More on Spuds

Yesterday we harvested our potatoes and here are a few more photos of our yield.


A few of the potatoes came out attached to the roots but the others we had to dig for.


We finally dumped the tub and rooted around in the soil for the final potatoes.

Spuds in Tubs Harvest

Time to harvest our potatoes.

It was a beautiful sunny day so decided to have story time outside.
I told the story about the Enormous Potato (based on the old folktale of the Great Big Enormous Turnip). Then we acted out the story with our potato plants.
This is how it went...

There once was a class that planted some potatoes in a tub. They waited and watched as the potatoes grew big and bigger till they were ready to pull up.






The teacher took hold of the potato and
she pulled and pulled and pulled some
more but the potato wouldn't come up.





So she called for a little girl to come and help.
The little girl held on to the teacher and the
teacher held on to the potato and they pulled
and pulled and pulled some more but the
potato wouldn't come up.



So the little girl called for her grandma to come
and help. The grandma held on to the little girl,
the little girl held on to the teacher and the
teacher held on to the potato and they
pulled and pulled and pulled some more but
the potato wouldn't come up.


So the grandma called for a little boy to come
and help. The little boy held on to the grandma,
the grandma held on to the little girl, the little
girl held on to the teacher and the teacher held
on to the potato and they pulled and pulled
and pulled some more but the potato wouldn't
come up.

So the little boy called for his Baba to come and help. Baba held on to the little boy, the little boy held on to the grandma, the grandma held on to the little girl, the little girl held on to the teacher, the teacher held on to the potato and they pulled and they pulled and they pulled some more but the potato wouldn't come up.


So Baba called another little boy to come and help. That little boy held on to Baba, Baba held on to her little boy, her little boy held on to the grandma, the grandma held on to the little girl, the little girl held on to the teacher, the teacher held on to the potato and they pulled and pulled and pulled some more but the potato wouldn't come up.

So the little boy called for his mom to come and help. The mom held on to the little boy, the little boy held on to Baba, Baba held on to her little boy, her little boy held on to grandma, grandma held on to the little girl, the little girl held on to the teacher, the teacher held on to the potato and they pulled and pulled and pulled some more but the potato wouldn't come up.


So the mom called for a another little girl to help. That little girl held on to the mom, the mom held on to her little boy, the little boy held on to Baba, Baba held on to her little boy, the little boy held on to grandma, grandma held on to the little girl, the little girl held on to the teacher, the teacher held on to the potato and they pulled and pulled and pulled some more but the potato
wouldn't come up.

So the little girl called for her sister and mother to come and help. Her mother held her sister and the sister held the other little girl, that little girl held the mom, the mom held the little boy, the little boy held Baba, Baba held her little boy, the little boy held the grandma, the grandma held her little girl, the little girl held the
teacher, the teacher held the potato and they pulled and pulled and
pulled some more and ...

... the potato came up!

Snails for snack

We didn't eat real snails but made some look-a-likes to eat.

First roll your bread out thin.

Next spread on jam, peanut butter, cheez whiz or whatever you prefer to fill your sandwich.












Then carefully roll it up to look like a snail. Add carrot antennas and raisin eyes.








Then eat it, of course!

Visiting Chicks

A while back we tried to hatch chicks. Unfortunately the water bottle didn't quite work well and the humidity level in the incubator dropped and the eggs dried.

But today we were able to walk to a neighbouring home that did successfully hatch chicks (the regular way - with a hen).

It was beautiful sunny weather that made it perfect to walk the 20 minutes to Natasha's.

We had opportunities to hold and pet the chicks. They were all different colours and some had stripes around their eyes.

Continuing bug garden

The snails were very active this morning in our bug garden.
Not sure who was more curious the child or the snail trying to get out of the container?

Last Friday our craft was based on Denise Fleming's book "In the Tall, Tall Grass"


I made a mural of ripped green and brown paper to represent soil and grass blades.


Then the children used Q-tips and paint to make
bugs to add to the mural.

Bug Garden

Wow over a month since my last post - sorry but life has been full.

We've been having a lot of fun exploring bugs. We decided to grow our own bug garden this year instead of bringing in sod.

We planted grass, lettuce, wild flowers and wheat grass seeds. After about a week it was ready for bugs to move in. Families brought in slugs, caterpillars, centipedes and millipedes, worms, wood bugs, an earwig, and snails.



We included rocks, sticks and flowers for a more natural environment.






The children used a spray bottle to imitate the rain and when the grass gets too long they use scissors to cut it.

more caterpillar crafts

Wow last week was so busy that I didn't have a chance to post anything and I got behind on my emails and spent yesterday clearing out over 200 messages.

Just wanted to finish off showing you the crafts we did for caterpillars.

The first was the second stage in the life cycle of a butterfly. Caterpillars.

We made them out of egg cartons.

They had fun mixing the colours before painting their caterpillars.


Close attention to detail.













Pipe cleaners and beads were added for antennae.

Then they could finish them off with pieces of yarn and more beads on the bodies.



The following day we made caterpillars in their chrysalis.

Starting with a toilet paper tube, gluing tissue paper on it then hot gluing a a pom pom on the inside.

Peek a boo caterpillar.