is really simple:

1. Get something that is fun to touch (birdseed, dried beans, sand, mud, shaving cream, water, etc.) and fill tub no more than halfway.
2. Cover child with art smock if needed, and let loose.

That’s it! And if you want to get really crazy: take off your child’s shoes, and let her smoosh her feet in the bucket.

Make A Texture Board

Whenever you and your child are out and about, make a point of collecting little bits of things with interesting textures (sand, leaves, tree bark, moss, aluminum foil, sandpaper, cotton balls, seed pods, etc.). As you find new objects, add them to a board (a piece of cardboard or cork board works well), and label each one with the name of the item, and a word describing how it feels. Keep the texture board where your child can touch it (that’s the whole point!), and ask your child how each texture feels. Alternatively, you can leave the textures loose on a tray or in a box.

Mystery Box

Take an old shoebox and cut a hole in one end just large enough for your child’s hand to fit through. Cover the box with wrapping paper or paint it if you like. Now, sneakily put a little object in the box and close the lid. Ask your child to reach inside and guess what it is just by feeling it – and don’t be surprised when she puts something in the box and wants to make you guess what it is!

Take A Listening Walk

Take a walk through your neighborhood, in a local nature area, or just through your own home while focusing on noticing all of the sounds you hear. You might want to bring a notebook to write down what your child says. If you want a little further inspiration, read The Listening Walk by Paul Showers before going out.

Listening Games

1. Guessing: One person closes his eyes or puts on a blindfold while the other person does something in the room that makes a noise (opening & shutting a door, jumping up & down, pulling out a chair, etc.); the blindfolded person has to guess what the other person was doing based on the sound it made.

2. Matching: Collect various small items – coins, rice, pebbles, sand, etc. – and put them in film canisters or other small, opaque containers (yogurt containers would do nicely). You’ll want to end up with a pair of canisters for each item. Your child can shake each one and match up the pairs by sound.

Record Sound Effects

Using a small tape recorder, walk around your home with your child looking for things that make noise. When you find one, record it! Some ideas to get you started: creaky doors, a telephone ring, doorbell, knock at the door, footsteps, pots & pans clanging. You can use the tape later as a listening game, and your child will probably enjoy playing it for other relatives and making them guess the sounds. If you like, you can also make up a story to record, incorporating the sound effects.

Blindfolded Walking

One person wears a blindfold while the other gives verbal directions and/or holds the person’s elbow to direct them where to go.

Taste Tests

1. Ask your child to close her eyes, or cover her eyes with a scarf. Give her small samples of foods and ask her to guess what they are
2. With eyes open, ask your child to taste samples of similar-looking foods, such as salt and sugar, cinnamon and cocoa powder, or apples and pears.

Make A Scent Game

Rubber band scrap fabric to cover the tops of several small opaque containers or poke holes in the lids. Fill each one with a different item that has a distinct scent: orange peel, cinnamon sticks, cloves, garlic, ginger, etc. Let your child try to guess what’s in the jars. based on the scent.

Read A Book!

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, and Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin and Eric Carle, and the classic Pat the Bunny (Touch and Feel Book) are a great start.

Have more sensory activities? Please share them in the comments!

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1. The first project comes from Swedish blogger Benita of Chez Larsson: She made this ice lantern by filling a large bucket with water and floating a smaller bucket within (held in place by criss-crossed tape), then freezing the whole thing. When finished, it looks magical on a front porch with a tea light inside! You could also try doing this using several smaller containers and then set the little lanterns along a railing. Click here for the full tutorial.

2. These jewel-like orbs of ice were made by Hurrayic (found via The Crafty Crow). To make the “ice jewels”, you carefully fill balloons with water and a drop of food coloring, freeze, and then peel off the balloons. Et voila! Gorgeous ice art that you can plunk in the snow Do be warned that the food coloring can get messy, and filling balloons can be tricky for younger kids. Click here to see step-by-step photos and get the full instructions.

3. Resurrection Fern created this beautiful heart by placing stones in water in a metal tray and freezing it. To get it out of the tray just allow it to thaw for a minute or two, and it should pop right out. You could also use seashells, little pinecones, or anything else you have collected. View more here.

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…Does that look awesome or what Maxwell says he got the whole thing done in one day, and you can see how much his daughter Ursula is enjoying it! Maxwell gives detailed instructions as well as photos of each step so you can make your very own Indoor Swing – read all about it right here.

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“Tyrannosaurus at the Coffee Shop” by Schmetz Petz

*First Stop: The Library

Look for an assortment of factual books with great, clear pictures, a few silly picture books, and possibly a longer chapter book for reading aloud. I have put together a group of great dinosaur books to get you started in the Global Mama Shop, which you can browse by clicking here. When you get home with the books, be sure to keep a few good ones propped up in your child’s favorite art & play areas for inspiration.

