Garden Tenders: A look into our week

We had so much fun at the field day our homeschool group put on. We had a BBQ, relay races, tug-a-war, and an abundance of fun. We met some new friends and welcomed summer with old ones.

Listening to directions from Miss Shannan

Last week a baby bird fell out of a nest at the hubs work. When the weekend came he brought it home. I tried calling around to local refuge places and was told that we needed to just let nature take it's course. Of course what poped into my mind was the verse where God said that not even a sparrow falling goes unnoticed by Him (Mat. 29:10). In Psalm 50:10 we can read "For every beast of the forest is Mine the cattle on a thousand hills.I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine." Even this baby bird is watched for by God. So we are taking care of it. It appears to be a starling, and I know it is not a popular bird, but it is a creature of the Father. If we would not care for the smallest among His living things, how can we care for the greatest. He is a very social little thing, wanting company and to be talked to and maybe not touched but attention nonetheless.

Sarah is happy, she knows we will try to release this bird, Chirpie, back into the wild, but she is happy to be a birdie caretaker right now.

How about a little blue plate special? Just in case you wonder what a wild and crazy homeschool family might do for lunch, here is a picture of some of our typical lunch time meals. Today I once again attempted ants on a log, and once again the celery was ate clean of its contents, but left otherwise intact. Sarah still, despite begging for celery at the store, will not eat it unless cooked in chicken noodle soup.

We also had some fun here at home. We made tin can wind chimes and plastic bead sun catchers. Of course we also spent some time as a pirate princess.

For the plastic bead sun catchers I used foil pie pans and pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees. I read that one could also use the BBQ grill for about 10-15 minutes as well so as to not have the lingering aroma in the house. Although it was not as bad as the smell of melting crayons.

For this project you need:

Step 1

one bag of plastic beads.

scissors

oven

goggles

We placed the beads in a thin layer in the foil pans and placed them in the oven at 400 degrees. Removing them after a short time (about 20 minutes). One thing to make note of is that not all plastic beads are created equal when it comes to melting properties.

The special beads I got for Fourth of July sun catchers didn't melt as well as the bigger rounder beads that we bought a big mixture of at Joann's. I used my 40% off coupon to buy the beads. Just keep this in mind. I think they would make great "medals" for kids if you did them in solid colors and used a cupcake pan and ribbion rather than fishing line and hung them around necks rather than hooks on the front porch. The beads go a lot further than one might think. I see a wonderful gift in the making for Aunts and Grandma's. You could even attach magnets to the backs of small ones and have magnets. I think next I will experiment with Sarah and doing shapes we can shape them into, like soap dishes and the like.

Step 2

Step 3

After they baked for appx. 20 minutes I let them cool and then took a drill bit (a very small one) and drilled a hole in the "sun catcher" and we hung them outside.

Then we also made Tin Can wind chimes. Sarah had already painted the cans for another project and we just drilled holes and used fishing lines to string.