Last year we carried out an eco-audit of our play, looking at simple but effective ways we could align our activities . . . → Read More: Earth day activities: grow a meadow indoors!]]>
Are you planning any Earth Day activities on April 22nd? Celebrated around the world, Earth Day is a great time to pause and reflect the impact you, your kids and your family have on the earth.

Last year we carried out an eco-audit of our play, looking at simple but effective ways we could align our activities with the ideas of reducing, re-using and recycling.

This year, we’re joining in with the Earth Day Celebrations hosted by Mommy Labs and Greening Sam and Avery to bring you a blog hop bursting with ideas you can use to celebrate Earth Day with your kids. Have a browse around the blog hop at the end of this post to find ideas for art, crafts, games, activities and positive action your family can take to go a little greener this month. First though, here’s what the NurtureStore girls came up with as an Earth Day play idea: we grew an indoor meadow!

Earth Day activities: grow a meadow indoors!

I still haven’t decided if this was a crazy or genius idea but it has been a huge hit with the children. We live on the edge of a city and have a small urban garden. We grow lots of flowers, fruit and vegetables in the garden – as well as running a School Gardening Club – but the one thing our house is missing is a lawn. We had a lawn in a previous home (and I have to say I don’t miss all the mowing) and we’re blessed with having excellent local parks on our doorstep, but, to celebrate Earth Day, we came up with the idea of grown our own  small world meadow – to play with indoors and out.

We started by filling a seed tray with compost and watering it. We wanted a meadow that was big enough for the girls to use as a small world play area but something which was small enough so it was very easy to bring inside.

 We measured out our grass seeds (according to the seed packet instructions) and sprinkled it over the compost – in horizontal and vertical lines to ensure good coverage.

 As we knew our seed bed would be too tempting for our pesky cat, we placed the seed tray in our mini greenhouse and waited for the grass seeds to sprout. The girls checked the seeds everyday and in just over a week they had begun to grow. And they grew and grew and grew until….

we had a beautiful, verdant meadow, which the girls have played and played with. It’s such a sensory little world for them to use – so green and wonderful to touch. It’s been next to our fairy garden for a while…

 until the dinosaurs moved in and the fairies fled to safety.

(This photo makes me laugh.I don’t know why the goat is so cross, but my husband says is looks like an episode of Lost.)

 And of course the miniature meadow has been inside too.  L especially loves to lie on her tummy and play here with her little creatures. She has the animals chat away to each other and sends them off for adventures in the tall grass. The meadow’s in need of a haircut now – time to bring out the scissors!

More Earth Day activities

How are you going to celebrate Earth Day with your children? Will you grown some seeds with your children, make a junk model toy, turn rubbish into plant pots? For inspiration take a browse through the ideas in this Earth Day blog hop. And please join us. If you are a blogger and you have a great Earth Day idea, please link up with the blog hop and share with us.

This Earth Day celebration is brought to you by:

Mommy Labs, Greening Sam and Avery
Teach Preschool | Ready.Set.Read | Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo | The Outlaw Mom Blog | Rainy Day Mum | The Golden Gleam | Inspiration Laboratories | Nurture Store | Experimenting Mom | Kids Stuff World | Artsy Craftsy Mom | Creativity My Passion | Imagination Soup | Caution! Twins at play |Rockabye Butterfly | Explore Education | Getting Messy with Miss Jessy | Daria Music | Mama Smiles |Let’s Lasso the Moon | Reading Confetti | The Educators’ Spin On It | Kitchen Counter Chronicles | De tout et de rien | Our Feminist Playschool | The Wise Owl Factory Book a Day | Mommy and Me Book Club | Dirt and Boogers | Carrots Are Orange | Putti Prapancha | Toddler Approved | Imprints from Tricia | Smiling like Sunshine |

This . . . → Read More: Recycled garden tile art]]>
Our school gardening club has been focusing on art projects in January and February while we wait for some warmer weather to begin our planting. Our gardening club mission, as well as growing all sorts of fruit and veg, is to make the space as eco friendly as possible and a feast for all the senses.

This garden tile project used lots of recycled and found materials and created art which is a treat for the eyes and also the hands. It introduced the children (and us) to a new technique and a new material, and created a permanent outside art gallery for us to enjoy all year round. Here’s how we made our garden tile art.

Recycled garden tile art

We knew we wanted to make some tiles that the children could press all sorts of art materials into to create an eco collage, and that we wanted the art to be displayed outside in the garden where it was made. We thought about using air drying clay or salt dough but knew they wouldn’t stand up to being outside in all weathers. We also considered clay we could fire but realised the materials the children were adding to their collages would get damaged in the process. So we settled on cement, which was easy to mix, held all the materials perfectly and could stay outside come rain or shine.