*Make a DinoGarden

Set the stage for creative play by gathering up some props: fallen branches, leaves, vines trimmed from a climbing plant outside, and smooth stones can all become a “habitat” for toy dinosaurs to roam. If the items are small enough, you can gather them together on a tray; if they are larger, clear a space on a table or on the floor in a corner of your child’s room. Alternatively, if the weather is good in your neck of the woods, bring the dinosaur toys outside and let them tramp through the garden. This is meant to be an open-ended activity; just provide the space and materials and allow your child’s creativity to determine how it is used.

*Dino Footprints and Clay Play

In this photo, I had set out trays with toy dinosaurs, balls of clay, dishes of water, and a few handfuls of leaves and whatnot that I picked up in the yard. Each child approached the materials a little differently: some used the toy dinosaurs to stamp footprints in the clay, while others went to town spreading clay all over the dinosaurs. Yes, this is messy, and yes, kids love it. The four year olds in my class spent a good solid two hours working on their dinosaurs. And please don’t bother cleaning this up all by yourself: put the clay-covered toys in a dishpan of soapy water and give your child a scrubby brush to help clean them off. It may not sound like it to you, but this is just as much fun for kids as the original activity! You can pick up a nice big chunk of air-drying clay for under $10 at any craft or art supply store, and as long as you keep it damp in an air-tight container, it will last for a very long time.

*Dinosaur Inspiration Board

Clear off space on a bulletin board or a wall in your child’s room to devote to Dinosaur-Mania. You can tape up your child’s drawings and stories about dinosaurs, as well as pictures photocopied from library books and printed off the internet. As your child comes up with questions about dinosaurs, write them down and include them on the board as well. Also, be sure to take some photos of your child when she is playing or doing any of these dinosaur projects – then put the photos up on the wall, too. Kids love looking at pictures of themselves! Just make sure it is low enough that your child can see it easily.

*Make Volcanoes, Big and Small

To make volcanoes, all you really need is baking soda and vinegar. But if you want to make it a bit more exciting…

- For small volcanoes, take a film canister (if you don’t use film, just ask at the film counter in your local drugstore and they will be happy to give you some!) and squash some clay or play dough around it so it looks like a little mountain with an open top. Have your child help stick a few little bits of moss, grass, or leaves into the clay. Now put your little volcano on a tray with a deep rim (a casserole pan or baking sheet also works well). Add a few drops of red food coloring or liquid watercolor to a cup of vinegar to make it look like “hot lava”. Put some baking soda in a cup or bowl with a little spoon. Now you’re ready to go! Let your child alternately scoop baking soda and the colored vinegar into the hole in the “volcano” and watch it erupt. Repeat until bored or until you run out of baking soda and vinegar

- For a large volcano, follow the same steps as with a small volcano, but use a large jar or canister and lots more clay. For a big eruption, you may want to set this up outside on a nice day, so you can just hose everything off when it’s done. Making a large volcano can also be a fantastic project for a birthday party – just be sure to have a few other adults on hand to help the children wash up!

*Sandy Dinosaur Signs

The inspiration for this project comes from the lovely Jennifer of The Write Start, who gave a close-up look at how she makes sandpaper letters with her son to use as an alphabet learning tool (Jennifer’s sand letters are pictured at left). The basic technique involves using glue to write each letter, and then letting your child sprinkle the gluey letter with sand. When it is dry, you have a wonderfully textured alphabet.

For the dinosaur-obsessed, why not write out the name of their favorite dinosaur in glue? Provide a bowl of sand for sprinkling over the wet glue, and gently shake off the excess over a tray or garbage can. Once it’s dry, you can add it to the Dinosaur Inspiration board next to a picture of the dinosaur. If it is hung low enough on the wall, your child will enjoy tracing the sandy letters with her finger. And there is no need to stop at one!

In fact, you don’t need to limit yourself to dinosaur names at all. You can make signs to label the parts of a dinosaur, name other plants and creatures that lived at the same time, or get silly and make a sign for your child’s bedroom door that says something like “Office of Miss Lily: Dinosaur Expert”

*Dinosaur Footprints

Using a book illustration or an online template like this as a guide, draw several dinosaur footprints on poster board, cardboard, or large paper. Cut them out, and tape to the floor in your child’s room. Invite your child to stand inside the footprint and compare the size of his foot with the size of the dinosaur foot.

*Make Fossils

To make dinosaur “fossils”, fill a container (like a pie pan) with damp sand and press it so it’s smooth. You can use just about anything to make your fossils: cleaned chicken bones from dinner (a little gross, I know!), twigs (they will look like bones once they’ve been cast), toy dinosaurs to make fossilized footprints, seashells, or anything else you like.

