That beautiful season! It’s the time of year when birds sing, flowers blossom, children play outside, and I – I kill every green thing I put my hand to. (Spoiler for those of you checking out that link: they all die. Well, no, wait, the strawberries lived and may even now be living with my friend back in Japan.) Still, let’s not have it said that I give up easily in the face of crushing and persistent failure: we’re planting more seeds!
Look, matching bedhead! I think it’s time for haircuts again. Anyway, unlike last year when it was really too early, March is prime planting time here in Arizona. And, since we’re back in the US of A, we can get all of our seeds and supplies with English directions…so that could help. Still, we’re taking few chances and bought a few ‘mini greenhouse’ kits to give our little seeds the best chance of sprouting and surviving.
This year we planted some kitchen herbs (oregano, parsley, rosemary, and basil) as well as tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, and sunflowers. Now the race is on! Who will grow, and who will die?
I also took the opportunity to teach the kids about seeds and plants. We printed out a little book about a sprouting bean to color and read, and then the boys did a sunflower themed Color-By-Number.
Let’s pause here for a little public service announcement: we got our printer hooked up and bought new ink last week. We haven’t printed anything for more than six months, and the boys and I were excited to be able to print off coloring pages and activities again. Greg warned me, though, that children’s coloring and activity sites are a hot spot for picking up computer viruses! (What? Who knew?!) It’s true, though; on the first night I went looking for coloring pages I found one site that redirected to an unrelated online store, one site that Google blocked because it was a reported attack site, and one site that had pop-ups trying to convince me to let it “check my computer for viruses.” Right. I decided that enough was enough, and I renewed my old subscription to Enchanted Learning. I had one two or three years ago, but the boys weren’t really old enough for it to be worth it. They may not have the slickest illustrations, but they have tons of activities on many different topics, craft ideas, and more, ready to print out on a whim. For a personal subscription it’s only $20 for a year, and I figured it was worth it to avoid getting viruses. (You can check out their free sample pages here .)
After coloring for a while, we finished off our day with a little plant-themed Magic School Bus – Episode 11, “The Magic School Bus Goes to Seed” and Episode 36, “The Magic School Bus Gets Planted” cover seeds and photosynthesis on a level that’s plenty deep for a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old.
It sounds like a good day of school life to me.
