See What I Made with Japanese Knotweed!

Can you believe it has been two and a half years since I posted?
I am sorry. I want to post more now...

Do you like Japanese knotweed? It is a wild edible.

I made sauteed Japanese knotweed.

I also made Japanese knotweed ice cream.

I made Japanese knotweed sauce, too, but I did not like the sauce that much.

Do you know how to harvest Japanese knotweed?  I will teach you:

1.  Look for ones under one foot that have no branches.

2.  Break or cut them off.

3.  Pick all the leaves off.

4.  Soak the stalks for 15 minutes to an hour to clean them and get any outs out.

Discard leaves back in the patch so you don't spread the knotweed.  Knotweed is invasive and grows everywhere!

Goodbye for now (not two years!)
Nina

Make Play Dough Roses with Seven Simple Steps!

Do you like roses?

Do you like play dough?

This is how you make play dough roses:

1.  Pinch about ten small pieces of play dough.

2.  Roll them into balls.

3.  Flatten each ball.

4.  Fold one flattened piece up into a shape like a hotdog bun. 

5.  Pinch the other pieces onto the "hotdog bun", making petals.

6.  If you like, push the top edges of the petals out.

7.  Make a play dough stem or put rose buds on a plastic stem.

What do YOU like to make out of play dough?

Paper Boat Battle

Have you eve made a paper boat?

I have.  I made a whole bunch!

Watch us make a battle scene.  

We crinkled little pieces of paper and made them into little paper balls and then we tossed them at enemy ships.

Listen to a story.

We will have pictures.

Let's begin.

All the ships lined up for battle to fight the British and so we had courage because the stars and stripes were flying above us.

Cannon balls began to fly.

 

Two of the bad guy ships -- the British ships -- sunk.

We fought onward. 

Meanwhile, on the land, this is how it looked.

There was a land battle, too.  (Sorry about the tanks, but we didn't have toys of the battle of the Revolutionary War.  We used a blue blanket for the sea and a tray for land.)

The end.

Did you like our boats, battle and story?  What toys do you make out of paper?

 

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Create, Explore and Play with Magnets

Today, I explored magnets.

I know magnets stick to certain metals only.  I was curious if we have the kind of metals they stick to.  I discovered we did.

Magnets stuck to certain parts of the covers of our pans and all over the place on our bowls.

When I was playing with the magnets, I discovered that they could stick to each other through plastic.  So, I could stick them together to make a cool game.  

I tried to toss little metal balls into cups and if they hit the magnet I was pretty happy.

Then, I started to build structures like this one:

 
 I named this structure The Cool Ball Sticks.

This is another structure I made.  

Oh, by the way, I can create a lot of things with magnets!  Now, let me get back to what I was talking about.

That cool structure that I made in the bowl is called The Hut.  Two balls are people in the hut.

This is me surrounded by my cool structures.  Magnet structures, remember?

This is me building another structure, attaching two bowls together.  The structure is like there are two buildings right beside each other connected by a little bridge.

I also made a small little building inside a bowl.

Can you create magnet structures?  I'd like to see pictures!

Nina's Lego Adventure

photo by Mommy

One day, I went to Lego Build with Mrs. Quinn at Berkeley Library.  The challenge was to build a float for a parade.  Instead, I built a whole parade scene.  

Photo by Mrs. Quinn

And, that's how this story came to life:

Once upon a time, there was a beauty queen and she drove through the parade.  People cheered.  People were selling wands and food.  

The beauty queen was tossing out wands.

The people cheered and she smiled and waved.

The end.

Photo by Mommy

I built another one after this one.  It was about a man and a woman adventuring the seas.

Photo by Mommy

The story I just thought up about it is:

Once upon a time there was a lady and a man.  They rowed across the sea into the middle of it.  Then, they saw a little island, but they did not quite go to it yet.  They put a little bit of mail in their mailbox on their boat and then they oared towards shore.  The end

photo by Mrs. Quinn

The story I told Mommy at Lego Build was:

Two people are trying to row a boat that's really hard to row.  They are trying to get back to land.  They've been lost at sea for two years.  When they are going back, they see land and row to it.  The end.

My little brother also likes to build and tell stories.  He made one about KNIGHTS!

Photo by Mommy

His story was:

It's about knights.  they are fighting bad guys.  The bad guy stole some of their food and water because he was thirsty and hungry.

photo by Mrs. Quinn

We like Legos.  I like creating stories.

Do you like building with Legos?  What do you think I should build about next?

Packing Peanut Sculptures

This is my sculpture.

It’s called the Tomb Maze.  I made it with packing peanuts, toothpicks and water.  The people are in the tubes, which are attached.  Some tubes have dead ends.

(To make sculptures) you take two packing peanuts, dip one in water and then put the other one on top of it to attach them.

(On a structure), the toothpicks are for flags and stuff like that.  Or, they can be thinner tunnels that lead to the top.

The toothpicks can also make a top..  You make a ball then put toothpicks into the ball.  One has to point in and one has to put out.   

How do you use it?  You spin it around.  It might not work so good though.

You can make a marshmallow thing with the toothpicks and peanuts, too.   

But, don’t eat the packing peanuts.

As you can see, my brothers make things, too.

 My brother made The Charging Knights Against the Indian.

Jack made a spinning thing that can go in the air.

You can get packing peanuts in your packages.  They have to be the corn kind.

What will YOU create with packing peanuts?

 Bye-bye!  Leave a comment, please.

My Children's Museum Trip

Welcome to Princesshood!

Look at the girl. That is me! A princess. I'm being guarded by one knight because the other doesn't have a shield and he lost his shoe, breastplate and sword.

The king is out. He has a crown. He is big. And I am his daughter. Remember I am a princess. I have a bunch of sisters.

This is me. I love my clothes! But I do have different dresses.

Bye for now!

I want you to try to make your own Egyptian clothes.