Have your child press each item into the damp sand far enough to make a clear impression. Lift out the item carefully. Now mix up a batch of Plaster of Paris according to the package instructions. Pour the plaster carefully into each impression in the sand, and let dry somewhere safe.

*Make Dinosaur Eggs

Take a hunk of air-drying clay and have your child ball it up around a small toy dinosaur until it’s completely hidden. Make as many of these balls as you want, and set them somewhere to dry in the sun. When they are dry, you can paint the “eggs” if you like. Later on, you can use them in a dinosaur dig, or just let your child smash them open to get the dinosaurs out.

*Dinosaur Dig!

If you have a sandbox at home, that would be the obvious place for a dig. If not, no worries! You can also use a sand table, or several dishpans filled with sand. You could even do this in the sandbox of your local playground – but if that’s the case, prepare your child for the fact that other kids are going to want to try it, too!

If you have made “fossils” or “dinosaur eggs”, now is the time to bury them in the sand. If not, you can bury toy dinosaurs instead. Little things make a big difference in setting the mood: give your child plastic shovels, little paintbrushes, and trays or paper plates for collecting the specimens. If you have a magnifying glass, that wouldn’t hurt, either. Don’t forget to take pictures! You can put the photos up on the Dinosaur Inspiration Board or use them in a little homemade dinosaur book.

*Take a Field Trip

If your child loves dinosaurs, nothing beats seeing some truly gigantic dinosaur models in person. Natural History museums, and other Science Museums often have fabulous dinosaur exhibits. If you want to save money, do a little research online and find out if the museum has a “free day” (usually one day each month), and plan your trip accordingly.

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She also has a really cool tool  for learning about letter shapes that you may not have seen before: They are wood pieces for capital letters from Handwriting Without Tears. Children can use the curved and straight shapes to make letters, and I imagine they could be used for tracing on big paper as well.

If a child is not that interested in writing with pencils, there are two things that I usually offer instead: 1) an old typewriter, and 2) really long (like 3 feet long) strips of paper to write on using black paint and a nice little brush. Sometimes, just changing the medium is enough to make writing suddenly appealing!

Of course it won’t always look as neat as this – but when there is a little nook for each thing, clean up is much easier. If you liked this idea, I highly recommend checking out Jennifer’s blog, The Write Start.

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“Power Cuffs” from Discovery Denim

Passion is the greatest motivator for children – and adults! I am currently working on a project here at Global Mama, where I will be sharing all of my resources (books, activity ideas, etc.) on a series of different topics of constant interest to children, so stay tuned for that In the meantime, I am going to share the basic process by which you can help your children dig deeply into their passions, whatever they may be…

7 Ways To Harness Your Child’s Passionate Interests:

1. Go get a whole bunch of books on the topic. Choose an assortment of both fact-filled books and story books, and don’t neglect the adult section of your library – you can usually find a few books with really high quality photos and/or drawings to look at, even if the text itself is above your child’s level.

When you get home, find a few cozy spots to display the books. Of course reading together is an essential part of the process, but I also like to allow time for a child to explore the books on his own. One way to encourage kids to look at books on their own is to make them look really appealing: Try standing a few books up on a shelf as they do in library displays, put a few books in a basket near some cushions on the floor, and keep some near your child’s desk or a work area.

photo courtesy denn

2. Gather toys and materials related to your child’s interest. Check out used toy shops, craigslist, and freecycle for cheap and free kids toys and other materials.

3. Encourage your child to write stories or dictate stories to you. With younger children, this can be as simple as writing down a few words to go with a picture they have drawn. Older children may be interested in dictating longer stories to you or making their own books. If your child has absolutely no interest in writing, change things up: Check out this post on typewriters, or try giving them a *long* sheet of paper and let them use a fine-tipped paintbrush & black paint to write with instead of a pencil or pen.

photo by Dana Lee of Parents’ Cooperative Preschool, via The Artful Parent

4. Start an “Inspiration Board” somewhere your child can easily see it. If you have a bulletin or magnet board, you could clear it off and use that. If not, it’s easy enough to tape things right to a wall in your child’s room. The Inspiration Board will be like a running record of what your child is working on. Here are a few ideas of things to put up:

• Photocopies of illustrations from books
• Pictures printed out from the internet
• Your child’s stories
• Your child’s drawings and other artwork
• Pictures cut out of magazines
• Photos of your child playing and making art

5. Always have materials around for open-ended artwork. Jars full of colored pencils, fine-tipped black markers, a box of crayons, and a nice big pad of paper are all you really need. If you want to get more elaborate, you can read this post on setting up a home art area.

