After our rainmaker project we had so much glitter all over! We got as much as possible back into the jar, but there was still quite a bit that just would not lift up! Sure, a vacuum would pick it up...but where's the fun in that!?

So, using some play-dough we had around, we used the extra glitter to make glitter play-dough! Just roll the play-dough over the glitter, and that's it! Pretty play-dough, and cleanup all in one!

I still needed to use my vacuum though :)

Materials needed:

Tube container (i used a small Pringles can)

Nails

Rice and/or beans

Construction paper

Decorations

Glue

Stapler

Putting together your rainmaker:

Measure out a piece of construction paper to wrap around your tube, and decorate! We used some feathers, glitter and shape cut outs.

(This part is all Lei! I try to stay out of it as much as possible, and just sit on the side saying "oh, how pretty" and "Wow, that is so cool!" However when it comes to the stapling, i handle that part.)

 Carefully hammer nails into the side of your tube...or do like Lei, and use a wooden puzzle peice as your hammer :)

We just put the randomly.

Then add your rice or beans...we added both! I didn't get a picture of this part, but we filled our can a little less than half, and i think that it was too much. You will probably get better results with less!

Wrap your decorated paper around your tube and staple to keep it in place. I found that stapling worked better than gluing since the head of the nails didn't allow the paper to stay flat enough to glue, and stay flat..

We have been seeing these a lot on our nature walks, and in yards. I've done a few searches, but i can't find anything!


Update:
Thanks to my dear friend Niki, Lei and i now know that this is a Shepard's Needle Flower. Definitely an addition to our nature journal.

We haven't been doing much at all with homeschooling this week. Since this was supposed to be our Ee week, we did a bit of handwriting (writing the letter Ee on our white board/unlined paper). We also talked about how the letter E makes the 'eh' sound. 

Other than that we did A LOT of nature study. We talked about the northern mockingbird and the White Crowned Pigeon. Both of which are local birds, and we see almost on a daily basis! However, any picture we tried to get of them did not turn out well. So, i had to get these ones online!

 White Crowned Pigeon

Northern Mockingbird

We will continue with these birds next week, when we get a calmer start to the week!

Here is the first lesson i will be working on with Lei. It's the /k/ sound, which he has been pronouncing /d/.

We will go over one row for about 15-30 minutes a day until he can say it. I'm not worried about how quick he will catch onto it, and i'm trying to make it fun for him.