Nature

Inspired by Nature: Four Easy Steps to Follow a Child’s Interests

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Do you have bees, birds, squirrels, deer, possum, or other creatures milling around your neighborhood? It’s been wild animal week here at Casa Tinkerlab. We had two big discoveries at our house: a wasp nest in the eaves by our back door and a bird nest tucked into a hole along the siding of our [...]

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50 Earth Day Activities

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Earth Day is our annual reminder to slow down and appreciate the bounty of the earth and all of the blessings it gives to our lives. As an avid recycler and upcycler, I’ve always loved Earth Day (April 22 this year), and I wanted to mark it with a round up of activities from some of my favorite [...]

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Fall Crafts: Glycerin Leaves

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We’re ga-ga for all the multi-colored maple leaves of the season, and my older daughter, N, is likely to burst into a chorus of “red and yellow leaves” as we drive down the road. I’ve been reading up on how to preserve the leaves so that they’ll last more than a couple days and it [...]

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Nature Table: Where Art, Stories, Memories, and Peace Unfold

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Today I’d like to introduce you to Rashmie Jaaju, the mama behind the creative learning blog, Mommy Labs. I’ve known Rashmie since I started blogging and always appreciate her sincerity, mindful approach to parenting, and the passion she brings to raising a creative child. Furthermore, Rashmie lives in New Delhi, India, and I hope you’ll enjoy [...]

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Crushed Flower Experiment

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Now that summer is coming to an end (sniff — I’m kind of in denial — you?), it’s a good time to harvest some of your last blooms for some flower-painting experiments. We took a walk around the neighborhood and picked some weeds from wild roadside gardens, and also selected a handful of flowers and [...]

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Make a Terrarium

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Today I’m joined by my friend and colleague, Amanda E. Gross, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with at the San Francisco Children’s Creativity Museum. She has an incredible eye for all things related to creativity and kids, and today she’s here to share some tips on how to make a terrarium. I’ve wanted to make one [...]

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Natural Playground with Tree Stumps

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Let your walks now be a little more adventurous. – Henry David Thoreau Do you have a natural playground in your yard or near your home? A natural playground is an outdoor play area that’s landscaped with materials such as logs, dirt, grassy hills, sand, natural bridges, and streams instead of plastic playground equipment. Aside [...]

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Creative Adventures: Tidepooling

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 Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. - Edward de Bono, psychologist and writer This post is something new for me. I usually write about our hands-on projects, but I thought it would be fun to take our creative thinking out into the great wide world. [...]

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Easy Peasy Rock Painting

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This is such an easy project and my kids (almost 4 and 20 months) have gone crazy for it. And I have to confess that I really enjoyed it too. Very addictive. I chalk their enthusiasm (and mine) up to a couple things: Painting or drawing on a 3-dimensional surface is a fun challenge The [...]

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