The basic point is to have some materials freely available – as in, your child knows where they are, and can get them out by herself whenever. If your child has been ignoring the art supplies, make sure they’re in plain sight, and try setting a few toys or objects on the table to further entice and inspire.

photo © New York Social Diary via Apartment Therapy

6. See something in real life. Fuel further investigation by taking your child on a little “Field Trip” that relates to her interests. This could mean going into your backyard to look for bugs, taking a trip to the nearest city to watch the streetcars, or visiting a museum.

7. When in doubt, bring in some big cardboard boxes. They can become absolutely anything.

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When I was a little girl, I loved it when my Mom would bring me to work with her. My favorite part was sitting at a desk while she worked and I got to type on a typewriter. Which brings me to the reason for this post: Typewriters are a wonderful way to get kids writing, especially when they may not yet have the skill to write easily by hand. I remember feeling so empowered as I typed away at the little letter keys – letters that I knew, but were still difficult for me to write.

Soule Mama, one of my *favorite* bloggers, has just written a post about the stories her children have been writing on her vintage typewriter, you can read it here. There is something so satisfying about seeing your words immediately stamped on paper that beats a computer any day. Also, as a preschool teacher I found that sometimes children who were not interested or frustrated by writing became enthralled by the typewriter! Typewriters are cheap and easy to find at yard sales and thrift shops – if you have a young one in the house, why not pick one up?

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In Defense of the Arts

If your child is in elementary school or above, chances are good that art classes have been reduced or cut out entirely. Why should we care? Americans for the Arts has gathered and summarized outcomes from numerous studies which underline the importance of keeping the arts in our schools. Here is a sampling:

• Sixth grade students who attended schools in which the arts were integrated with classroom curriculum outperformed their peers in reading.
• Schools that made room in their schedules for the arts at the expense of other academic disciplines did not suffer a decline in standardized test scores.
• A co-relationship between high involvement in the arts and better academic scores was found among all students.
• The YouthARTS Development Project, a research initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice, offered arts opportunities to youth at risk in three cities and found decreased delinquent behavior and improved cooperation and attitudes about school. In Portland, while only 43 percent of the program participants demonstrated an ability to cooperate with other at the start of the program—a full 100 percent did so by the end of the 12-week program.

What do you do if your child’s school has dropped the ball? Some parents are taking matters into their own hands.

Christine Claringbold of Eye Pop Art is a parent at Duniway School in Portland, Oregon, where a thriving art program is run by parent volunteers alone! There is no art teacher on staff. The parents plan an art schedule for the year, contribute and raise money to fund the program, develop the lessons, and teach them. Taking in Christine’s photographs of student work and end of term “Art Shows” I am convinced that such a parent-run art program can succeed with flying colors! And, she insists that the art program need not cost an arm and a leg: the Duniway art program runs for 12 weeks each year, and it costs $10 per child.

Watercolor Haiku

Mandala Lesson

Musical Collage

You can read all about Duniway School’s Art Program in this article that Christine wrote for Etsy, and gain practical tips to help you develop a parent-run art program at your child’s school in her follow-up article. The follow-up article will take you through all the steps necessary to build an Art Committee, give you tips on teaching art to a class of kids, as well as offer some creative ideas to use during your Student Art Show.

Sumi-e Lesson, displayed in school windows during the Art Show

The Duniway School gym is transformed into Art Gallery: Notice the careful positioning of the round floor display for the students Mandala work

What if you’re not ready to take on a school-wide art program?

Try talking with your child’s teacher: Ask if you can come in to share one fun, easy art lesson with the class.

If you are passionate about the idea of having a parent-run art program, but you don’t have time to run it, try emailing a group of parents and see if anyone bites. There might be an artistic Mama in your child’s school that would be thrilled to get the ball rolling. You won’t know if you don’t ask!

When it comes time to develop lesson plans, here are a few wonderful resources:

The Duniway School provides free art lesson plans, created specifically for parent-teachers, and is divided by grade level (covers K-5). Most of the artwork featured in this post was made in parent-run art classes at Duniway.

Princeton Online’s Incredible Art Lessons contains hundreds of lesson ideas, organized into Early Childhood, Elementary, Jr. High/Middle School, and High School.

Art Projects For Kids is a blog regularly updated with new projects. Check out the list of tags on the right side of the page to find projects for a specific age group or based on the work of a certain artist.

Use this model to supplement your child’s school with whatever it is lacking

While the Duniway Art Program focuses on the visual arts, perhaps you would like to provide students in your child’s school with music, dance, or drama experience? Or maybe it is the Lab portion of the sciences that have been cut. The bottom line is, if you are upset about it, chances are there are other parents in the school who are upset, too. Connect. Talk to one another. You may be surprised with the allies you find.

All images in this story courtesy Christine Claringbold via Etsy

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