A Morning Walk

Every morning, that I'm with our Little One, we go for a stroller walk.

I specify stroller because we can go farther than if she was walking.

(we do her speed walks at other times)

A great destination for us is about 6 blocks away from our house.

What we like about this yard is that it is an ultra-mini farm in the city, right in our neighbourhood.

Benches have been set up between the sidewalk and street so we can sit and enjoy all the work they have done.

When we get there the Little One gets out of the stroller and looks around.

 

First stop is at the chickens!

They are not out everyday but we are always thrilled when they come out to see us.

We've learned a few things about chickens over the past few weeks.

They scratch the ground and then they peck at it (we're not sure if they are looking for worms or bugs) and they go "buuuuck, buck, buck, buuuuck", which we try to copy.

This ultra-mini farm has apple trees

and raspberries.

We had a conversation about not picking other's fruits unless there is a sign saying we can.

This morning my grand daughter reminded to stop and look for the little things.

Like snails and ants.

And bumblebees!

 We enjoyed taking the time to look around that we did that all the way home

 We found a community garden that has fun, informative signs.

We talked to people walking their dogs.

 We found other gardens that had lots of flowers, pig statutes and bird houses.

We counted the bikes as they whizzed by (there were a lot).

We watched the BIG lawn mower cut the grass in the park.

It was loud and a little scary.

And right by our house we saw this crane.

Wow!

All of this during a walk around a small part of our neighbourhood.

Hope you enjoyed our walk.  We did!

April Brought Spring

I found this wonderful board book to share with our little one about Spring.

It inspired us to look for signs of spring while we were out on our walks.

We began to see little flowers in the grass.

A lot more birds.

And we could see the wind move by the leaves dancing by.

It was wonderful to watch this tree bud out.

Each time we walked by we stopped to see what was different.  Then one day we noticed the shells of the pods on the ground,

the blossoms were beginning to emerge.

Then one day they were big and beautiful.

Another day we stopped and picked the petals, that had fallen from the tree, up off the sidewalk.

There were days that she wanted to take her basket so we collected bits of nature.

Like this big stick.  Will it fit in her basket?

No, but lots of other things did.

Of course she found lots of puddles to stomp in.

Lately we've started to see bugs, like this pill bug (roly poly, wood bug, whichever you call it)

ants on the sidewalk and bees in the flowers.

A snail is living just outside our front door and we check on it everyday.

Yesterday we spotted our first mushroom.

Oh and the dandelions are very attractive to the little one.

Her Opa showed her how to blow wishes with the seeds and she is still practicing.

Little fairy wishes waiting to sail away.

What will we see next?

Inspired by Hydrangeas

 I picked some hydrangeas from my garden and set them up

as an inspiration for painting.

 Blue, purple and white paint was offered on a small plate

with old fashioned shaving brushes

 The size and shape of the brush is perfect for little hands to grip.

 And they worked great for mixing the paint and dabbing or swiping on the paper.

 This is my attempt, I may make a large painting using this technique.

 Small amount of green paint was offered in a milk jug lid.

I couldn't find any tiny brushes so I cut coffee stir sticks shorter.

 Love all the different movement I can see in this painting;

dabbing, swiping, swishing, stopping and lifting.

This turned out to be a fun colour mixing activity.

She made the colour of the ocean.

Taking the activity one step further and getting his fingers involved.

The following photos show the concentration and enthusiasm of 

one child as she explores the materials.

One of my favourite parts of this job is watching and enjoying

the children.