The Mom I Want to Be

Pine needles have a wonderful fragrance. Bring this natural perfume indoors with a sachet.

Newspaper
5 x 10” piece of unbleached muslin
Green Acrylic Paint
Paintbrush, paper plate to use as a palette, paper towel and container of water
Pinecone
Freshly gathered pine needles (some fresh, some dried)
Straight pins
Brown Thread
Sewing Needle
Scissors

Cover your workspace with newspaper. Then lay your muslin out flat. Squeeze a little paint onto your palette. Lightly pain the side of the pinecone, then press it onto the fabric like a stamp. Continue stamping to create a design on your fabric. Reapply paint to your cone as necessary. Allow the fabric to dry completely. Gather your pine needles. You will need about 2 cups per sachet. Fold in the long edges of the muslin about a half inch on the back side of the fabric. Then fold the entire piece in half. Pin the folded edges close on each side to make a pocket shape with an opening at the top. Starting on one long side next to the open side, sew a blanket stich around the edges to hold them closed. Repeat across the folded bottom and up the second long side. If you still have thread in your needle, leave it there for now. Remove the pins as you sew. Fill the pocket from the top with pine needles until it is full and firm. Fold in the top edges of the fabric about a half inch and pin the sachet closed. Continue the blanket stich across the top to hold the needles in. Remove pins and cut any hanging threads.

You could repeat using another color of paint, then tie two together with some ribbon, attach a pretty tag and give the stack as a gift.

Gardening Gloves
Pruning Shears
4-5 lengths of grapevine, each about 6-12 feet long
Natural Decorations, such as dried flowers, pinecones, sprigs of berries, or pieces of evergreen
Other decorations such as bits of ribbon, artificial birds, etc.
Wire Cutters
Paddle Wire

The important thing to remember when gathering outdoor materials is to be a responsible collector. A responsible collector remembers to do the following:

• Look for dead or fallen materials first. Pine needles, dried leaves, empty shells, and rocks are not alive. You are not disturbing nature too much if you remove small amounts of these materials.
• Check with an adult before picking anything from a living plant. You don’t want to pick something poisonous. Also you need to make sure you are not picking from a plant that may be endangered.
• Many plants benefit from a careful pruning. Never destroy an entire plant. Choose your materials carefully.
• Never take materials from someone else’s property without asking.
• Watch out for animals. You should never disturb a wasp’s nest. Don’t take eggs from a bird’s nest. Never cover the hole of an underground burrow. Be careful when lifting debris such a large branches or rocks as they may be homes for insects or small rodents or snakes.
• Disturb nature as little as possible. Leave an area as close to possible as the way you found it. Leave no trace!

The main ingredient of a wreath is, of course, the vine itself, and the best time to forage for grapevines is during their dormant season . . . which in most places falls between September and April. And, if you don’t have an arbor or access to a vine-draped woods, a friend or neighbor who grows grapes would doubtless be glad to exchange some vines for a little pruning assistance.

Once you’ve located a harvestable crop of vines, collecting them is a snap! Just pull on your gloves and use a sharp pair of shears to cut them, and then pull them free. Be careful not to fall backwards; it may feel like a tug of war game! If any dried leaves or fruit are still on the branches, try to remove them as you snatch the canes out being careful to leave as many of the delicately curling tendrils as possible, since it’s these tiny “locklets” that’ll give your wreath its distinction.

Instead of trying to transport the sprawling mass home, a lot of folks turn the vines into wreaths right where they collect them. However, if you’d rather work in the comfort of your own yard, lay the vines on the ground in manageable bunches as you collect them. Then, when you’re through pruning, loosely wrap each bundle — one at a time — around your forearm from your hand to your elbow . . .and tie the pieces together into a portable circle with twine, string, or light wire. This may your harvest lot easier to stack and haul.

Hold the end of the longest vine in one hand. Then loop the vine into a circle shape. This can be as large or as small as you wish. An 18” to 20” circle is a good workable size. Next weave the other end of the vine in and out around the circle. Twist is around as if you were wrapping a ribbon around a candy cane. Continue weaving until you reach the end of the vine. Tuck the end of the vine into the wreath. Tuck the next vine into the wreath and weave it in and out around the wreath as you did with the first. Continue to add vines and weave until the wreath reaches your desired thickness. Let your wreath sit a few days to dry out.

Once the wreath is dry, decorate it with your natural items by tucking them into the spaces between the vines. Add your ribbons and other decorations as desired. Cut a 12-inch length of paddle wire and thread it through the top of the wreath. Twist the ends together to create a loop for hanging.

