I have a kindergartner?!

This past year, our family has had a lot of changes, including a huge job change for Mr. River. It was not just a change in jobs but also a change in shifts. So all of our schedules changed quite a bit. Although Baby Bear is still in preschool, we couldn't keep both girls in the program and wound up enrolling Blue in a transitional kindergarten (TK). TK is essentially the same as what kindergarten used to be. It emphasizes social skills and very basic academic skills (learning letters, beginning reading, etc). When California's kindergarten age cut-off changed, they implemented the TK program for the kids who used to be old enough for kindergarten but are too young now. So the kids who would've been nearly-5 upon entering.

Blue fit the age requirements and, after doing a walkthrough, I liked the program. I tried to find charter programs, but very few have a TK. (As a side note, the charter, magnet, local schools, choice schools, etc are very overwhelming!) The TK still emphasized play-based learning even though it also incorporated more sit-down, formal academic instruction. I would have rather kept her in the more play-based prekinder program, but that just wasn't an option. 

So unexpectedly, I now have a kindergartner!  She will go to the "standard" kindergarten next year, but she is loving the program so far. 

In September, with Baby Bear entering preschool and Blue entering TK, I got a bit excited with all the back-to-school buzz and tried to better organize the girls' corner in the living room.  Here is the result:

The table isn't anything new. We bought Blue a "Jr" Little Tikes picnic table for her first birthday and used it for everything. Snacks, puzzles, lunch, crafts, cooking, everything. When Blue was 4, her legs started to get a bit long for it, and it was a bit crammed for both girls at the same time. So this fall, we upgraded to the normal Little Tikes picnic table. When I bought it, it was on sale for about $40 off and included an umbrella - which we used for the girls' sand/water table to replace the old worn out one.  So it was a good deal! The table fits both girls perfectly with plenty of room for friends :) Here is Baby Bear using it to work on their Melissa and Doug fishing puzzle. 

The calendar and color wheel I've actually had for a few years. I purchased them at Lakeshore Learning, but I just never could find the wall space for them (my desk used to be at this spot). Blue and Baby Bear already know their colors, but the mixing of colors is something they're still learning. And it just looks so cheery! I really wanted to have a calendar at Blue's level; she already knew the days of the week but she loves to look at the big calendar for upcoming days. So this worked out perfectly. I used a 3M velcro strip (cut down to squares)  to make the days easy to rearrange each month. When I volunteered at a preschool at college, the teacher used like thumbtacks in the calendar, and punched holes in the days to hang on the tacks. I really liked that, but didn't want 30 thumbtacks at Baby Bear's eye level.

The artwork was a caricature done at the zoo and I love how it came out! Cheetahs are still Blue's favorite animal, so the cheetah was her request.

The white board/bulletin board used to be in our kitchen. I needed a whiteboard for Blue, though. Her teacher is working hard to address and challenge the kids at their own level, and Blue was put into the small group that is receiving sight words. It's pretty informal; Blue receives three words every two weeks for her to find in books. If she knows them after 2 weeks, she receives 3 more. If she doesn't, no big deal and she'll just keep what she has. If she loses interest in them, no big deal. I like the approach. And Blue is extremely excited about reading and picking it up like crazy. It was almost like she was a fuse, just waiting to be lit. Everywhere we go, she's trying to sound out words, spot sight words, write things out, etc. It's amazing to watch. So I wanted a space to be able to write those for easy reference. I also badly needed a bulletin board though; the school sends home papers every week for upcoming events. I've never been the most organized person, and this was definitely testing my limits! The bulletin board made it much easier :) 

Finally, this past weekend, I picked up the wall file organizer at ikea. It's metal but has rounded edges so not too sharp, and I liked that it included many more slots than most (for the same or less cost). We wound up only using four of them. One for important school papers (i.e. parent email lists, etc). One for weekly homework (Blue gets one page a week, it's more for the parents than for her). One for completed school papers that have come home (I go through these about 1x per month to sort what to keep or discard). And one for the girls' artwork. Blue is in a phase where she'll easily produce 5-12 drawings and "letters to friends" a day, and I was going a bit crazy with the piles of papers it was producing. I wish Mr. River had mounted it a bit to the right, but alas I wasn't here when he put it up so I can't complain :)

