Posted in Activities for Kids, Events, Green Kids on June 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Looking for nature activities to do with the family? A great resource is Nature Rocks Austin. They provide lists of many different greenspaces and parks where you can explore nature. They also offer activity ideas, as well as a calendar of events all over the Austin area. Click on the events to get location and other information.
Posted in Activities for Kids, Events on March 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Celebrate our wildlife friends and how you can protect them — whether they run, slither, hop, swim, crawl, or fly. Have a safe spring break, everyone, and be sure to get outdoors as much as possible!
March 14-20, 2011
FYI, there are some great links for kids at the National Wildlife Federation page — check them out for fun activities to do at home! Fun for kids
Posted in Activities for Kids, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Student Art on January 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Just in time for the holidays, we held a special ReCycle, ReGift camp for students after school on our December Early Release Day. This camp was led by Liz McDonald, Meredith O’Reilly, and Elizabeth Conti. Our camp goal was to reuse various recyclable materials to make nifty gifts for friends and family. Take a look!
Here are bottle caps reused as glass charms, key chains, and backpack decorations.
We also blended recycled paper scraps into pulp and mixed in some native Texas seeds to make plantable ornaments.
Though I’m showing a holiday tree here, many students were inspired to make flowers, snowmen, airplanes, cars, stockings, stars, and more! Once dry, they became gifts that could be planted in the garden to grow butterfly and hummingbird plants.
Our students also worked with aluminum cans and old CDs to make special leaf wreaths. 
Thank you to our school administration for letting us host this special camp. Thank you to our Caraway families and faculty for their contributions of recyclables. Thank you to our wonderful volunteer parents who helped at the camp. Thank you to our students for being so creative and enthusiastic. And thank you to our camp leaders for working so hard to make this camp possible!
Posted in Activities for Kids, Birds on November 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Just before Thanksgiving I found myself with extra pine cones and other materials leftover from the National Wildlife Federation workshop at the Savvy Kids Conference (thank you, Marya!), so about 40 of our Caraway students had a chance to make some special holiday treats for the birds.
They spread a peanut butter/cornmeal mixture onto pine cones and then covered the pine cones in birdseed.
Then we helped them wrap up their pine cones for home transport.
Each pine cone has a string on it for easy attachment to a tree branch.
Would you like to make your own bird treats at home? It’s easy and fun! Just make sure you don’t use scented pine cones — the cinnamon oil is toxic. Just stick with good ol’ natural plain ones.
Materials:
Pine Cones
1 cup Peanut Butter (chunky is great)
1 cup Lard or Suet (optional, but preferred)
2 1/2 cups coarse yellow cornmeal
1 box of raisins, cranberries, or other dried fruit bits
1 bag of Bird Seed
1 roll of ribbon
Tie a length of ribbon to the base of the pine cone for easy hanging on a tree branch. Mix the food ingredients in a bowl. Spread the mixture onto the pine cone, then roll it in the birdseed. You can press extra seeds onto the feeder to really pack them on. Then hang your feeder from the tree. It’s as easy as that!
These kinds of feeders are important for seed- and berry-eating birds in the winter. Because food is scarce in the winter, they need sources of fat, protein, and high-energy carbohydrates. Some birds you might see enjoying your pine cone feeders include chickadees, cardinals, mockingbirds, woodpeckers, titmice, and more.
Have fun with your treats and tweets!
Caraway Green Team 