Play

I had waffled for the last few weeks over whether to buy the cheap Easter egg dyeing kit but opted instead this year to give natural dyes a try. The kids and I boiled some eggs (both white and brown), mixed up some new natural dye concoctions, got out some crayons, and set to work.

Doing a little bit of research on the computer and surveying my own cupboards, I chose paprika, coffee, hibiscus tea and beet juice as our samples for our first year of natural egg dyeing. For the beet juice, tea and coffee I simply mixed in a tablespoon of vinegar. For the paprika, I mixed about 3 heaping teaspoons with a cup of water and a tablespoon-plus of vinegar. The kids all helped mix while I helped hold the cups steady so we wouldn't dye the countertops!

Here is a little autumn story poem for autumn harvest days.  I make apple finger puppets to help make this visual.  Just draw a small fingertip size apple – cut 2 out with red felt, add a brown stem and green leaf…easy!  Sew around it, leaving room for your finger at the bottom.  This one is so easy you can make many!!  You will need 3 apple finger puppets for this puppet poem story.

          One little apple hanging on a tree,
          It fell down and bumped my knee!
          Another little apple as rosy as a rose,
          It fell down and bumped my nose!
          Another little apple, ripe and sweet,
          It fell down and bumped my feet!
          It rolled and rolled nearly to my house,
          Where it was spotted by a tiny little mouse.
          “This yummy apple will make a fine meal,”
          And he munch munch munched it, even the peel.

By Lisa Boisvert Mackensie

“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”- Elizabeth Lawrence

The young child is still very much in a state of at-one-with-the-world, completely open to receiving sense impressions from the world. A garden provides a lovely and wondrous world of beauty, texture, color and taste for the young child as well as opportunity to experience the production of food from seed to table, to be connected to this rhythm of life.

A few tips for gardening with young children:

·       Consider the architecture of the garden, make it accessible and welcoming

Living on islands surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean in every direction, Hawaii’s children are connected to the rhythms of tides and the seasons through the powerful, pervasive element of water. For those living on the Big Island, fire and air are also ever present elemental realities, as Pele spews out molten lava at will into the sea, affecting air quality. But the land - the land that can sustain us: direct experience working on and with it is not such an integral part of everyday life. Although we are on a rural and sparsely populated island, ninety percent or more of our foodstuffs are imported; much of this is adulterated, processed and far removed from the living sources of its origin.