So long rambles short, that is our corner for the girls! This is also adjacent to the area of wall we use for the monthly theme, their artwork, our felt wall, etc. They also have their own craft cabinet (Rubbermaid type pull out drawers) with craft supplies like crayons, watercolors, pencils, stickers, etc) but that is kept across the room. 

Our balcony garden pallet

 


The story of our balcony garden actually begins about a year ago.

For Mothers day of 2013, I asked Mr. River if he could get me just a few small herbs so that I could have an herb garden. The girls and I were doing a garden theme, so it also seemed like a good chance to teach them about herbs.

I also had a few plants I wanted to better organize. We have a nice balcony, but it was hard to find room for both plants and kids' toys that left enough space to actually sit (or play) out there and enjoy them. Planters just take up so much square footage, even though we had several hanging on the rail.

While looking at more vertical options, I came across a how-to guide on a vertical pallet garden. I was in love. Mr River was in love. The guide is here.

Our challenges during this process:

• "finding a pallet" isn't actually that easy. Where we live, it is illegal to remove pallets from behind stores - that is their property and they have to pay to replace lost pallets (or so we were told by several store managers when we asked). The pallets are essentially recycled for shipping, so they aren't just free for the public to come take.
• Even if we could just "find a pallet" I did not want one that had been treated. With small kids, pets, and herbs, I didn't need to be adding treated wood to the mix.

So Mr. River built me one :) It actually wasn't hard or expensive at all. He made the cuts and nailed it together in less than an hour. The plus side was that we were able to choose the wood and make it the exact size we wanted.  I even got to choose the spacing. here is where we were starting to line up the boards:

We then stapled burlap on the back, as it was far cheaper than other options at the hardware store and it seemed to be the best for drainage. 

The girls tested it for durability and helped us sand it down (since they would have a lot of contact with it and water it, I wanted it to have smooth edges):

And we painted the top of it and added the girls' handprints so that it would be extra personalized. this is probably my favorite aspect of my pallet - especially now that we have had it a year and I can see how tiny their hands were.

The girls were soooo excited to choose the plants for it and help plant it. We also planted many many seeds in little pods to later plant in it. Now, this was quite a startup cost compared to "just a few herbs." We had 10 open slots and 2 top slots to fill up! And my excitement over large lush plants meant we had left huge gaps between the slats... But it was absolutely worth it. We propped it up at an angle against our balcony wall and Mr. River secured it over the rail with an anchor so that we wouldn't have to worry about the girls pulling it down.

Some of the things that I absolutely love about my pallet garden: 

• it makes for an absolutely beautiful wall. It makes for a great "atmosphere" for when we sit on the balcony with the girls, have summer dinners out there, or the girls play in their water table out there. When I'm sitting in the living room or the dining room and look outside, instead of a stucco balcony wall I see my garden.  it is lovely :)
• It has a very small footprint. We do have it leaning against the balcony wall, so that added a bit more, but it still comes out maybe 14"? It isn't far at all. I get 6x the space for planting as 1 planter box's footprint. 
• Again, a vertical garden is just beautiful. It is such a different aesthetic to have it go up rather than everything low to the ground.
• It is the perfect height for the girls. I gave them the bottom three levels for their flowers and plants to take care of, and I put my herbs in the top two. Then we just added flowers up top.
• It makes for a great backdrop for pictures :)

Lessons we have learned from it:

• Setting it up is a bit tricky :) So after you plant the garden, I have seen some sites recommend letting it lay level for several weeks to let the roots take hold. We let it stay horizontal for a few days while we watered it just to make sure the soil was moist, but we weren't giving up our balcony for several weeks for the roots to take hold. Plus, keeping it at an angle, I think it didn't need to be quite as strong as if it were fully vertical.
• Watering it is a bit tricky... being at an angle has made this a bit easier. But Mr. River wishes he'd put in or figured out some kind of pvc piping irrigation for it. We water the top then try to carefully water the front. But too much water and the dirt pours out, and you don't want to completely drown the plants at the bottom (keeping it at an angle also helps some of the water drain out the back rather than all go down to the bottom).  You also have to water it very regularly because if the dirt gets too dry, it just cascades out as you start to water :(
• Burlap works out GREAT for drainage, but it is a bit more fragile than other options. It has been a year now and we need to replace the burlap. one tiny hole led to an entire layer falling out because the hole expanded within seconds!
• Planting it means thinking a bit more than I usually do about water/sunlight needs. Our balcony has a half-roof, so the shading and sun on the pallet is different for the different sides. For the most part, the right side gets full sun and the left side gets "partial sun" (4-6 hours) a day. The plants up top, the watering was easy, but for the plants in the slots, it was taking into consideration that the ones at the bottom levels would definitely get more water just because of gravity. 

We had to replant the bottom left of the pallet after a month because we realized it just wasn't getting enough sun: 

We slowly added more plants as our seedlings grew and by mid-summer we had an amazing vertical garden. 

Our cat Thistle, though, seems to be a leaf eater and devoured the bottom two layers in just a few afternoons of being on the balcony. Baby Bear then pulled off several flowers in her curiosity. So by winter, the garden needed to be replanted. 

We have replanted it this past weekend and I will post the new garden in another post :) We have done succulents this year and are super excited to see how they come out!

Pirate/Fairy maps, yarrrr!

Blue is a huge fan of drawing up maps for our adventures.  There are no treasure chests on her map, oh no. Our goal is to get across all of the obstacles she puts in our way -  from stinky rivers to ogre dens or crocodile piles.  The maps come with us and she consults them regularly to make sure we are on track to... whatever our adventure may be.

So for Christmas, the girls got maps in their stockings. I was torn between having this be a craft project to work on with Blue, allowing her to create a more permanent map, or offering one as a surprise gift. I wound up making these on my own but will definitely be making some more with her :) After deciding I would make them more permanent maps, I looked around online and found a ton of great suggestions on how to go about it!  People have made all sorts of cool pirate maps - from brown paper grocery bags that to paper to cotton or canvas. 

Here is what we did:

Supplies

Canvas material. I just used an old Trader Joe's reusable grocery bag that I cut up

5 tea bags

Permanent marker

Paints - either fabric or acrylic. I used both.

Step 1. Cut up the canvas material to be whatever size/shape you want. Since I used an old grocery bag, I handwashed it with a bit of dishsoap.

Step 2.  Bring some water to a boil, add the tea bags and canvas. Let it boil for about 5 minutes. I didn't measure the water, but you essentially want enough water that will cover the canvas in the pot without diluting the tea too much. I used 5 oolong teabags because I wanted a bit of a darker tea stain (and we apparently don't have black tea)

Step 3.  Remove pot from stove and carefully pour out the tea water, fill pot with cold water so the canvas cools off. Once the canvas is cool, run it under cold water until the water runs clear

Step 4. If the canvas isn't already squished, squish it up a bit :) Then lay it out flat to dry (don't smooth it)

Step 5. Once the canvas is dry, use the permanent marker to draw your map.

Step 6. Using fabric or acrylic paints, paint in where you want details. I watered my acrylic paints down a bit so that lines were still visible. I wanted to use watercolors for a more watery look but am not sure how they'd come out on the canvas

Step 7. Let dry :)

The edges of my canvas aren't finished or seamed or anything else except for the edges that already existed on the bag. They're unraveling a bit. I think that adds to the charm, but if they unravel too much I may just put a bit of fray stop spray or glue on it.