Jellyfish Crafts, Exploration and Book

Recently Hazel asked to explore under the sea creatures. I think this fascination comes from watching The Octonuats on Disney Junior. I am really excited to be reviewing an Octonaut DVD and book in the next few weeks and giving away a copy of the DVD. To build up to our reviews, I thought I would do some under-the-sea creatures first. Today's creature is the jellyfish.

Photo taken on visit to New England Aquarium

We started our exploration with the book: Nature's Children: Jellyfish by James Kinchen. Jellyfish have been in the waters for millions of years before the dinosaurs. They live in seas and oceans all over the world including the Arctic waters. They have no brains and no eyes and its body is made almost entirely of water. The various types of jellyfish vary in size with the smallest being about half an inch across and the largest being six feet across. The tentacles on the large ones can be 117 feet long. Their movement comes from their body opening and closing like an umbrella. They can shift their body into different shapes to get into tight spots. The book suggests using a water balloon to see what their body is like. We did this.

Jellyfish also can sting. The stingers come from the tentacles. A sting from a sea wasp can kill a human in less than fifteen minutes. Jellyfish use their stings to capture prey and to defend themselves against enemies. The book describes each sting like a hollow harpoon that uncoils itself fifty times the original length. Poison flows down to the harpoon. Adult jellyfish are called medusas after the Greek myth.

Photo from visit to New England Aquarium

The life cycle of a jellyfish is very interesting. A female jellyfish can produce thousands of eggs. Each fertilized egg becomes a larva. The larva has no mouth and looks nothing like the adult jellyfish. The larva drifts until it grabs hold of a rock or seaweed. It rest there and changes into a polyp. Now it can hunt and eat. It has tentacles and is building up its food reserves to see it through its final metamorphism. Each polyp breaks off like a stack of dishes and becomes many medusas. 

Photo from New England Aquarium Visit

After reading this book and doing our water balloon experiment, we made some jellyfish crafts. There are many out there, but we decided to try ones with clear plastic cups with sheer ribbons and large white cupcake liners with glitter ribbons. We started with the cupcake liners. I cut lengths of the ribbons and then we taped them at the half way point to the inside bottom of the liners.

We were happy with how they came out. I liked that you could see how they would open and close to move in the water.

For the cup ones I cut long lengths of ribbon and then gave Hazel the tape. She decided to tape them singly to the inside sides of the cup. I taped the middle of mine together and taped that to the inside bottom of the cup. They both came out nicely.

Afterwards I hung them from our kitchen light. The ribbons are a bit long, but I like them. I put the long ones to the middle of the table so they wouldn't get into anyone's food.

For more on ocean life crafts and lessons check out:

• Beach Trip and Beach Play Mat
• Wild and Free: Dolphins, Whales and Manatees
• Cinderella Penguin or Antarctica
• Pinterest Beach Board

March Happenings

This month promises to be a good one. However the beginning is a bit crazy. A good friend has her young son (less than one) in the hospital, and I have been helping with her older son's care, so if I miss a few days this week you will know why. This month will be filled with fun activities, crafts and reviews plus a giveaway!! I know I am excited for spring and cannot wait for it to get here. We will continue our Hawaii escape posts until then. I am also looking forward to Easter and the preparation of it with Lent. We will also continue our Friday Fruit Explorations and Hazel has been asking to do some under the sea discoveries, so expect to see some of that as well. It is so fun to have her at an age where she is asking questions about things and we can do some research together on them.

Now for our monthly clubs and posts. This month  for Virtual Book Club for Kids, the author is Marcus Pfister. Do you know his books? They are amazing. The first book I was introduced to of his is The Rainbow Fish. My sister had given it to us as a hand-me-down. She had bought it for my nephew when he thought he should be given things by strangers because of his cute looks. It is the perfect book to deal with that issue. So many of Marcus Pfister's books help teach life lessons. A little about Marcus Pfister: he was born in Bern, Switzerland and still lives there. He became a graphic artist. In 1986 his first book, The Sleepy Owl, was published. Then in 1992 when The Rainbow Fish burst into the international book scene, he stopped his work as a graphic artist and focused solely on his book authoring career. (Source)

Hazel and I have been enjoying so many of his books and we are having a hard time choosing which one to pick for the club post. It will be one on this collage though.

Update: Here are our posts: Ava's Poppy and Hopper Hunts for Spring and an older one on Rainbow Fish.

March begins a new season for Around the World in 12 Dishes. It is hard to believe we have been through a year of it already. We had so much fun joining in this journey, that we have signed up for another year. Here is this year's schedule:

Our first stop is Iceland! This summer my sister happened to take a trip to Iceland, so I have a few of her beautiful photos to share!!