Similar wreaths can be made from kudzu, bittersweet, wisteria, at honeysuckle vines. While you’re out foraging, you might get some of them to experiment with . . . but take care not to gather poison ivy!

I plan to use this activity as I first introduce my scouts to the idea of keeping nature journals and being observers of the world.  This is fun activity, but also has them observing details in the drawings to make conclusions.

Index Cards in a multiple of 3 (21 works well)
Pencil
Sheet of White Paper
Coloring Tools of some kind – markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc

Working on the blank side of the cards, lightly make a small mark halfway along the long side of each card with a pencil. This will help you keep your animals centered as you create your creatures.

Draw different animal heads on 1/3 of your cards; make sure that the middle of each neck is aligned with the center marking you made earlier. Include all different features – sharp pointy teeth; flat teeth, big ears; big eyes; huge noise; pointy beak; interesting antennae; long tongue and so on.

Draw different animal bodies on another 1/3 of the cards. Remember to use your earlier markings to keep your animal centered. Give some wings. Give others arms. Give others claws. Make some thin and some fat. Draw on fur, feather, or scales.

Draw different animal ends on the last third of the cards. Long legs; short legs; snake tails; insect bums. Add hooves, claws, paws, fins and toes.

Mix and match one head, to one abdomen, to one bottom and see what funny imaginary animals you have created.

Choose your favorite and think about if this creature were real. Where might it live? Would you find it in a tree? In a rain forest or temperate forest? In the water? A pond? A stream? The Ocean? What types of food would it eat? Use the clues in the animal. Different animals have different adaptations (a feature that helps a species survive in its environment). If it has large eyes, perhaps it is nocturnal and needs the large eyes to let as much light in as possible. Or maybe it is a cave dweller. If it has sharp teeth, it probably eats meat. How would it hunt? What would be its preferred meal?

Re-sketch your animal on the sheet of paper, and draw a scene around it that shows the answer to some or all of those questions.

Words to know:

Coniferous: describes a plant that has cones

Coniferous forests are filled with cone-bearing trees. Pine trees, for example, have pinecones. Coniferous trees are also found sometimes in mixed forests with other trees. But in cold climates and at high altitudes, only these evergreen trees can survive the harsh, cold winters.

What do cones do? They let the tree reproduce. Some cones release pollen. Wind carries the pollen away. If the pollen lands on a seed cones, it can produce a new tree. Most cone-bearing trees are evergreens. They keep their smooth, waxy needle leaves year round. Needles hold water in very well. This especially helps during winter, when water in the ground may freeze.

While evergreen trees stay green year round, some of their needles do fall as trees grow or die. Thus, dry, brown needles often cover the floor of a coniferous forest, providing a home for insects.

Forests, by definition, have trees. Do you know the parts of a tree? Leaves are the trees food factories. Like all green plants, they use chlorophyll to make sugar from water and carbon dioxide. Energy from sunlight powers the process. At the bottom end are the tree’s roots. Roots anchor the tree in the soil. They also soak up water for the trees photosynthesis. The trunk is tree’s main stem. Smaller stems, called branches, grow out from the trunk. The trunk and branches support the tree and also function as the tree’s inner support system.

Pinecone Critters

Pinecones
Buttons or Plastic Washers
Pom Poms
Googly Eyes
Felt
Pipe Cleaners
Other natural materials, such as pebbles, shells, wild flowers, leaves, feather, twigs, pine needles and/or driftwood
Tacky glue, Hot glue, etc

Get creative and make pinecone critters. Try using felt to cut paw shaped pieces and glue to the bottom of the pinecone so it can stand on its end. Glue wiggly eyes on the top third. Washers, pebbles or small blooms could also be eyes. Make ears and paws for your critters. Experiment with natural materials as well. Twigs, flower stems, or pine cleaners could be arms. Shells, leaves or branches can make wings. Antennae can be made from forked twigs, pointy leaves or needles, or short sticks. Be imaginative!

A fun experiment to do while working on the Brownie senses badge.

Bats ears are an adaptation to improve their hearing, because they navigate in the dark using echolocation – Bats send out sound waves using their mouth or nose.  When the sound hits an object an echo comes back.  The bat can identify an object by the sound of the echo. They can even tell the size, shape and texture of a tiny insect from its echo. Even bats with tiny bodies have relatively large ears. How would large ears affect your hearing?

Curl an 8 1/2’ x 11’ sheet of paper around your left ear. Hold it in place with the right hand.

Place the left hand right at the opening of the paper and rub your fingers together. Can you hear the noise?

Keep the left hand in place and remove the paper with your right hand. Can you still hear your fingers rubbing together?

Switch hands and try the experiment with your right ear.

