Acorns! toddler play experience

Acorns, acorns everywhere!

We had a great time playing and learning about acorns this week!

Acorns were the perfect focus for this week for several reasons. Here in the Midwest, Fall is upon us already this year, but the weather has remained just beautiful.

And, I just happen to know an area with huge old oak trees. Jackpot. And they just happened to be falling in earnest this week (thanks for the inside scoop, Kristin!)

Busy Bin : Acorns

Acorns are a great Fall theme for directed play, and here in the Midwest, it's acorn season!

My toddler (he's just about 24 months old) and I had a great time learning about and playing with acorns this week. To see more about the activities, books, and resources we used, check out my page about our acorn activities!

How to Dip Dye a Woven Wrap

1) Washing Soda Soak

Washing soda is a fixative that makes the dye react with the fibers, so this step is really important.

Using a 1 cup to 1 gallon ratio, I made a bucket of my soaking solution.

I needed three gallons total to cover the fabric. I mixed the washing soda with hot water, and stirred with a big yard stick.

Then I added my fabric and stirred.

To make sure that all the fabric was soaking, I poked the material down into the bucket using my yardstick, covering the whole wrap under water. Every 15-20 minutes or so, I stirred with the stick to make sure to get a good even soak. It's recommended to leave the fabric to soak for at least a half hour-- I got busy and left mine for about an hour and fifteen minutes or so.

While the fabric soaked, I did a little math and set up my tension rod. So, I wanted about three inches or so of the fabric to be dyed, and I calculated how high my tension rod needed to be so that only three inches or so would be in the dye bath.

Also, I totally hate tension rods-- I can't ever get them to work. I had two potential rods to use... and I ended up not getting either to work and pulled down the shower curtain tension rod in the end. I hate those things.

After letting the fabric soak, I gave it a spin in the washer to get out the excess moisture. NO rinse.

2) Hang Fabric

Using the same hanger set up I used for my gradient dye a couple weeks back, I hung my fabric in an accordion pattern.

It wasn't perfect, but the bottom of the fabric was pretty even, so the chances were good that I'd get a nice even line of dye.

3) Mix the Dye Bath

According to the Dharma Dye's website, to make three gallons of dye bath, I needed three cups of salt, two tablespoons of dye, and one cup of soda ash.

Using an gallon sized ice cream container, I mixed hot water with salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. I made two gallons and a half gallons of the salt mixture and poured it into my dye container.

I then mixed my dye. I measured the dye into a glass measuring cup, then added a little warm water and stirred well. Then I added a little more warm water and stirred again until I didn't see any clumps at all.

I mixed the last cup of salt into a half gallon of warm water, and poured the dye from the measuring cup into the dye container, rinsing all the dye from the measuring cup with the salt-water mixture.

Finally, I mixed one cup of washing soda with the last half gallon of hot water, and poured that into the dye container, mixing everything in the dye container with my yardstick.



4) Start the Dye!

Carefully, I put the hanging fabric into the dye container, and then used my hand to spread a little between each layer.

And then we wait!

I didn't time it (should have...), but in between taking care of the baby, I would go in and spread the layers a little with my hand every once in a while. All in all, I think the wrap was in the dye bath for about an hour and a half. Maybe.

5) Rinse

I carefully lifted the hangers with the wrap out of the dye bath, and then moved the dye container out of the way.

Using my shower head sprayer, I sprayed cold water on the wrap, going from the top to the bottom, to rinse out the excess dye.

I did this for.... too long. Haha. Like, twenty minutes, and then let the wrap drip for a while. I squeezed out the excess water so it wouldn't drip on the way to the washer, and then did a couple rinse cycles to get out the remaining dye. When the water started coming out clear, I finally, I washed the wrap with a little detergent, and dried it in my dryer.

6) Wrap!

Here's the finished product!

I ended up with a little bleeding - the dye crept up the wrap a little bit above where the dye line was. I actually really like the way that looks! I got about 3.5 inches of dye along one rail of the wrap-- EXACTLY what I wanted. I love the color of this and how nicely it contrasts with the natural osnaburg color!

The wrap is a little crunchy after dyeing, but braiding and steam ironing will help it to break in. Mostly, though, the more I wrap with it, the softer it will get!

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Seven Quick Takes : Black Hills 2019

Well, our annual Black Hills trip has come and gone already. I'm not sure how August is almost over, already, but there it is. Here are seven quick takes from our trip!

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This year was the first Black Hills trip for two newbies-- little Koben, and our new-to-us camper. We purchased this camper in late April. It's exactly what we've been looking for over the past few years -- it's a toy hauler (the bed raises up to the ceiling, the back wall doubles as a ramp, and it has tie downs for small vehicles or motorcycles), it has a large bathroom and lots of storage space, and it's only 17 feet long.

It was in rough shape on the inside, and needed lots of scrubbing and TLC (thanks, Mom!) before it was ready to go.

Overall, we really like it.

Sorta-Montessori : Toddler Water Play Skills Bin (a sensory bin alternative)

We have been (imperfectly, sort of) following a Montessori-style philosophy with our toddler for almost a year now.

While we don't follow all the "rules," (our toddler sleeps in a pak n play, not a floor bed; we have many plastic toys; he uses a high chair for meals...), some Montessori principles are practical, helpful for our family, and fit with our parenting style. So we use those, and toss the ideas that don't work for us.

One thing that is technically not a Montessori activity is sensory bins.

If you're not familiar, a sensory bin is a container with a base material like sand, corn, slime, water... and then some objects or manipulatives for a child to use to interact with the base material. They're super popular, often very engaging for kiddos, and can range from simple to very, very elaborate.

There are millions of ideas out there for really awesome sensory bins.

But generally, they're not really Montessori.

Sorta-Montessori : Baking with a Toddler

For the past year or so, I've been working to incorporate some Montessori principles into our home life. Sort of. In all honesty, we're pretty far from a full-out Montessori home. We don't follow all the "rules," but we fit the philosophy to our lifestyle and the needs of our own family. And so far, it's working for us.

One of the things we've been enjoying this spring and summer are our baking days! We usually try to do some baking every other week or so -- my goal was to bake every week, but our schedule this summer just hasn't allowed for that. (Most of the time, my hands are pretty full and I don't take any pictures, so most of these pictures are from when we made Daddy's birthday cake!)

We started working together in the kitchen when Evert was 18 months old, and I was a little hesitant to get started at first (the mess! the fingers in everything! the time it takes! the eating of raw batter!). And yes, all of those things happen. It takes three times as long to include Evert as it would if I just did it myself, and there's always lots of clean up - of the child and of the kitchen.

However, the simple activity of doing a little baking includes so many learning experiences that it totally makes it worth all the time and mess. Little Evert loves it, but even more than that, there are so, so many things he's learning on our baking days!

Here's a look at a couple of the "lessons" he's learning.

Seven Quick Takes : Mr. Rogers, weddings, diapers, and cows

So much has happened over the past two weeks that it feels like it's been much longer since I've been in this space.

Camping trips, family "Christmas" parties (my side of the family celebrates Christmas in July!), a birthday, a wedding... a lot has happened! And of course, my boys just keep growing up on me. But here's a couple quick "takes" about what's been going on lately!

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