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teachingmom
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Virginia Bluebells
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Location: Virginia
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| Posted: Feb 23 2005 at 10:24pm | IP Logged
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We have had two days of great weather. (Considering it is February and we are expecting a serious snowfall tomorrow!) My girls and about 5 neighborhood friends have spent the last two afternoons creating a wonderful fairy house out by our swingset in the backyard. They have a garden, a living room, a dining room, and a bedroom, all connecting with pebble walkways. They even hooked up the hose and made some mud in order to create mud doorways and a very cool outdoor oven. It's really lovely. Do any of you have children who enjoy this sort of creating outdoors?
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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Mary G
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| Posted: Feb 24 2005 at 6:00am | IP Logged
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My almost 5 yo, Maggie, loves to play in the dirt, mulch, playground chips -- makes us acorn soup for dinner and sweet-gum meatballs. She can do this for HOURS! Physically, she looks like a sprite, so it's really cute watching her from the window right by the computer as she plays make believe....
Her brother Thomas uses the sweet-gums as grenades and John-Paul is always dumping her "soup" but she just starts over!
This is one of the great things about being home with them -- they make up their own games and its fascinating to watch -- I feel bad for those that don't have their kids around all the time.
Blessings
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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MEBarrett
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| Posted: Feb 27 2005 at 8:21am | IP Logged
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We have had many fairy houses dot our landscape over the last year or so. Somebody (I forget who) gave us the movie and another tape called Kristen's Fairy Houses. The girls really enjoy putting their imaginations to work and figuring out how to "furnish" their homes with only the stuff they find in the yard. They also make them whenever we go camping.
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Mary Ellen
Mom to seven beautiful kids
Tales from the Bonny Blue House
O Night Divine
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alicegunther
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| Posted: Feb 27 2005 at 1:07pm | IP Logged
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My daughters absolutely love this type of play, and my son just likes mud! There is nothing like creating an outdoor world in the early spring (or almost early spring) with water, mud, grass, moss, rocks, pine cones, and whatever else you can find. In fact, any activity involving mud is pretty fun. Years ago, my girls and Lissa's daughter spent hours painting the siding of our house with a thin coat of mud. Lissa and I sat back and relaxed, glorying to watch our girls so happily and creatively engaged. "Clean-up will be a snap," we assured each other, "just a few sprays with a garden hose and the siding will look better than ever. Why didn't we think of this before?"
Now perhaps if I were not a procrastinator by nature, this would have been the case, but I waited for the mud to bake on for a few days before tackling the job. By that time, it was like a coat of adobe and took days of scouring to remove! Still, it was worth it for the fun they had, not to mention the laughs Lissa and I had remembering the day the girls turned our house into a pueblo.
By the way, if your girls would like some extremely easy to make fairies to populate their fairy city, I highly recommend Fairies: Petal People You Make Yourself by Klutz. The fairies are so lovely and can be made in no time even by younger children. This might make a fun indoor activity while your children await the spring thaw.
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Love, Alice
mother of seven!
      
Cottage Blessings
Brew yourself a cup of tea, and come for a visit!
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cathhomeschool
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Texas Bluebonnets
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| Posted: Feb 28 2005 at 8:55am | IP Logged
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My boys love to "creat" outside too. They periodically try to build treehouses (most recent inspiration: Treecastle Island) and dig underground homes. We have TONS or rocks, shells, petrified wood and branches in our yard, so they're always making soup, frog habitats, etc.
alicegunther wrote:
"Clean-up will be a snap," we assured each other, "just a few sprays with a garden hose and the siding will look better than ever. Why didn't we think of this before?"
Now perhaps if I were not a procrastinator by nature, this would have been the case, but I waited for the mud to bake on for a few days before tackling the job. By that time, it was like a coat of adobe and took days of scouring to remove! Still, it was worth it |
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Alice, this is too funny! We had the same EXACT experience with wet sidewalk chalk on the brick. Years later, it took our neighbor's pressure washer to get it off! They sure had fun, though!
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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MacBeth
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| Posted: March 02 2005 at 2:15pm | IP Logged
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Here's a link to a Fairy Gardens how-to on HGTV.com!
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 03 2005 at 2:12am | IP Logged
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In addition to the kit, there is a great craft section in the April 2003 issue of Family Fun magazine which includes directions for making this type of flower fairy from wooden balls, silk flowers, and florist wire. Also a picture of a cute fairy house. I was hoping it was uploaded on the Family Fun website but unfortunately it isn't one of the sections that they uploaded from that issue (they do have a fairy wing craft if you have aspiring fairies). If somebody wanted to see the flower fairy instructions I could scan the page and email it.
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Mary M. in Denver
Our Domestic Church
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Fairy Houses
