Wild Orange Sparkle Playdough

Here is a fun indoor activity for a chilly winter day. It is just a basic playdough recipe, but we added glitter and essential oil to jazz it up.  To add to the fun I found a bunch of pipe cleaners, old milk caps, some silk leaves, and googly eyes to stick in the playdough. The girls had so much fun and could have played with it all day!

Wild Orange Sparkle Playdough 

3 cups flour

3 cups water

1 1/2 cups salt

6 tsp. cream of tartar

6 tsp. oil (we used coconut oil)

5-10 drops wild orange essential oil

Glitter

Mix first 5 ingredients together in a pot. 

Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until a ball forms.

Place playdough onto a piece of parchment paper and knead in essential oil and as much glitter as desired. 

Store in airtight Ziploc bags.

You can sub any different essential oil if desired. We like the wild orange for it's uplifting and mood boosting properties. Lemon is also great for this. Lavender would be a great option for calming.

You could also add food coloring to make a colorful playdough.

Have fun and enjoy!

Blessings!

Outdoor Hour: Scavenger Hunt

This week for our nature study I thought it would be fun to do a nature scavenger hunt. I kept coming across this idea on Pinterest so figured it was about time we tried it. The girls loved it and it really helped them be even more aware of what was around them as we took our walk. Since I just fly by the seat of my pants most of the time, I quick printed out a list from this lovely blog, The Taylor House. Next time I will try coming up with my own list of treasures to find...maybe.

I had considered giving the girls each a list, but since Ellie isn't reading yet, and it was pretty windy outside I just printed up one for us all to use, and this way we were able to work as a team to find things. Because of the list we ended up taking a little different route for our walk and discovering some new and interesting things right in our neighborhood. 

Something fuzzy (and round!): dandelion.

Two kinds of seeds: prickly goat's heads and lilac pods.

Something straight: tree trunk and pine needles.

Something round: bird nest in the tree.

Something smooth: a rock.

Something rough: a bigger rock.

Two different types of leaves: don't ask me to identify them. I just know they are different. :)

Something that makes noise: the wind. And boy was it howling today! We determined it was around a Force 5 (19-24mph) on the Beaufort Scale.

A chewed leaf (The wind kept moving it so the camera couldn't focus on it.)

A beautiful rock: We found a bunch of rocks and so we each picked one we liked best.

A pine cone: We got lucky and found two different types of pine cones.

Something green: pine trees.

We didn't think we would find a pine cone or something green this time of year, but lo and behold, at the end of the street we were walking down, there were several different varieties of evergreen trees for us to check out! We pretty much always walk down this same road but have never gone far enough or paid attention to these trees before!

A stick: from a pine tree. 

Hannah's beautiful

Ellie's beautiful

Mom's beautiful

Something you think is beautiful: We each looked around for something that we thought was beautiful. It was delightful to see what beauty we each saw in nature. That part might just have to be something we do EVERY nature walk.

And speaking of beautiful, weren't the clouds just lovely today? We were reading about clouds today in our weather study, and we are working on identifying the different types of clouds. It can be a bit tricky at times, but it is so fascinating! Each day it's like a new painting up in the sky!

Another successful outdoor hour. Next week we might venture to somewhere outside of our neighborhood. Or we might continue to explore what's right around us. There's so much to see and learn!

Blessings!

Weekly Happenings

Gorgeous sunrise the other morning. A picture never does it justice though. Unless you are a professional photographer, which I am not. :)

Wow! Another week gone by already! Crazy! February will be here before we know it! Here is just a little glimpse of what went on in our week.

For part of our history lessons this week we decided to have a fashion show and create some Medieval attire. The girls had a lot of fun and they did quite an excellent job coming up with their outfits using the stuff we had on hand. I did help a teeny bit with a couple things, but the ideas were all theirs.

Queen Ellie

Nun Hannah

Ellie wanted to be a queen and Hannah wanted to be a nun. A fun time was had by all and it helped make history come alive even more for them. It's great to be able to combine lessons with one of their favorite play activities. 

On Fridays we've been having the pleasure of babysitting our sweet, little neighbor girl. She such a cutie and so much fun to have around. And the girls enjoy having a "baby sister" for a day each week. We dug out our bike trailer/stroller for our outside time and Ellie had such a great time pushing our little friend around.

 This weekend we got to have fun partaking in the American Girl Club at Barnes & Noble. We were learning about the new American Girl, Grace Thomas who traveled to Paris. The girls loved the French theme...we did French braids, polka dots and more. At the club we learned how to make a button in a cup toy and also how to make a beret for our dolls. So much fun!

Dolls ready to go to the bookstore!

Girls and their dolls.

And speaking of dolls, James had a doll to play with this weekend too. It was that time in his health class when they get to bring home a baby to take care of for the weekend. And I must say, as hard as it has been, he has been a trooper and done an excellent job taking care of his baby. So proud of him!

To finish off our weekend, after church today the girls got to spend some time at Nana's and decorate a Valentine tree! They cut out and decorated hearts, made pipe cleaner ornaments and an adorable paper chain. It's always fun to be at Nana's!

Now it's time to get ready for a new week and new adventures!

Blessings!

Outdoor Hour

The girls were matching today...they both wore brown pants and gray shirts. And they even managed to match when we went outside with sweatshirts and vests. Best friends and sisters!

It's Wednesday again! Yay! It was a bit chilly today for our nature time outdoors, but it IS still January so I guess that's okay. We just bundled up and ventured out, knowing a lovely cup of tea could warm us up when we got back.

Our dining room table turned research station.

Before heading out on our walk we spent some time reading and doing some research on the wind and weather. We enjoyed reading about measuring wind speed with the Beaufort Scale, and measuring direction with a weather vane. We even had a tiny bit of actual, real wind today! According to the Beaufort Scale it was about a Force 1, which is 1-3 mph. We also created our own weather vane thanks to some directions in a library book. Now we can record wind direction on our weather chart every day.

Weather vane

For our nature walk today we decided to take pictures of the weather for today. The girls absolutely loved this and we of course ended up taking pictures of other stuff too! There is always so much to see as it seems like everything changes constantly. This week there isn't much snow on the ground so we didn't see anymore animal tracks, but we enjoyed observing dormant plants and bare tree branches and of course all of the interesting clouds and weather changes. Just in the time we were outside we had sunshine and lots of cumulus clouds, wind, and dark, heavy clouds, and more sun again.

Ellie used my iPhone to take her pictures.

Hannah had lots of fun using my Nikon for her pictures

Hannah captured some of the clouds and blue sky we enjoyed today.

Also some of the dark clouds hiding the mountains and changing over our heads.

Love this one that H took showing the sky, the brown grasses and bare trees.

Spotted leaves that caught her attention.

Some leaves still clinging to their tree.

More gray clouds moving in. Love how the trees are silhouetted here.

Some cool ice melt formation Hannah found.

And a picture of her sister taking pictures.

Ellie took this great picture of the sunshine and shadows.

Close up of a dead thistle. We see LOTS of these where we go walking. It was fascinating for the girls to see them in the winter now and observe the changes.

More sunshine which was welcome on this chilly day.

Ellie loved this dormant sage brush(?need to figure out for sure what it is). She wants to draw it in her nature journal too.

Sister taking pictures.

More sleeping trees.

Ellie's ice she found.

We had a great time even though it was chilly and our hands got icy cold from taking pictures. It is always so much fun to get outside and spend time with my girls, exploring the nature around us. The photography was a big hit, and will definitely have to be something we do again. It is fun to see the world through a different lens. Ha!

Blessings!