DIY - ORGANIC HOMEMADE COMPOST

It's a very special moment to write my 300th post today. Colourful Imaginations , the space I started 12 years back to share our day to day happenings and crafts made along with my daughter. We shared many memories here right from scratches. 

Thank you for all my readers who take time to visit our page and share your valuable comments. To make this post a memorable one, we decided to share the process to prepare Homemade Compost, which we do in small quantities for our small garden. 

Let this mark the celebration of World Environment Day.

Revolution of Technology has made our life easy but we missed to protect our environment. Agriculture ranked first among all the occupations in India.

India ranks first in the produce of fresh fruits like Banana, Mango, Guava and ranks second in the produce of Wheat and Rice. Due to lots of economy changes and the Climate change, Agriculture has been ignored and neglected for quite long years. 

Whatever could be the reasons, in recent times, it is regaining its importance. People are facing or understanding the reality of unhealthy produce of vegetables and fruits. Many started the concepts of Organic farming and terrace gardening growing their own healthy produce.

Homemade compost is being practised in many households, without knowing the benefits it gives the environment. In our house, we have a garden, hence, we directly use the daily vegetable wastes digging the soil near plants.

We are sharing the basic procedure to make sample compost at home.

MATERIALS REQUIRED :

• Waste bin or a small basket or a bucket
• Vegetables/ Fruits wastes
• Garden sand
• Egg shells
• Crumbled waste wood or papers

STEPS TO BE FOLLOWED: 

STEP 1: 

STEP 2:

STEP 3:

Collect the tea wastes

STEP 4: 

Collect grounded coffee wastes

 STEP 5:

Collect Egg shells

STEP 6:

Mix all the wastes and sprinkle little water to keep them moist.

STEP 7 : 

Mix the wastes in layers with little soil and mix it up well. Leave it in your garden or balcony for almost a month or two months depending on the quantity. You can add dried stems from plants or any wood dust in it. Sprinkle water and stir it up daily to avoid drying. It has to be moist. After 45 days to 60 days, compost will be ready to use. 

Note: 

MESMERIZING TREES

Spring always brings happiness. Trees blossoms with colours. Sharing few pictures of trees in Pittville  Park, Cheltenham, UK. Looking at the movement of the leaves, feeling the gentle breeze will give us a good feel.

Couple trees, hugging each other !!

Beautiful to watch this tree only with pink flowers. 

Linking this up with #Thursday Tree love by Parul hosted on second and fourth Thursday of every month. 

HOW TO OBSERVE STRESS IN CHILDREN AND WAYS TO HELP THEM OUT -- DIY - TOY ROBOT

No school, complete lockdown for two months, no outdoor games, no cycling, bored of watching cartoons and movies, children will undergo a lots of stress than elders. We have to appreciate their understandings of the present situation and staying back in homes helping us. 

A simple child psychology is that they may not be able to burst out or express their stress, but yes there will be a moment we as parents can observe. 

Some emotions during their stress :

• Sudden outburst of tears with no reasons
• mood swings
• restlessness 
• distracting from their homework
• less appetite
• loneliness ; since they miss their friends in school, they try to talk with their dolls considering them to be their buddies . 

These may be observed that can reveal their stress. 

As parents, we can handle it , if we can follow these : 

• Let's not build their stress by questioning them, " What happened ?" in a firm voice. Instead, hug them tightly, comfort them and tell them, 'Let's play together'.
• Slowly, cheer them up and engage them up by reading stories, play with them or craft with them. They need diversions to get them involved. 

Crafting or any artwork can bring diversions in them. It is one of the best way to get children involved. Let them create art on their own. Creative play activties will be one of the way to overcome a stress. Involving them in an activity of their choice, they easily forget their stress.

Today, I am sharing an interesting DIY - TOY ROBOT created by our son for a play activity.

MATERIALS REQUIRED :

Empty cans/bottles ( We used empty salt and actimel bottles)

Pimpom balls

Glue

Colours

STEPS TO BE FOLLOWED :

1. Collect the empty bottles and clean them well. Remove their label wrappers 

2) Glue the bottles with the glue to form a robot. Small bottles for legs and hands. Salt bottle to form the body. (Please note : He used fast settling super glue. If guided by parents, you can use them or use kids friendly glue)

3 ) Robot is set. Allow it to try completely. We allowed to dry for a day.

5) The next day, paint and decorate the robot using colours, pompon balls and pipe cleaners for antennae.

Allow it to dry. Toy Robot is ready to play with. 

Happy Crafting !! Happy Parenting !!

SIMPLE POP UP CARD

Today, I am sharing a surprise card made by our lil one. Happy and feeling really great to see his creation on his own surprising us. At times, such memorable gifts from our children has to be treasured. 

It gives a feel of pride and honour as parents. Adding this to our parenting moments. 

Always appreciate and motivate children for any simple activity created on their own. It gives them more happiness and will develop their confidence to try many creations on their own. By this way, we are developing their creative thinking skills, boasting their confidence, training them to be independent to work their projects on their own. It's one of their milestone in their developmental skills, forming a part of their learning activity. 

Happy Parenting !!!

EARTH DAY ACTIVITY

Earth Day is celebrated on April 22th. It is observed as an awareness day to save the nature earth. We can teach children in general about the goodness of nature, our environment and what more we have lost due to modernisation, what can be done to save our Earth.

It's always fun and more effective, if we teach children about any lesson by means of visual activities involving them. Once such activity is Earth day activity. 

We are sharing our activity for this year 2020. 

Things Required :

Any old transparent lid/ or paper plate

Acrylic colours

Circle cutouts

Steps to be followed : 

1) Rub little water in the plate. Mix Green and Blue colours in it.

2) Place the circle cutout and press gently the sides of the paper so that the colours are equally observed.

3) Take the paper carefully and allow it to dry completely. Earth template is ready.

WHO AM I? FIND ME - FUN PROJECT WITH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Hi ,

Greetings of the day !! 

Are the kids bored of playing toys and watching cartoons all through the day during a long vacation? 

Managing households and engaging children at home is a very challenging work for parents. My children loves solving puzzles and riddles or any quiz in education websites. 

We looked up and thought for a while, Why don't we create and play an activity. To start with, I designed this simple and easy fun project . Find the names of Vegetables or Fruits from the hints given.

Steps we followed to design the project:

Make a chart with Fruits and Vegetables pictures.

Some hint questions for the children to find, read and write the name in the blanks.

Answers:

DORY AND NEMO - UNDERWATER LIFE

Hi,

Today, I am sharing my 8 yr old creation after reading and watching Finding Dory.

Children love to watch animation movies  with their favourite fantasy characters from the stories read by them. When they read books, they would definitely visualize the story line by line. They would bring life to the pictures shared in the book.

Some children would re-collect the visuals from the movies or pictures shown in their favourite story book . Either they prefer similar character toys to play with or draw them to depict the story.

Re-collecting the visuals of the characters and bring them to life back in the form of art is highly appreciated. It's a kind of child's development skill, it shows child's observation or concentration or their memory .

As a parenting moment, let's encourage our children to read books and write the book review.

He painted on A4 sheet, pencil waste Nemo and Dory fishes, balloon whale, transparent sheet jelly wish and mixed coloured octopus cut out.

Happy Parenting !!