Homemade Bubbles

Masha' Allah, now that the weather is consistently warm enough in the morning for Baby Professor to be outside, we have gotten back to some of our more Reggio inspired activities. First up was homemade bubbles. I saw a link on Pintrest, which I will include at the end of this post, that gave a recipe for bubbles, and instructions on how to make your own bubble wands out of drinking straws. The activity touted a 'myraid of bubbles' and it sounded really fun, but now I know why there were no pictures.

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Ingredients

1 cup water

1/3 cup Dawn dish soap

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

All the years I've been involved in Early Childhood, the go to dish soap for homemade bubble making has always been Lemon Joy. I had Dawn, the recipe called for Dawn, so we went with that. I will go with Joy in the future, it's much better for bubbles. The recipe also called for corn syrup over glycerin. I think that was an ok substitute.

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Getting Started

Bubble Wands

I wanted the Professors to do this activity from start to finish themselves, with supervision of course. We started off the activity making the bubble wands

The bubble wands are seven straws thick and taped at both ends. I made up a quick tray, and with Grammy's help the Professors chose their own colors, and made their own wands

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Bubble Liquid

There were three steps in making the bubble liquid, which Masha' Allah, worked out perfectly for each Professor to do one step, again with Grammy's assistance. 

Adding the water

I accidentally deleted the picture of adding the water to the pan.

Adding the Dawn

Adding the Corn Syrup

Dipping the Bubble Wands

Unfortunately, despite our best, and repeated efforts, we didn't get much more than this in bubble action

The bubbles came out in clumps, and usually between bursts of empty air. 

If you really look, you can see a few good ones in these two pictures

 I thought the liquid might be to thin in the pan, so I moved it to one of the measuring cups for more density. 

Didn't do much but make a huge mess

Shortly before this, Professor #2 asked if he could ' ride my bike now' and trotted off to ride his big wheel, with most of the other Professors in tow. The other two guys came back off and on to see if there had been any improvement, there wasn't. Baby Professor was going bonkers in the high chair, so we wrapped up. 

I left  the activity set up for the older kids, while I got BP inside. 

Professor #1 and #3 came back to it off and on, and surprisingly, Professor #1 was very upset when I cleaned up, so I guess it wasn't a total fail. 

This is something I've been really wanting to do with the Professors, so insha' Allah, I'll be researching some other homemade bubble activities, and buying some Lemon Joy ; ), and we'll keep trying. 

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Links

As promised here are the links to the bubble recipe. 

This one is to my Pintrest Board. The pin should be in about the second row, and you can also check out some of the other activities we want to try! Insha' Allah.

http://pinterest.com/msmomina/ideas-lessons-activities/

This is a direct link to the recipe

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/tiny-bubbles-668489/

Garden Update

Its been awhile since we've given an update of our flower garden. Since our last update, we've lost a few plants, removed some, and finally found a place to plant our left over sunflower seeds!

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Bulbs

Along with our Zinnia plants, the first items we planted were bulbs. Here is a shot of the bag

In our last update they were just starting to poke through

Here they are now. Masha' Allah

We split the bag of bulbs between the Professors garden, and a few other locations on the lawn, so it will be interesting to see which bulbs grow here insha' Allah.

As I mentioned, unfortunately, we lost our yellow zinnia, and the red one looks to be on its last bloom. 

We also had to cut down our roses, though those seem to grow like weeds, and another one is already sprouting Masha' Allah,  and we lost a hanging plant. 

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Garden Makeover

We did a mini makeover on the flower garden this morning. We started by removing these Hosta's as they were attracting some sort of animal, our guess is a Vol, since we had problems with them in our backyard a few years ago, and Vol's are attracted to Hosta's. 

Before

After

While I was doing that the Professors were watering, and I was able to snap a quick shot of Professor #1 helping out. Masha' Allah.

With the Hostas gone, we found the perfect place for our left over sunflower seeds! Alhumdullilah! At this point Professor #1 and #2 had begun busying themselves with sidewalk chalk and bubbles, however, Professor #3 really seemed eager to help me plant the seeds. Masha' Allah, he helped me by digging up some extra dirt around one of our bushes, and putting it on the seeds. He also helped me scoop the potting soil to mix in, and helped me water! Insha' Allah, here is our new sunflower patch

Insha' Allah we will see some bud soon. 

On that note, I want to include a picture from this morning of our potted sunflowers

Masha' Allah, these really do have a 'wow' factor with kids ( and adults).

We finished up our garden work by cutting some Hydrangea's planted by the previous homeowner for our dining area

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Rearranging....again....

You may have noticed we've been on and off with blog posts recently. Our playroom rearrangement didn't quite do the trick, and I have finally accepted that we have to combine the playroom and schoolroom into one big homeschooling room. So we've been busy moving out of our classroom into the playroom, which is the basement. Its not nearly as beautiful as our old school room, but it is making up in sanity, what it lacks in glamour. Don't get me wrong, its a nice, finished, carpeted basement, Masha' Allah, but a little different than a Sunroom.

That being said its taking alot longer than I planned. I've been drawing plans in my head to make the two harmonious, and in reality that means alot of decluttering, trashing, and donating of toys, and old projects and school supplies. I've also been spending time on Pintrest and getting alot of great ideas and, Alhumdullilah, the room is now finally underway.

We've moved in enough to get our basic lessons going again, but our Pink Language Series is on hold. As a matter of fact, it was one day of doing this lesson in the old schoolroom that sold me on the idea it would be utter chaos to continue schooling in separate rooms.

I was a little down about it at first but Masha' Allah, when I saw Baby Professor happily baking my slippers, and some plastic eggplants in the play kitchen oven, while the twins school, I knew I made the right decision, Alhumdulilah.   It also gives the twins a brake between lessons to build, imagine and have a breather.

We'll still have things to blog about insha' Allah, but it might be awhile before we introduce any new lessons, or at least blog them.

Stay tuned : )

Strawberry Picking

We got an email this week from our local farm that they were open for the season, and had lots of Strawberries ready to be picked! Masha' Allah, we were fortunate enough to get over there over the weekend, and enjoy a morning of picking strawberries on the farm! This is the same farm we picked apples at in the fall, so the Professors were excited to vist again.

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Some scenic views of the farm

The path to the strawberry patch

On the other side of this lake is where we picked our Strawberries.( If you squint you might be able to see the strawberry patch, maybe not) 

There were several fields for picking, this was small and uncrowded. Perfect.

Some close ups

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Hard at work

 Masha' Allah, Baby Professor really enjoyed himself. He sat beside me while I picked strawberries, and enjoyed arranging them, and watching the box fill up. He was not walking when we picked apples, so this was a new experience for him. 

The other Professors Masha' Allah did excellent, and only needed to be gently reminded to walk in the hay, and not to pick the white or green strawberries. 

Unfortunately, once this happened a few times (its strawberry juice) Professor #2 and 3 were no longer interested. Did I mention my kids don't like getting messy?

At that point also, Baby Professor had had enough and just wanted to get back to his nice, shady stroller. Masha' Allah, I think we did well for our efforts, and spent a good amount of time enjoying the activity.  

We finished up our outing by taking a tractor ride, visiting the farm animals, and playing in the haystack play area. Insha' Allah, we look forward to returning to pick some produce later in the Summer. 

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