I was just writing an article on using fresh herbs and realized that I had forgotten to give you all a follow-up on our herb-planting Earth-Day fun.  And we took a LOT of pics, too!!  Shawn was great and kept the camera handy as we planted herbs and then made our Rice Krispy Treat Globes.

I started getting everything set up during nap time so that we would be ready to go when the kiddos got up.  Kate helped me choose some cans from our recycling bin, take off the labels, and wash them out. Then I smoothed out the tops to make sure there were no ragged edges to catch little fingers on and poked holes for drainage in the bottoms by tapping a screwdriver into the can using a hammer.  Then I painted a generous coat of gesso on each of the cans to give them a white background to start with that the acrylic paints would stick to.  I even painted a little on the inside of the top of each can since the dirt probably wouldn’t reach all the way to the top rim.  We also made labels on popsicle sticks for each of the herbs.  Kate enjoyed using her new writing skills to make these…

By then, the little ones had woken up and were ready to paint.  I gave each kiddo a ‘palette’ of all the different colors on the inside of a cut up recycled cereal box.  Kate was very particular and deliberate about painting pretty flowers and such.  Ethan immediately started swirling all of the colors on his palette together to make a lovely brown color… eww.  He then commenced to spreading the brown color over as much of the can as possible in very specific horizontal strokes.  Talk about contrasting Kate ‘the artist’ with Ethan ‘the engineer’.  You could almost hear his internal conversation where he was determining the quickest and most efficient way to cover the can with color so he could move on to the next step…  :P  Karis was just happy to dip her fingers paint brush in every color of the rainbow and splash it on the can.

Next, it was time for the herbs.  First we put some rocks at the bottom of each of the cans to help with drainage, and then put in about an inch or two of potting soil.  I had six different plants (2 basil, mint, oregano, rosemary, and parsley), so we each then took a plant to put into a can and then fill in around it with more potting soil.  (Did I mention that this was a very ‘dirt’y craft???  hee hee)  Notice the dirt on Karis’ face which blended in quite nicely with the purple paint she had been trying to taste earlier.  Geesh…  But, didn’t our project turn out pretty??  And the kids had a blast making them, too.  (Oh, and I sprayed the cans and labels with a matte finish acrylic sealer later that night after they went bed to make sure it would all stay perty.)

Then, it was dinner-time, so we made our Rice Krispy Treat Globes.  Yeah.  I’m weird like that.  The hardest part was mixing in the food coloring evenly.  By the time you’re done stirring one in, the other half of the hot mixture is cooling which makes it even more difficult to stir.  But, somehow we wound up with half blue and half green and then had the kiddos smear some butter on their hands, grab a little handful of each color and smush them together into a ball.  Great sticky and sweet fun.

We had a great evening playing together as a family and talking about the Earth.  The kids still love to water their herbs that sit on our windowsill and especially enjoyed the Rice Krispy Treat Globes, too.