Littles Learning Link Up: March 28, 2017: "Fruit and Veggie" Flower Gardens

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my preschoolers and/or early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

We have finished up our study of Germany. We had our special meal on Saturday, though we didn't really have Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen time, as I was rushed. The children did help to shred the potatoes (in the food processor) and stir the mixture for our Potato Pancakes. We also had applesauce and a cabbage and sausage skillet recipe from Trim Healthy Mama.
We watched several fairy tale movies during our stay in Germany. We still have to finish our Nutcracker project that we started from ArtAchieve (one of our new review products). We are also going to be pressing flowers. We just have a hard time getting to everything these days.
Yesterday we "traveled" to Kenya for a two week "stay." We made Chapatis for our snack, spread them with butter and sprinkled with sugar, yum (yes, I had one too). No, I didn't remember to take a picture. Oops.

Now on to our project:

Last week at co-op, the preschool class made "Fruit and Veggie" Flower Gardens. At home, we were finishing up our V:Vegetables unit, and one of the suggestions is to make fruit and veggie prints. I thought it would be nice to make them into a garden of flowers.

You can use various fruits and vegetables for this craft. I chose to use: celery (yellow flower), carrot and brussel sprout (purple flower), lemon (orange flower), and zucchini (blue flower). The leaves were made from a single stalk of celery, while the yellow flower was made from the cut side of the bottom after all the stalks had been cut off (in one nice, straight cut). The stems were just painted on.

Here is what you will need:

Acrylic paints in your choice of colors.

White construction paper (though water color paper would probably work better)

Celery bottom

Zucchini (I cut the end off for them to use)

Carrot

Lemon

Brussel Sprout

Paint brush

I poured some paint on paper plates, one color per plate, and I set each fruit/veggie by a plate.

We used the carrot for the center of the purple flower, and the brussel sprout for the petals.

I love the prints that the celery bottom and the lemon make.

The zucchini was a little plainer than I would have liked, but it worked okay. I thought the celery stalk made great leaves.

As I did not want to waste food, I had the children all use the same fruit/veggie with the same color. I wanted to use the least amount of food possible for this craft. If you don't mind wasting more, you could easily cut more off of each fruit/veggie so children could have the opportunity to use other colors with the different shapes. 

When they were done with their flowers, they added stems with green paint, and then added the leaves.

"Fruit and Veggie" Flower Gardens:

Let's take a look at that review schedule:

We are using Color My Conversation from Northern Speech Services. Color My Conversation is "a dynamic, multi-sensory social skills program developed by a Speech-Language Pathologist to teach the skills of face-to- face conversations." That review will be posting in the second week of April. Last week we started Readers in Residence (Sleuth) from Apologia Educational Ministries with Tabitha. And we started watching Drive Thru History: The Gospels, which we are really enjoying. Additionally, we have been playing a game app called Daily Bible Jigsaw from Planet 316. All of these reviews will also be posting in late April. There will be a review for ArtAchieve posting at the beginning of May. We used Level 1 of ArtAchieve last year and really enjoyed it. I was very excited to see we were going to have the opportunity to try out Level 2, especially because there are quite a few projects that go with the countries/continents we are learning about (Germany, Africa, China, Japan, Australia). So far we have made the Swedish Dala Horse and we just started the German Nutcracker.

Some things I would like to share with you:

Resurrection Day is right around the corner. Last year I shared the Focusing On Jesus Resurrection Day Round Up.

If you are looking for another Flower-type craft, a couple of weeks ago, I shared my Flower and Gardening Fun Literature and Craft Round Up. This featured my Complementary Color Flower Craft and a round up of fun flower/gardening crafts and book lists.

I am trying to line up guest posts for 2017. If you would be interested writing a guest post for Littles Learning Link Up one of these months, please leave a comment or contact me via my contact info on my About Me page. I will need to have your email address so I can contact you. I am looking for posts that have to do with young children: crafts, activities, foods/snacks, tips, or other ideas. I am open to suggestions.

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 10 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on post.  

Don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Ashley from Forgetful Momma shared Earth Day Books to Learn About Saving Our Earth.

And here is this week's top clicked on post.

Amanda from Sicily's Heart & Home shared How to Teach a Toddler With a Speech Delay.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

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