The paper acts like an extension of your ear to funnel sound waves in. Bats’ relatively large ears funnel sounds back to them to help them find prey with echolocation.

PROJECT: Disassemble old appliances and toys, and classify their parts as one of six simple machines
GOAL: To learn the basics of physics and how they differ in form and function

The six simple machines have been part of the civilized world for a long time, but if you need a refresher course on them, you can turn for help to two books written for readers of all ages: MACHINES AND HOW THEY WORK by Harvey Weiss (Sterling Publications) and THE NEW WAY THINGS WORK by David Macaulay (Houghton Mifflin).

Before your kids roll up their sleeves and start unscrewing, your job is to visually represent each of the six simple machines around the edge of a sheet of light-colored poster board. If you’re not good at drawing, you may want to photocopy pictures of each machine, cut them out and glue them to the paper. The diagram you create can be used over and over again. You also might want to stick with machines that are fairly uncomplicated. We found that blenders and windup toys were easy to take apart and separate into pieces. While an old bike will provide tons of simple machines, electronic devices don’t have many of the basic components.

Sheet of light-colored poster board
Broken appliances or toys
Phillips screwdriver
Standard screwdriver
Hammer

With the poster board as a working surface, let your children use the tools to take apart a toy or appliance. As they come across a new part, ask them to place it near the appropriate illustration. Anytime they’re stumped about something encourage them to talk it out with their friends. Make sure you consider the function of the part as well as its shape. If your kids get into this project, check out a book of Rube Goldberg’s drawings from the library. RUBE GOLDBERG: INVENTIONS by Maynard Frank Wolfe (Simon & Schuster) is a good one. Goldberg designed all kinds of wacky inventions by stringing together simple machines in unlikely combinations. One I particularly liked was a contraption that quiets the baby in the middle of the night. Campbell caps off the lesson by asking students to draw a Goldberg-like invention using three simple machines. Your children might enjoy designing an invention of their own.

THE SIX TYPES OF MACHINES

1. THE LEVER A rod that tilts on a pivot, or fulcrum, to produce a useful action at another point. Examples: pliers, seesaw, wheelbarrow, nail clippers, tweezers.

2. THE INCLINED PLANE A sloping surface; it reduces the effort needed to raise loads. Example: ramp.

3. THE SCREW A shaft with a thread or groove. The screw holds things together by turning and moving into surrounding material. Some gears work with a screwlike motion. Examples: boat propellers and corkscrews.

4. THE WHEEL AND AXLE A device that turns around a fixed point to act as a rotating lever. Examples: steering wheel, faucet, wrench tightening a bolt, bike wheels, water wheel.

5. THE PULLEY A grooved wheel that turns on an axle over which a rope, chain or belt passes. The groove fixes the rope or cable so that it won’t slip off. Examples of pulleys in action: stage curtain, elevator, outdoor clothesline.

6. THE WEDGE A part of a machine with a sloping side that moves to exert force. It differs from the inclined plane by its function: the wedge forces itself between other parts. Nearly all cutting machines make use of the wedge. Examples: scissors (blades act as paired wedges), door wedge, ax, wood chisel.

Scissors
Brown felt
Fabric glue
Uncooked rice
Lentils or beans
White and colored puffy paints

For each beanbag, help your child cut two matching gingerbread shapes from the brown felt. Use the fabric glue to seal the two shapes together at the edges, leaving an inch-wide opening along the seam. Fill the beanbag with the rice, lentils, or small beans, then glue the opening shut. When the glue has dried, help your child decorate each one with puffy paint outlines, buttons, and facial features.

Kidlet and I have also used fiberfil to stuff them and then safety pinned them to pretty Christmas ribbon to make a decorative garland.

drinking cups (styrofoam, plastic or paper)
recycle tip: hard to believe, but disposable cups can be washed and used in craft projects. It’s a bit of a pain, but if you’re doing a lesson on recycling, it’s worth asking the children to wash a couple of McDonald’s (or other) cups to get the point across that recycling takes some effort
glue
masking tape
shoe polish
rags
permanent markers

glue two cups together, bottom to bottom and let dry. if doing the project with a large group of children, predo the first step using hot glue to make things flow a bit more smoothly during craft time (most “low temp” craft hot glue guns work on styrofoam cups… carpentry ones will melt them though). Have the children tear off 4 to 5 inch lengths of masking tape and completely cover the opening at the top and bottom of the cups using 3 to 4 inch lengths of masking tape, completely cover the outside of the cups. Brush shoe polish all over the masking tape covered cups and then wipe off with rags. Draw geometric or other designs around the top, middle and bottom of the drums with permanent markers.