Crabby Craft

What you'll need to make this crabby craft is just a paper plate, wiggle eyes, pipe cleaners for legs, a hole puncher, scrap paper to make the claws, and two brads so the claws can move. Fold the paper plate in half and use your hole puncher to punch four holes on each side. The girls wanted to add pom-poms for a fancy crab.

Learning About Shells

Since we live near the beach we have a lovely collection of shells. If you take a close looks you can see on the shell board that we are learning about bi-valves (two halves that fit together).
Oyster- circular grooves
Scallop- symmetrical
Ark- zig-zag streaks
Cockle- asymetrical

At our house we get pretty creative with shells. Olive loves to make ornaments and necklaces out of them, while Jem loves to paint them. Pictured above is a sand dollar and an olive shell (the state shell of South Carolina). 

 This was one of her amazing Mother's Day necklaces for me!
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I will be hosting a great BIG giveaway on Thursday....so please visit again soon!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my Buzz Lightyear, my Dad, and to all the great men who make a difference in our lives.

The girls and I took Buzz on a kayak trip, it was a first for all of us, and something we will for sure do again. We saw many lovely birds, a stingray, and crabs.

Enjoy the outdoors with your Dad today!

Beach discovery with visitors

We had a wonderful time with our German friends who stayed with us for the week. The days were lovely and we spent as much time as possible on the beach. Here are some great ocean discoveries we made during their visit!

 a sand dollar

a horseshoe crab

Now it gets interesting a jellyfish, cannonball jellyfish, also known as the cabbage head jellyfish, is a harmless (it’s edible) variety that sometimes washes up on beaches in large numbers. 

a dolphin

We have been friends since S was an exchange student in high school. How lucky I am to have a fantastic friend across the ocean, who is always close in my heart! Even though our children speak a different language they played wonderfully together, it was really special to see.

Playdough under the sea

I found the perfect playdough recipe, it's just like the real stuff! Olive and Jem both agree that it's soft and easy to mold. They spent a good part of an hour playing with this new blue dough. They had a good time pretending that their little animals were under the sea.

Perfect Playdough
1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)

Stir ingredients together into a saucepan. Over medium heat cook the dough until it pulls away from the pan. Lay onto a cutting board and knead well, it will be hot to touch. Allow to cool and enjoy.

Here is a fun chocolate playdough recipe from My Montessori Journey and Counting Coconuts has a variety of fun colors here.

Summer Nature Study Schedule

My girls love being outside so I thought I would put together a summer nature study to follow.

June: Birds- name, visual identity, song
         Ocean- plants, shells, mammals, crustaceans

July: Amphibians- life cycle, parts, habitats, identity
         Butterflies- life cycle, watch it grow

August: Rocks- types, visual identity
       
Along with our study each girls will keep a nature journal, nothing fancy, just another way to record what they see by drawing, sketching, and doodling. These take along guides found here at Amazon should help us on our nature journey. I hope you come along too!