Exploring Birds Through Art
Nest Building in Nature
What materials do birds use to make their nests? How do they assemble things together to create a nest? Where do you see bird nests? What kind of birds do you want to live in your nest?
![]() |
|
Learning all about birds allows us to connect more deeply to nature and thus is a theme that we love to use here at Austin Children's Garden! In our schoolhouse and backyard, we often hear the loud calls of peacocks, the charming chirps of cardinals, and the sweet tweets of bluejays. While we stayed outdoors this month, the kids loved to fully explore birds through these simple projects. Check them out! Exploring Birds Through ArtColoring Birds Feather Paint Brushes Hummingbird Puzzle Or just have fun with it and create what you want ;) Flying Bird Collages Invitation to Create Your Own Bird! Nest Building in NatureWe pretended we were birds for this project and the kids had so much fun! What materials do birds use to make their nests? How do they assemble things together to create a nest? Where do you see bird nests? What kind of birds do you want to live in your nest? Outside Fun!Summer is almost here, the sunshine is out and about, and we are having so much fun soaking it all up! See you next time!
0 Comments
"Children who cook say 'I can,' not 'I can't'." - The New York Times Cooking is an organic experience that invokes wonder through various textures, smells, and tastes. Cooking with children has numerous benefits from laying the foundation for basic math concepts to instilling healthy eating habits. It can also be a great activity to do together while you might be spending more time at home with your kiddos than usual :) Here's our top 10 benefits of cooking with children as well as some tips for how kids can help in the kitchen!! 1. Models healthy food choices!Cooking with your kids gives you the opportunity to model healthy food choices for them. Additionally, preparing meals with your children helps them to build a healthy attitude toward food and to develop a sense of good nutrition that will continue on into their adulthood. TIP: To help kids use a flame safe cooker, they can use a portable camping stove at the right height for them! 2. Encourages creativity!Cooking naturally draws attention to color, texture, patterns, and shapes. Allowing children to make decisions, add extra features, and do as much of the work as possible can inspire creativity and inventiveness. 3. Aids in social emotional development!Cooking is a great vehicle for communication. Children learn to share, to take turns, and to enjoy eating together. Cooking promotes social knowledge as kids learn rules for hygiene and dining, explore cultural traditions regarding the creation of certain foods, and follow safety precautions during preparation and cooking. TIP: Have the kids wash and peel produce! Lots of things can be peeled by hand like bananas and onions. If a peeler is needed like for carrots and potatoes, have the child hold the item at the top with the bottom secured on a surface. The child should start peeling at the middle, going down. When the bottom half is done, turn it over and repeat! 4. Helps brain development!Cooking with your kids engages all their senses. It also inspires curiosity, thinking, and problem solving, as well as offers new opportunities to make predictions and observations. While cooking, children learn to read a recipe, organize ingredients, follow a sequence, and carry out multiple directions. 5. Advances motor skills!Cooking allows kids to practice moving and advance both their fine and gross motor skills. When kids mash bananas, stir batter, crack eggs, chop carrots, peel potatoes, crush nuts, or knead bread, they move their fingers and hands as well as their arms and body to exercise coordination. TIP: Have the kids do the hard work!! Kids naturally love to smash, crack, and get messy. When cracking eggs, have the kids crack them into a separate bowl to ensure none of those pesky shells get in the rest of the mixture. Also pictured here are some kid-friendly tools for children to use in the kitchen while helping to cook! Juice a lemon with a lemon juicer, slice a strawberry with a slicer, or de-stem kale with a special stripper! Kids LOVE fun, colorful tools!! 6. Conceptualizes math skills!Cooking with kids provides a hands-on, contextual way to introduce mathematical concepts such as those related to measurement, numbers, sequencing, fractions, and time. Additionally, while cooking and mixing ingredients, children observe different colors, textures, patterns, and shapes of the mixture, and can chart their preferences. TIP: Cutting, chopping, and slicing can turn into an easy fraction lesson. The kids, of course, can do this part too! Just make sure to maintain their safety by using a child safe knife. In addition, measuring using measuring cups or spoons is a great use of children in the kitchen! Teach them to level their measurements off with their hand or a butter knife. 7. Improves language skills!Cooking with children is a natural way for kids to learn new vocabulary. In addition to reading recipes, kids can talk about the ingredients being used, the process and changes they observe, and the finished product - all together while learning new words and their meanings. 