I also wrote an introduction to the country for the Around the World in 12 Dishes blog, so I will not be sharing as much of the country's background here and will just provide a link for you to the introduction. That will give me more space for our crafts and such. Here is the cover for this season's passport pages. You can begin your exploration of Iceland with the placemat and passport pages. Join us the week of March 17th to see our Icelandic adventures!

So stay tuned this month for St. Patrick's Day crafts, Lent crafts, spring crafts as well as our fruit explorations, under the sea crafts and explorations, Iceland, Marcus Pfister, and a few reviews including some on The Octonauts. I hope you will join us!!

Sharing Saturday 14-9

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! There was a little technical problem on the part of Linky Tools and I apologize for it. Apparently they were upgrading there servers and had a hard drive crash. It was the one with the images for the linky parties. Of the three back-ups only one was good and it did not include anything from 2014. Thus why all the images for the Linky Tool link parties for 2014 are gone. However the few that linked up after this issue still have their image and all the links still work. However I did still pick many features to share with you and highly suggest you check out some of the great ideas even without the pictures.

Friday Fruit Explorations: Strawberries

The other day Hazel decided we should go on a fruit exploration. She pulled out her magnifying glasses so we could look more closely at some of the fruit. We started our adventure with strawberries--one of our favorites. 

First we looked at the outside of the fruit to see what we could find.

We noticed the seeds which we knew were there. Did you know strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside? After she was done looking at the outside, I cut one in half so we could look at the inside.

The white lines in the interior of the strawberry bring the nutrients to each seed. Of course to learn all these little facts, we got some books from the library.

Two books focus on the growing cycle of strawberries and the third shares a Cherokee legend on the first strawberries. I was hoping to find some information on the nutrition of strawberries, but have not found books with it. However I did find it on-line. A serving size of one cup has 49 calories. That cup of strawberries contains 12 grams of carbohydrates of which 7 gram are sugar and 3 are dietary fiber. There is also 1 gram of protein and gives you 149% of your vitamin C for the day. They also have a small amount of iron and calcium. The other minerals that strawberries provide are potassium and manganese. Strawberries also contain omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. (Source) 

Strawberries have also been rated the 27th best among U.S. food, however due to the large serving size needed for the top foods, strawberries move to the 3rd position when considering of which foods you would eat the 3.5 ounces. Strawberries are fragile fruits that start to lose their nutrition after only two days and ideally they will be in 90-95% humidity (most refrigerators have less humidity). An interesting discovery is that when sugar is eaten with strawberries, the blood sugar spike caused by the sugar is reduced by the strawberries. Strawberries also have anti-inflammatory affects. (Source)

To go with our strawberry exploration, I wanted to do some crafts. Hazel and I have had a busy week, so she was not able to make any of them with me yet, but I thought I would share a few. The first two involve handprints and I found them on Pinterest. The first one is inspired by Activity Village: Handprint Strawberry. Theirs was done with paint, but I had some foam handprints and just used those to share it with you. The second  is from French Toasty: Strawberry Handprint Kid Craft. I did not add the seeds, but if I do it with Hazel we will. The third are needle felted strawberries. I will provide a tutorial below to make them. And finally are Strawberry Treat Box Printable from Oh Happy Day! I wanted Hazel to cut one out to make, but she was too tired after her busy day--she got her first filling/crown today at the dentist and then came home to a playdate. 

Now for our needle felting tutorial. The supplies you need are some red roving, green felt and the needle felting needle and mat. Roll or wrap the roving to be a basic strawberry shape and then needle it to firm it up. To cut the leaves, cut a small square of felt and fold it along the diagonal two to three times. Then cut a triangle from the sides. Open it up and trim how you want it. Then needle felt it to the top of your strawberry.

These are quick and easy to make.

For more ideas on strawberries (mostly recipes):

• Native American Strawberry Corn Bread
• Strawberry Shortcake at Strawberry Festival
• Strawberry Banana Muffins
• Strawberry Muffins
• Strawberry Jam
• Strawberry Cake
• Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream
• My Fruit Pinterest Board (with crafts of different fruits)

Join us next week for a different fruit exploration!!

Dreaming of Hawaii -- Luka's Quilt

With snowflakes flying again today and the arctic cold coming back, it is time to dream of Hawaii again. Last week I posted our first Dreaming of Hawaii and introduced pu'ili. Today I am going to share another wonderful book and look at Hawaiian quilts.