Earth Day (April 23) is all about exploring and understanding Mother Earth. This special day was created 50 years ago and pointed out to us that the earth is a resource we should protect and opened our eyes to recycling and other ways to protect the earth from back activities of humans.
In between the snowflakes this April the plants are starting to waken from winter slumber, be that rather slowly. We are acutely aware this year of how small the world really is and how a bad thing far, far away can still hurt us here in the U.S.
For this Earth Day I thought I would suggest a couple of activities you can do outdoors or indoors that involve nature and recycling. These are perfect activities for a shelter in place world.
Play the Game of Tangle
Earlier this month I shared a game called Tangle (similar to Twister) that can be made with construction paper, glue and almond milk cartons. Here is the link if you want to see the instructions: Play Tangle
Nature Scavenger Hunt
On the internet I also found this great resource for science and nature STEM activities called Adventures in a Boxhttps://www.adventure-in-a-box.com/. They share many free templates and ideas. What caught my attention was a Nature Scavenger Hunt you can find right here: Adventure in a Box Scavenger Hunt
This activity will get you and your family outside to find and explore in your own back yard.
Color Nature Sticks
Another great way to realize the beauty of nature is to play with it. I like to clear away the old branches in my herb garden this time of year. I leave the branches and seed heads at the end of the season so the birds and other animals have food and shelter. Then in the spring I get some great aromatherapy by trimming back the herbs to make way for Spring growth.
This activity smells great, requires some fun trips into the garden and is a great quiet down meditative activity.
Herbs like sage, rosemary and lavender have woody stems. I take those stems and wrap them in embroidery floss of various colors in bands. I can make a mobile with the stems or stack them in a short vase to decorate my hall table with spring color.
To Make
Gather some herb stems or dropped tree branches.
Collect various colors of yarn or embroidery floss
Cut the floss or yarn to various uneven lengths, at least 8 to 10 inches long
Steps:
Clean off the stems to remove dirt, bugs and moisture.
Take a piece of embroidery floss and tie a double knot to tie it to the twig. Use a touch of glue if you need to secure it tightly.
Wrap the floss tightly around the twig until the length end, then tightly knot it so it doesn’t unravel. Tie the next piece of floss to the tail and trim. Then wrap the floss carefully covering the knot and wind around the stem until your reach the end.
Continue until the twig is covered or you run out of lengths of floss.
Find fun ways to decorate with these scented sticks.
This blog is just a sample of our main blog started in 2010 and residing on Google. You can find it at: Backyard Patch Herb Blog
