Flutter flutter Butterfly

This week we made some lovely floaty spring butterflies.

But first, Cat, one of our mamas made us a real treat for morning tea.

Isn't it gorgeous - the children loved eating their caterpillar sandwhiches!

To make our floating butterflies we used some rectangles of tissue paper (approx. 9x13cm) in a range of lovely spring colours, pipecleaners around 15cm long, sticks collected from our yard and lightly sanded, and string.

For each butterfly take 2 pieces of tissue paper and curve the corners for a softer shape. Wrap your pipecleaner around the centre and twist to make the antenae. Tie one end of the string onto your butterfly and the other onto your stick.

The children loved their butterflies, they look beautiful, and what a cheap and easy activity. This idea was from the book Earthwise, which is full of cheap, easy and environmentally friendly ideas for young children.

Flutter, flutter butterfly

Floating in the springtime sky.

Floating by for all to see

Floating by so merrily.

Flutter, flutter butterfly

Floating in the springtime sky.

(author unknown)

Spring Celebration

Finally the weather gave us a break, and we were able to hold (although a little belated) our Spring Celebration. Mother Nature blessed us with a divine spring morning, in the words of Margaret Wise Brown "The sky was wild with sunshine" and the garden full of spring blooms.

We set off to find a perfect picnic spot.

Through the meadow let us walk

See what wonders spring has brought

Skipping skipping let us go

As the breeze blows to and fro

The children recieved their crowns and wands with a sprinkle of glitter and a magic verse

A faery crown and a faery wand

A sprinkle of faery glitter

You become a faery Queen/King

Flutter flatter flitter

Then time to walk and skip around the maypole as we sang some simple maypole songs

A delicious spring feast fit for Faery Kings and Queens

We planted seeds of beans, marigolds and sunflowers, the seeds of which we collected last Autumn.

And the creation of our Garden Goddess (lady scarecrow) complete with magic wand, to protect our wonderful new vegetable gardens

And finally the face behind the camera, one of our wonderful mums Cat, who took these gorgeous pictures for us. It was so hard to choose which photos to include! Check out her site www.celebrationstudios.com




What a beautiful morning we had!

Craft Night

Here also are our Spring Maidens from our craft night a few weeks back. They all looked so beautiful, a look just lovely adorning our nature tables.

Caterpillars in our garden

Who's been eating all the vegetables out of our garden???

And my biscuits and CHOCOLATE!

It must be this cheeky little fellow in the middle, who grew and grew with everything he ate!
The children loved listening and watching as the tiny caterpillar popped out of his egg and proceeded to "eat" a hole through each piece of food, and grow a 'beadsize' bigger (which was hiding inside the hole in the vegetable), each time.

Then he rolled himself up into a silvery cocoon, and emerged a beautiful butterfly which fluttered around the childrens heads!

(This was a combination of two ideas for the story posted on mamamoontime - thanks Amber)

Then a whole host of wriggling caterpillars emerged from the clever little hands of our children, who loved beading and sewing felt circles onto elastic threads.

Now my garden doesn't stand a chance!