Thursday, 31 January 2013

Winter Trees Art

We started this art project way back at the end of November and just got to finishing it last week.  I don't think I got any pictures of the first part of the process unfortunately.  The idea came from here.  The kids started by gluing all kinds of pieces of tissue paper onto a plain white piece of paper.  That was the part done a few months ago.  

The next step was cutting triangles out of the colourful paper - to form the top of the trees.  Trunks were cut out of brown paper.  They glued white paper across the bottom of a blue piece of paper.  Then they glued the colourful tree tops and the brown trunks on.  And then the best part was last . . . glitter!  They covered the whole picture in watered down glue and sprinkled glitter all over it.  





 I love how they turned out.  So pretty.  

Denver's

Austin's

Samara's

Victoria's

Winter Bird Feeders

We've been noticing a few more birds that usual around our backyard the last few days.  Not sure if it's the cranberries lying around from the decorations we made or if it's the warmer weather - perhaps a combination of both.  Anyway, we decided it would be a good idea to feed these birds so we set out to make some bird feeders.  We gathered our supplies - pinecones, peanut butter, string and birdseed.  



We started by tying a string onto the top of the pinecone.  Then we spread peanut butter over the entire pinecone.  




Austin and Victoria are my kids that don't like peanut butter . . . as you can see from Austin's face.    LOL!  



I'm not sure if more peanut butter got on Denver's pinecone or in his mouth.  Hmmmm . . . . 


Once that was done, we rolled them in some birdseed to cover up all the peanut butter.  



When they were all complete, we took them outside and hung them up.  We purposely didn't hang on the fence because we didn't want the squirrels to get them.  



The next morning after we put them outside, I heard the kids laughing so hard in the kitchen.   When I came to see what was so funny, the kids pointed outside to a silly squirrel.  Those smart guys climbed right up onto the gazebo, took the string of the bird feeder and pulled it right up to eat it.  When we kept chasing them away, they got even smarter and chewed the string off so they could just take the whole pine cone with them.  So much for feeding the birds!  



Poor Frodo was on squirrel alert all day long.  He sat at the window on guard . . . barking every time a squirrel would show up.  Every time he would bark, the kids would let him out to chase the squirrel.  He definitely got his exercise that day!  


Monday, 28 January 2013

Ice Balloons

These outdoor decorations were started a week or two ago - before we did the cranberry and cedar decorations.  I saw the idea at this website and thought it looked like fun.  So Victoria and I filled up a bunch of balloons with water and added food colouring.  


We VERY carefully placed them in the freezer.  



You can also place them outside to freeze but our weather is so unpredictable, we froze them in the freezer.  I was worried about them popping and make a mess in the freezer but thankfully that didn't happen.  They froze fairly quickly but we wanted to make sure there was snow on the ground when we put them outside.  So today was the day.  It may actually be the last day we have snow for a while since it's going to warm up considerably over the next few days.  Victoria peeled the balloons off - they came off quite easily as they were already starting to peel off themselves.  


  
And one by one, she carried them outside and placed them in the snow.  



I wasn't sure if the colours were bold enough but once they were in the white snow, they looked great!  


Frodo isn't too sure about the big, coloured, frozen balloons in our backyard.  He checks them out every time he goes out.  LOL!  


Sunday, 27 January 2013

Bamboo

This post is WAY overdue but I wanted to post it still.   In October the kids and I went on a field trip to a bamboo farm.  


It was so interesting and the kids learned so much about how bamboo is grown and the many different things bamboo is used for.  





Each of the kids got to plant their own bamboo plant.  




















When it comes time to harvest the plants, we will be able to visit the zoo where the pandas will be fed with the very bamboo we planted.  So cool!  This was one of my favourite field trips and the kids loved it too.  
 
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