Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Earth Day Fun

Instead of doing our regular routine for school we decided to celebrate Earth Day this year by doing a few fun projects to help us be a little "green" around our house. We decided to get started in the garden and get it tilled and planted with a few of the cold weather crops. The weather has been very nice here the past few days, but there is still a change of a frost in our area, so cold weather crops only. Daddy was good enough to till the ground for us the day before, so we were sure to be ready.
We planted cabbage, spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets and potatoes. The kids had such fun dropping seeds and tamping down the dirt. Logan was "freaked" out by the eyes on the potatoes, but I think he secretly liked them. Strange alien monsters, I guess!

The dog was our quality control manager. She was in charge of rows being straight, seeds spacing specialist and general boss. That looks about right for the position of the boss, laying down on the job while everyone else works. The next thing we did was shut off the power for our entire house for 1 hour. We thought we could do without any power for 1 hour, and enjoyed the quiet of the house without appliances buzzing, furnace humming, and well pump running. So during that hour we talked about things people did before electricity. Carrying water, cooking over a wood stove, going potty outside in an outhouse, etc. We also tried our hand at tying knots, and making a cornhusk doll.

I found this kit when we went to Roanoke Island in North Carolina a few years ago on vacation. We also happened to study about the Lost Colony in history this week.

It was fun to do these things, and it made the hour breeze by. Maybe we will turn off the power once a month, until we can install solar panels or a wind generator, it may have to do.

Our final activity of the day was making our very own compost bin. I found the idea on Kaboose. Check out the instructions and make one for your own family. It was very simple and I happened to have all the supplies on hand.

We then sat in the garage and fed Landon strawberries and talked about composting. What it is, and what can and cannot go into our compost bin.

I think the kids will get excited when they see the "rotten" fruits of their labors. Happy Earth Day!


2 comments:

Megan said...

VERY fun! Sounds like you started a great Earth Day tradition.

Connie said...

This activity sounded like alot of fun. You are such a good mommy/teacher. I sincerely don't know how you get done what you do.
Great Job! Pat-Pat-Pat. (that was me patting you on the back)