I remember as a child my mother and I purchased a solar print kit. It is funny the details one can remember of certain things. I actually remember the exact store we bought it at. Anyway, I was so fascinated by it. I remember collecting flowers and leaves and such to leave on it and leave the papers in the sun. My memory is for hours, but I don't know now. I decided to buy one of these kits at
Lakeshore Learning to show Hazel a bit about the sun. (Sorry they don't sell them on their website.)
It was a bit different than what I remembered. It came with prints you could use or you could use any flat thing you found. At first I didn't buy the flat things (back from my memory I didn't worry about flat things), so we tried pine cones, acorns, sticks, etc. things from our nature table. I didn't bother trying to use the clear covers it came with either since the non-flat things would not fit in them.
They also said to leave it in the sun for 1-5 minutes until the paper turned white. Then you needed to soak it in hot water and then cold and then dry. As you can see my 3-d objects were more blotchy than anything. We also left them for a few hours in the window since we started this project just before we had to leave. Since it is winter and our sun is not too strong right now, I figured we would be ok.
We also tried a paper heart and a doily. Then tried flat objects like a feather, pine needles and some of the prints that came with the kit. We used the clear plastic holders for these. I also watched these more closely.
These came out much clearer, so I guess with this kit flatter is better.
Hazel was not as excited as I expected, but she is still young for it. We will try it in the summer and see what fun things we can use.
Our next project will be to do some things with shadows as Hazel is showing great interest in shadows.
Now we can make them into cards and what not. The kit came with cards and envelopes and some of the prints they gave us were words like Happy Birthday.
Hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday tonight/tomorrow!! Last week was our largest one thus far and hopefully this week we will break that record!
After Hazel's nap we finally finished some of our projects. First we made some easy paper lanterns for our Martinmas celebration. We did not do the lantern walk tonight, but are planning on it tomorrow night, so for tonight we hung them in her "house" made of Waldorf playstands and cloths. I also strung the four felt lanterns I got to sewing and hung them up. We had four of the battery operated tea lights, so I put those inside and promised Hazel we would get more tomorrow (I got a 3-pack at Dollar Tree).
Next we got some books. From Hartlyn Kids we got The Bamboo Dance by Cress Sia and one mock passport. The book contains a sticker for the passport. The Bamboo Dance is about two boys in the Philippines. It introduces some Philippine food, dance and culture. It is a perfect book to add to our Multicultural Library. 
We also received two wonderful books from Lee & Low Books. The first is Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell. This book is about a group of kids who are visiting their grandfather on a rainy day. Normally they go out to play, but with the rain, they cannot. Their grandfather suggests making his famous rainbow stew. It requires going out to the garden and picking all the colors of the rainbow to put in the stew. It is a wonderful book about family togetherness, healthy eating and more. Hazel asked to make rainbow stew after we read it.
The second book from Lee & Low Books is How Far Do You Love Me? by Lulu Delacre. This wonderful book travels the world with how far a parent loves her child and the child loves the parent. It covers all the continents and gives a quick view of each as well as culture there. Another wonderful addition to our library.
