Little Elephants: Kids Crafts and Fun Activities

Hoping to do my bit to help out

I was floored by the breadth of the devastation in Myanmar this week. I'm happy to help bring attention to the good work of my pals over at BlogHer. Please take a minute to click over and donate what you can.

NYC Moms Blog

I've signed on as a contributing blogger with the NYC Moms Blog, and posted my first post today. If you are in New York and interested in the view from the Hamptons, stop by and check it out.

Thank you!

Thanks soooo much to the folks who took the time to give me feedback. It is incredibly helpful just now, especially since I'm at a bit of a cross-roads and needing to pick a direction!

From your comments I heard three messages loud and clear :-)

Fix the feed! I've tweaked the blog feed so that full posts come through. From now on if you subscribe by feed-reader or email you'll get Pictures! Full text! Links! Yay! {big thanks to Ali for pointing that one out!}

More advice-y stuff! On the parental advice front, I feel so awkward there... really. I feel like I'm learning as I go and run into road-blocks and crappy-mom moments just about as often as I have "yay, me!" moments. I'll try to bring in more on the process of parenting, but please remember I'm no expert on the subject, and like most things I do, I tend to go on intuition more than anything else.

More, more, more! I'm going to try scheduling myself a bit. I always find it so interesting that when I take the daily post challenges, I end up wanting to write more than one post a day. Maybe it's time to give myself a bit of a challenge again, eh?

So, while I get my blog on, I hope you'll take a minute to visit the bloggers who helped out with the feedback here:

• Amanda at the Library Collective
• Melissa at Bridgeman Pottery
• Michelle at Scribbit
• Tilly at Pomegranate Dreams
• Cristina at PiriPiri (how I wish I could read Portuguese!!)

Today is YOUR day :-)

I’m in between jobs just now and will have a bit of time to devote to my poor, neglected blog while I hunt down my next thing. I would LOVE to hear from you, my dear readers, just about now. So, today is YOUR day.

I’d like to know what you’d like to see more of here. If you’ve ever clicked away from Little Elephants, wishing I’d done something differently, I’d really like to hear it. If you think it’s just peachy-keen as is, that’s ok, too.

So, please, won’t you come out from behind that screen and let me know what you’d like to see more of here?

Come on … don’t be shy!

What I'm reading these days

The post office has been good to me recently, and you are now guaranteed that if I have five minutes of quiet, I'm bound to have my nose glued to one of these (not that these mythical moments happen too often recently). Each is so full of inspiring ideas, it kills me. You can count on seeing bits and pieces here that got their start in one of these books.

{unfortunately, this has turned into a wicked-short post as I have a laundry list of things that needed doing yesterday -- including laundry, incidentally. Do click on the images to learn more about these books. I'm hoping to get back into a proper blog groove soon}

What would you wish for?

As a project for her class, Maggie made this little wishing jar with wishes so big they had to be attached. As far as art projects go, it's rather uninspired since all the kids were required to do exactly the same thing, but I do like the wishes my girl came up with and I echo every one.

...except for the part about wishing for a dolphin. When I was her age, it would have been a cheetah.

{4/17/08 -- hello and welcome to the folks visiting from Shine! Poke around & make yourselves at home, I'm thrilled to make your acquaintance}

A miniature greenhouse

Every year around this time we start our gardening by a sunny window. I love the fact that it doesn't matter how much space we have, or even if we don't have any outdoor space at all, we always have room for a bit of greenery grown from seed.

This year, we are extraordinarily lucky to have a yard where we will set up a sweet-pea teepee that the kids will be able to hide in, read their books, and dream the summer hours away.

To start your own window-sill greenhouse, all you'll need is a plastic egg carton (as pictured), potting soil, and seeds. If you have a bit more space you can use an apple carton as we did last year. Just have your child fill each well with soil, plant the seeds following the directions on the packet, give it a light misting of water and you're done. Close the carton and let the sun do it's thing.

{cross-posted on Scholastic.com]

On Crafty Mom today

I've posted about having kids create their own board games on Scholastic.com today.

Please go have a look and comment with abandon -- I'd love to hear about games your kids have invented, too!

Rake leaves, make mess, have fun

My kids have never had a lawn to rake before, and now do they ever! (and, yes, they did have a proper-sized rake to use, not just that little plastic one). This activity kept them busy for a good two hours and they had no idea they were working. They even bagged a good bit of it before tumbling back into the house for a restorative snack. The leaves that compost well will be wheel-barrowed to the back of the garden and dumped upon Mount Compost over the weekend.

Life is good!

A garden teepee

Shortly after we moved here, Maggie began collecting large branches from around the garden to construct a teepee. Mornings after windy nights start with an eager hunt for branches newly fallen from the huge tree that towers over our house. When friends come by for a visit throw rugs and huge blankets are dragged out to transform her structure into a convenient, and cozy, spot to hide away from pesky little brothers.

The kids picked up some morning glory and sweet pea seeds from the garden center yesterday ... I'm wondering if Maggie might like to use one or the other to turn her teepee into into a living tent when the weather grows warmer?

{hello and welcome to folks visiting from Bloesem Kids today, and thank you to Irene for the lovely words :-) }