It’s the middle of Spring here, and we are beginning to plan our vegetable garden. There is much to be done, but a quick and simple project to get started on is a natural, kid-safe pesticide. It can be used on indoor and outdoor plants with smooth leaves. Make sure you realise that this is a pesticide and will kill all bugs - good and evil, so only spray where necessary.

You will need:
the grated rind of one lemon
1 cup wormwood or tansy
1 cup lavender
1 cup sage
1 pint boiling water
1 teaspoon non detergent soap

In a heat-resistant 1 litre (aprox a quart) jar, mix lemon and herbs. Pour boiling water over the mix and let it steep until cooled to room temperature.

Drain, reserving the liquid. In a plastic spray-pump bottle, dilute 1/8 cup of the herbal liquid to 2 cups water and add the teaspoon of soap. Store the rest safely.

Now it’s time to spray those nasty, vegetable eating bugs.

This recipe comes from Kidsgardening.com which has a really great section on gardening with kids for parents.

With an enormous hat tip to Photo Friday, this week we are beginning a new group project for kids. At the beginning of each weekend we will announce a new theme which becomes you child’s photo assignment for the week. Encourage theme to take photos with the theme in mind and then upload them to the Kiddley Flickr group.

This week’s theme is “Circles”.
Jack’s muddy bike wheel (above) is a great example.

Check out Phil’s Introducing your child to digital photography for some tips and ideas.

We are looking forward to seeing your contributions!

Blowing bubbles is fun regardless of your age. I wanted to test the theory that making huge bubbles is even more fun than making little ones. Using some water system tubing and connectors, I constructed a simple round frame for launching large bubbles.

This was really just an excuse to go to the hardware store. You could easily make a frame out of a wire coathanger or other material you have around the house. Here’s the finished frame; it has two handles and fits snuggly inside of a pizza tray.

The next step is to make up a batch of bubble mixture. We mixed one part dishwashing detergent with five parts water and added some glycerin because it’s meant to give the bubbles greater stability and longevity. Getting the bubble mixture right is actually the hardest part of the activity, so be prepared to experiment with different detergent brands and ratios. Leaving the bubble mixture to sit overnight can also make a difference.

The last step is to fill up a suitably large tray with the bubble mixture (we used one of our pizza trays) and have fun! Older kids can probably do this activity from scratch, making a frame and the mixture, while younger ones will have plenty of fun just making bubbles or watching.

Here’s some video of us testing it out!

I recently bought a copy of UK nutritionist Jane Clarke’s new book “Yummy!”. It’s an incredibly useful book, a nutrition bible written with great warmth and insight into the way we live and eat right now and simple ways we can go about improving things for our kids.

Jane is a big fan of using seeds in a child’s diet to supply them with all sorts of goodness, and are especially important in a vegetarian or vegan diet. As some seeds are difficult for little kids to digest (such as linseeds) she suggests that whizzing them up in a grinder is the way to go.

Last week I stocked up on some seeds and followed her fabulous idea for making a ground seed mix which can be added to all sorts of dishes for a nutritional boost - stirred through porridge and smoothies, added to softened butter for toast and sprinkled over steamed veggies. I even made a really delicious (and simple) stir fry with soba noodles that only had a little soy sauce and the seed mix for flavouring and it was gobbled down by one and all.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon of linseeds

Heat seeds in a fry pan until they begin to pop. Allow them to cool and then grind in a pestle and mortar or in a grinder (we used our old coffee bean grinder to great effect). Store the mix in an air tight jar for up to a week.

Jane’s recipe calls for two tablespoons of each which makes quite a large amount - I ended up throwing a lot away at the end of the week so next time I will go with the above proportions.

October 7th is 24 Hour Comic Day for 2006.

“What is 24 Hour Comics Day?
It’s an international celebration of comics creation. Cartoonists all over take the challenge of trying to create a 24 page comic story in 24 straight hours. Many gather at special events in comic book shops, schools, and other locations.No sketches, designs, plot summaries or any other kind of direct preparation can precede the 24 hour period. Indirect preparation such as assembling tools, reference materials, food, music etc. is fine.

Your pages can be any size, any material. Carve ‘em in stone; print ‘em with rubber stamps; draw ‘em on your kitchen walls with a magic marker. Anything.”

Making a 24 page comic book in 24 hours is a challenge for even the most seasoned of comic book artists, but even so, I can imagine there might be some keen kids out there ready to rise to the challenge. If your household does manage to produce a comic on 24 Hour Comic Day we would love to see them so please post any scans or photos to the Kiddley Flickr group!

It’s time to knuckle down again and get those assignments knocked over as they start to roll in. I know that large amounts of precious homework time can be wasted or diverted into collecting together the right supplies to start work. Instead, have a medium sized plastic box with a lid (maybe even one on wheels to be rolled away under a table), or drawer set aside which is full of supplies reserved exclusively for homework time.

You will want to include the basics such as lined paper, blank, scissors, pencils, pens, a ruler, sticky tape, graph paper, glue, erasers and a pencil sharpener.

And you could add to this a dictionary, a thesaurus, an atlas, a calculator, highlighter pens, sticky notes, a hole punch, coloured markers and pencils, a stapler, etc.

Younger homeworkers might also need those extra special things for assignments such as glitter-glue, stickers, poster paint, brushes and coloured paper and cardboard.

Perhaps you could go shopping for these special supplies together so that the stationery feels extra special - and remember,the rules are that the contents are for homework time only!