To make the cement tiles

:: use an old shoe box lid as a mould (kindly donated by our local Clarks store)

:: line with an old plastic bag

:: mix up the cement according to its instructions, to a fairly thick consistency

:: fill the shoe box lids and smooth down the surface

:: insert pasta tubes (genius!) to create holes so you can hang the tiles in a gallery when you’re finished. We left the pasta in place for about two hours and then gently pulled them out to create the hanging holes

We provided the children a selection of materials, all found items, natural materials or recycled items (except for the bugs which were our one new purchase from Poundland and which seemed perfect for our garden art.) You could use:

driftwood :: twigs :: shells :: slate :: beads from broken necklaces :: buttons :: bottle tops :: pen lids :: smooth glass :: feathers

We showed the children some tile designs which I’d collated on my Kids Garden Pinterest board but then left it to them to free style and compose their own garden tile art. They really enjoyed the process of selecting their treasures and pressing the objects into the cement. They also used twigs to write words and make marks, creating patterns and animal tracks in the tiles.

Once the designs were completed we left the tiles exactly where they were to dry out and set – best not to move them at all if you can avoid it, so the integrity of the cement isn’t affected. The tiles were beginning to set after a couple of hours, when we removed the pasta pieces, and we left the tiles in the shoe box lids for a couple of days until they were completely hard and dry. The tiles then popped out of the plastic bag linings very easily. We will add garden twine through the holes and hang the tiles in the garden to create a garden tile gallery.

More School Gardening club ideas

If you like this garden tile idea you might like our other school gardening club projects.

happily shared with the outdoor play party and craft schooling sunday and  it’s playtime

Charles Darwin called earthworms ‘the intestines of the soil’. Worms can eat up to 75% . . . → Read More: How to make a wormery]]>
We’re joined today by Jo Middleton, who blogs at Slummy single mummy, with a fabulous tutorial on how to make a wormery. Perfect for a school gardening club project and for getting kids closer to nature. Here’s Jo’s guide:

How to make a wormery

Charles Darwin called earthworms ‘the intestines of the soil’. Worms can eat up to 75% of their own body weight every day, turning waste into rich and fertile compost. After decades of dependence on chemical fertilizers, people are returning to traditional non-toxic methods of gardening, and composting is one of the easiest ways to get eco-friendly.

Worm composting, or vermiculture, is a fun and easy way to turn your organic waste into plant food and is ideal for people who don’t have space for a full size composter. You don’t even need a garden – you can keep your wormery indoors and produce compost for houseplants and window boxes. A wormery is also a great way to introduce children to gardening and the environment as they can help to build and care for the wormery.

Building your own wormery

Expensive wormery kits are available to buy ready for assembly, but it is actually very straightforward to make your own. You will need a container, wood or plastic, that you can make holes in and fit with a lid. Worms are surface feeders so your wormery doesn’t need to be deep. 8in – 16in should be ample and you need roughly one square foot of surface area for every pound of waste per week.

Make air holes around the upper perimeter of your tub and in the bottom for drainage.

• Support your tub on bricks inside a tray, to collect any liquid that drains off. This liquid (leachate) can be used as plant feed.
• Fill the bottom of the tub with a 5 – 10cm layer of drainage material such as sand or gravel.
• Cover the sand with a dividing layer, something that will let moisture seep through but not worms, such as wooden slats or a section of carpet.
• Add a 10 – 15cm layer of damp bedding material. Shredded newspaper works well – get the newspaper wet, but not soaking – about the consistency of a damp sponge.
• Add your worms! These need to be special composting worms, often known as brandlings, tiger worms or red worms. You can buy theses at fishing shops or worm bin suppliers. (www.bucketofworms.co.uk)
• Add a layer of food.
• Place a thick layer of damp newspaper over the top. This keeps in the moisture and keeps out the light.
• Finally, make sure your wormery has a tight fitting lid. This protects your compost from rodents and flies.

Keeping your worms happy and healthy

Start off with just small amounts of food while your worms settle in. As they multiply you can add larger quantities, but make sure it is well chopped and only add more waste once the previous batch has been composted. Don’t feed your worms more than they can handle – excess waste will just rot, upset your worms and produce nasty smells.

Like humans, worms thrive on a varied diet and have particular likes and dislikes.

Worms like: coffee grounds and tea bags, fruit and vegetables peelings, cereals and bread, crushed egg shells.

Worms don’t like: meat and fish, fats or greasy foods, dairy products, rice, pasta or cooked potatoes.

Worms like a moderate temperature and eat more when they are warmer. Don’t let them overheat though, so keep out of direct sunlight. They can be kept inside or out, but will benefit from being indoors in the winter, maybe in a garage or shed.

Keep a good level of moisture – not too wet and not to dry. You can add extra dry bedding or moisten with rainwater or leachate if you need to. Your worms will regulate numbers to fit your wormery and should not try to escape if wormery conditions are right.

Once the worms have settled in you can sit back and watch them turn your rubbish into high quality compost! Depending on the size and conditions you should have compost ready to harvest in around 3 – 6 months.

Happy wriggling!

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Jo Middleton is a freelance writer, blogger and marketing consultant and writes the award winning blog Slummy single mummy.

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More kids gardening projects

For more kids gardening ideas visit our School Gardening Club section

Photos: Alexander von Halem and Clarity J

happily shared with the outdoor play party and your green resource