Dear Teacher

Dear Pooka's Substitute teacher.

I know you don't know Pooka as well as some of the other teachers, but you simplified things a bit too well. You see, she came home and said "Mommy, I had to do this assignment. I told the teacher we were missing steps, but they didn't believe me." 

The short version

When you ask a Pooka to plant a seed, she will start with a seed starter, then plant it into a pot, then put it in the ground. However, at least she got to draw and write about gardening at school.  I am sure that helped

How to plant a seed part 2

Even if Pooka was a bit bored that day, she still told me she had fun explaining to her friends while they worked the correct way. At least the other kids expect as much from a Pooka and just let her roll with it. My only hope is that she didn't give you too much argument. Just don't try to teach her the steps of canning next.
Thanks
Pooka's Mom

How to plant a seed part 3

The art of Rocks

While we were installing the new herb bed out front, we found these giant rocks. I didn't know what to do with them at first, so I did what anyone trying not to make a decision about something does, I put it aside.

Rocks from the garden

Fast forward a bit over 2 months. Pooka asked if we could paint the giant rocks like she had seen in one of her gardening books. They talked about painting smaller rocks, but I figured the project would scale. The first thing I did was draw some pictures on it with a paint pen. Pooka was worried she couldn't draw the shapes right, so I drew what she told me to and we had to let it dry. My camera puked about this point, so I don't have a picture, but I only drew outlines for her with a paint pen. This effectively gave her something close to a coloring book to paint.

Then Pooka got to paint it. I let her use any of my craft paints she wanted, and she had a blast. As most kids her age, she did have a hard time staying inside the lines. I told her it was okay, and to have fun with it.

Pooka's painting is done.

 After Pooka's paint was dry, I went over the picture again with the paint pen. This step hid alot of the oops moments and gave it a cleaner look.

Paint pen coat 2.

Pooka decided to paint her name onto the second rock. So I cannot show you the entire rock, but she did a wonderful job with the dragonfly, so I am showing you that part.

 

The dragonfly she made

Once everything was dry, I took them outside and gave them a couple coats of varnish.

Varnishing the rocks

After the varnish was dry, Pooka placed her rocks in the front herb bed. The butterfly flower rock (complete with a few green peas) went into the lower bed next to one of her purple sage plants. The dragonfly rock (That I couldn't seem to get a good picture of) is hanging out with the garlic. Not bad for a project that was done with stuff just laying around the yard. Although Pooka is already asking to paint some of her smaller rock collection. At least it will help me try to balance art and science together.

Rocks new home

Spoons turned to art

What was suppose to be a cute garden marker from wooden spoons via Pintrest. The idea seemed solid. Just draw on some wooden spoons, how hard can that be.

Wooden spoons ready to be made into art

It is apparently a lot harder then it looks. In fact, it failed completely and utterly. The paint ran, we had a hard time making them legible, and when you factor in that we were getting them at 4 for less then $1, I was going to need too many of them to really feel it was worth it. So we changed gears a bit.

Good luck reading that

Instead of letting good materials go to waste, I let Pooka decorate them however she wanted. She spent a rainy (and sick Brother) afternoon in the garage painting them. She did have some help, but this is way more Pooka. Once they were dry, a couple of them I took my trusty paint pens to and outlined her designs.

Pooka's markers drying

After a bit of varnish to help seal the paint, we got to put them outside. Pooka wanted to put them in the front beds because since its all herbs, it makes sense to have spoons in it. The peace sign design (and yes I helped here) went next to the rosemary and thyme

Peace

She loves her curry plant, seen by the glittery red painted heart.

Love

The suppose to be smiley face thing is next to her purple sage and the oregano got her colored flower.

Flower and smiles

This gave her another way to work on her art. She loved spending time painting and getting to put it in the garden made her even happier. For the garden markers, we have a few other ides, but it may take a bit before we can get them worked out.

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