As simple as it can be, empty peanut butter container, water, brushes, sand and foil dish=endless possibilities of summer outdoor fun for kids! Today, Eiya and our next door neighbor’s kid, Luis, who is 7 years old,  had a fun fest in front of our house.

I was reading Sew Liberated’s Toddler Arts Experience and learned about the book First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos.  There are some simple activities from “Primarily Paint” and “Making Marks” sections that required very little materials. I decided to try water painting and drawing in sand.

First, I gave them empty peanut butter jars, brushes and water for the water paint. They started painting on the pavement. Then, Luis brought out all his “vehicles” and used the brush and water to clean them. Eiya helped him out too.

Then, I put some sand in the foil dish for them. They first drew with fingers, grabbing and pouring sand in and out. However, when I brought out more water for refilling. They started adding water to the sand and making sand pie. Eiya started kneading the sand dough with her hands and feet. Moving sand dough from dish to watering can back and forth. More kneading and moving.

After all the fun, we baked the pie under the sun.

For the past few months, I have been collecting, sorting and storing seeds. Some are from my garden and some are from my walks in the neighborhood.

When I visited my friend Lissa’s garden couple of weeks ago, she gave me some Mexican Sunflower seeds from her garden. She knows that I have been hunting and gathering for seeds. Then she asked me “How do you keep track of your seeds? Do you photograph them?”

Actually, I have just been collecting seeds and putting them in different small bottles so far. I have been able to identify them without too much trouble. Photographing them seem to be a great and useful way to make sure that I don’t someday get them mixed up. (It is fun to take my Remington Typewriter out to do some typing too.) And hopefully, my little digital library of seeds would be useful to someone else as well.

Thank you Lissa for giving me this great idea to keep track of my seeds. I am looking forward to sowing them next year in my garden.

Click here to view the complete seed collection