8. Develops science skills!Cooking integrates three major science concepts: life science, physics, and chemistry. As children cooking with either plant or animal-derived ingredients, they begin to understand the connection between their own lives and plants and animals that make they healthy. Cooking involves simple machines, tools, and human actions that allow children to make a natural connection to physics. Lastly, by experimenting with ingredients of different properties (states of matter, temperature, viscosity, etc.), kids begin to understand basic chemistry concepts. TIP: All these tools are relatively simple for kids to use! Have them crank the grinder, use the handheld blender (perhaps with a little help steadying the bowl), or spin the salad! 9. Grows self esteem!Cooking helps to develop children's sense of pride, confidence, and satisfaction as they work on their cooking skills as well as further develop the various skills mentioned here in this blog. In addition, cooking encourages self-direction and independence for kids. Something we often hear here at ACG is "I made it myself!" TIP: Have the kids plate and decorate how they want, just to take one more thing off your 'plate' ;) 10. It is super fun!See you next time :)
We had a wonderful few weeks learning about butterflies, just as our Spring weather was arriving and butterflies were everywhere! From Caterpillars to Butterflies!We got to see the entire butterfly life cycle in person!! Check out our Facebook video here to see the release of the butterflies into our wildlife habitat! Butterfly Galore! Art and ActivitiesButterfly Math - matching colors and shapes Butterfly Bingo Coloring a monarch butterfly Hand butterfly wings More butterfly coloring Butterfly YogaCheck out Mrs. Morna's full butterfly yoga video on our Facebook page here! Musical Circle TimeCooking!To make this nutritious banana bread mix together the following ingredients and bake at 325 degrees for 45 min to 1 hr:
See you next time!
![]() “In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine our success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.” — John Gottman Exploring Feelings and EmotionsWhile we regularly focus on social-emotional development, we especially like to highlight our theme of love, kindness, and practicing self regulation in February! One of the best ways to introduce different feelings and learn tools to respond to big emotions is through educational children's books - here are some of our favorites: Singing together is a great way to create group harmony. We sing a lot at ACG! Ask the kids to teach you our "Love Grows" song. Learning to read other peoples facial expressions is an important step in practicing empathy. The kids loved making different expressions with play dough. Feelings cards are a great way to open up a conversation about different feelings. Here are some of their honest responses: "I get really frustrated when I have to get my coat on in the car and the zipper is really hard." "I feel impatient when my mom says she will play with me but then makes me wait and wait and wait forever!" "I feel love when my mama hugs me." "I feel sorry when I take my sister's toys and yell at her." Self portraits are a creative way for children to develop their observational, expressive, and reflective skills. The kids loved studying their faces in the mirror and trying out different facial expressions. Painting to music - we painted one half of our pictures to fast fun music and the other half of the picture to slow gentle flowing music to compare how sound can influence our expression! Conscious Discipline is a wonderful curriculum we use to help with learning about our emotions and healthy ways to respond to them. To see more about how the deep breathing, feeling buddies, and safe place work please see our previous blog for detailed instructions! Practicing the following breaths regularly helps us to be able to use them when a strong feeling gets a hold of us. Balloon Breath Drain Breath Pretzel Breath Feeling Buddies are such a sweet way to learn how to self regulate. The kids learn what the different expressions are and then comfort their feeling buddy. By learning how to soothe their feeling buddy, they are learning how to self soothe and process their own big feelings. Sensory activities are another way to de-stress and help process more complex emotions. The kids loved measuring out and mixing together all the ingredients for this spice sensory bin. Sensory water beads are super fun and very calming too. Calming Bears - we mixed water beads and water in empty honey bear bottles! Shake them up and down, then take deep breaths while watching the balls settle. Kindness bracelets - make a bracelet to give to your friend! Kindness Jar - a fun way to acknowledge and celebrate kindness is to keep a kindness jar. Any time someone notices another person being kind they put a pompom in the jar - when the jar is full we celebrate with a kindness party! We made special cookies and had a dance party to celebrate! Valentines Fun!Valentine's play-dough Heart rock puzzle - how many rocks do you think will fit in the heart? Heart valentines Science InvestigationWe love our new microscope! We looked at plant cells and earthworms!! Floating objects Heavy lifting! Garden Time!It's broccoli season!! Kindness Party Recipes! |
The intention of this blog is to include the community in our learning process and to inspire families to engage in fun and healthy activities together! Archives
March 2021
Categories |