Tag: Nature

Kiwi for Kids

I had never heard of the Kiwi Company until my friend Margaret told me about it. She wanted to send the kids a “crate” every month. My kids LOVE them! If you have children (any age), these are perfect for those rainy days when they cannot go outside and play. We had a few of those rainy days recently and the projects kept our kids pretty busy.

I love these because they keep the kids off tablets and away from the TV. Each “crate” has a theme. Some recent themes we got were Caterpillars & Butterflies, Camping, Star Gazing, and Exploring nature. Each crate has a project or two (and sometimes a bonus one) that will keep the kids busy.

There is also a little book that comes with each crate. Ours features a koala, alligator and a parrot who are all friends. The story in the book is often related to the theme of the crate. My kids love those books and puts them up on their bookcase.

Here are a few of the projects we worked on in the past month or two. Our nature kit came with a bag, a magnifying glass and a box to keep things from nature. We went out in the yard looking for rocks, sticks, grass, leaves, clovers and flowers. There were a few different cards that could be used to find other things, too.

The camping box came with a fabric sheet to build a tent. It also came with a camp “fire” that you put together (and the light makes it look like fire), a red and white checkered blanket for a picnic, and of course, ants.

In one of the nature boxes, they had the kids make flowers from felt. At the same time, it encouraged them to find sticks and other things that might fit and look good with the felt items.

In the space crate, there were stars and sticks that you could make constellations with. There was glow in the dark paper that you could punch star “holes” in to show a starry night. Finally, some paint to paint your own galaxy.

From top to bottom: Andrew’s, Ella’s and my paintings.

One of the crates had a “polar” theme to it. The kids fell in love with these penguins. It comes with little wooden fish that you stand up. The penguins have a pull string that makes them vibrate and “walk.” The idea is to get your penguin to knock down the fish. They were happy to just snuggle with them.

My favorite one we did was the Caterpillar/Butterfly crate. This tied right in with what Ella’s Preschool class did at the end of the year. They watched a caterpillar curl up in a chrysalis and waited for a butterfly to emerge.

This crate had a plush caterpillar that comes with a bag (chrysalis). You put the caterpillar in the bag and wait …

That caterpillar turns inside out. When it does, you have a butterfly.

The kids thought this was very cool!! Heck, so did I.

We also got to make a butterfly that flaps its wings.

My wife and the kids took “Ice paint” and made pictures yesterday. The crate comes with food coloring and a little “popsicle” maker. Add the coloring to water, freeze it, and pop them out to color on the paper/postcards provided. Too fun!

We’ve probably been doing these crates for 2-3 years now. They just keep getting better. As I said, they have crates designed for various age groups. We’re getting the 3-6 year old crates now. They even have crates for ages 12-100, in case you want to do one yourself.

Knowing how difficult it can be to have the kids in the house all day, having something like this is an amazing way to teach your kids and spend quality time with them.

I am not being paid to talk about Kiwi Company. I am just a satisfied dad who is sharing a great idea. Learn more at their website HERE.

Outdoor “Nutty” Discovery

I posted this on my Facebook page earlier, but wanted to be sure it made the blog.

I took Ella and Andrew out for a walk this morning. We walked a different way than we normally do and I took a small detour. There is a church at the end of our street that has some baseball diamonds and a park. The weather was perfect, so I decided to check out the park.

When we first got there, the kids ran on the wood chips and played on a few of the playground items. Surprisingly, neither one wanted to swing on the swings (which is their “go to” park thing). They were more interested in the wood chips and other things.

On the other side of the fence, there was an oak tree. Ella was looking at the ground and picked up something and said, “Daddy, what is this?!”

I looked on the ground to see a wee bit of green among the brown and tan wood chips.

I told her that she had found an acorn. This led to a search for more of them. She found fresh ones, like the green one above, and a few that had been on the ground for a while. We also found some that the squirrels had enjoyed for lunch or dinner. The more she found, the more she handed me. “I wanna show mommy my acorns!” So, we began throwing acorns of all kinds into the stroller.

There were plenty of acorn “tops” (or “hats” as one of my Facebook friends called them) on the ground.

I remembered a friend showing me that you could use them to whistle. You basically take your two thumbs and place the first knuckles together to form a “V” and blow into it. Ta da! A whistle! Ella was pretty amazed by that and kept asking me to do it. It was such a silly little thing, but I loved every second of it.

Before leaving the park, I took one more picture – because it was the one thing that really stood out …

With a playground behind them, my two kids decided to embrace nature instead of playing on it. We found leaves, acorns, watched squirrels, picked up sticks and more! What a tremendous bonding time for us. As we walked back home, I couldn’t help but notice how much shade was under the trees. I told them that we needed to come back and have a picnic on the grass in the shade before summer was over.