Natural Rock Play Space and Outdoor Kitchen

 This post is part of a series on Playspace Design.   Other posts in the series include:
Our Playroom

Our Reading Room

Our Art Room

DIY Outdoor Sound Wall
Dinosaur Garden

This is my favorite, favorite part of our yard.  It makes me happy just being here.  There's the dappled sunlight through the overhanging trees, the gentle rustling of the native grasses - and somehow it all combines to just be perfection.  It's so hard to do a place like this justice through photos...which is why there are SO many in this post.  I really felt like it was the only way to possibly get a feel for it.

When we first looked at our house a year and a half ago, I could see so much potential inside - but the backyard was a big bummer for me.  It was sloped and had three tiers where each flat level was overgrown grass and each slope between was full of vinca or ivy.  If you were a bird looking down on the property the flat areas would make a giant overgrown grass E, if that makes sense.  Anyway, it just didn't feel very fun.  You couldn't move between the levels and the yard was just not that inviting for young children.  My mom had the vision, though.  She assured me that we could make some amazing playspaces in the yard and create ways to move between the areas of the yard more easily.  This area you see here is located at the far bottom right of the "E".  There were two beautiful boulders at the top of the lowest stretch of overgrown grass and I remember telling my mom maybe we could add some rocks here, building off those two boulders, so that the kids could climb between the flat levels?  Well --- this is what my mom created.  A magical playspace modeled after a natural dry stream bed.

S is obsessed with collecting sticks.  Every time we go on a nature walk she's carrying and collecting an assortment the whole way.  So my mom designed four of these stick holders as a sculptural element to the playspace.  S likes to bring the sticks home from all over and place/arrange them in these black PVC pipes that we've buried in the ground.

There is also a water works element to the playspace.  We have this giant metal bucket that we fill with fresh water each time we come out to play and S can use it in either of her sand pits to "cook" the food she's always busy making here, or she can pour it down her hidden pipe.  

In between two rocks there's a slotted opening that leads to a flexible underground pipe we buried when we were making the dry stream bed.  It runs from one side diagonally to the opposite side of the dry stream bed.  If you're quiet, you can hear the water as it travels under the play area.

The pipe is laid at a gradual slope, so S can walk down the path and catch the water coming out of the flexible pipe at the other end.  We have a purple Tubtrug there to catch the water as it comes out.  If S is wanting to cook at the lower sand pit, she'll often send a large quantity of water through the pipes to fill this lower bucket for easier access.

Here's another view of the main water bucket.  S is prepping some muffin tins for the sand batter.  :)  We found all the cooking supplies at our local Goodwill.

Here you can see S's lower sand pit.  We dug a very deep (around 3 feet deep) pit in the dirt and encircled it with stone pavers.  We added several 50 pound bags of play sand to fill it and we keep a garbage can lid over it when not in use to keep wild animals from using it (ew!).  You can see S's array of cooking utensils here near the lower sand pit.  On either side of S are the two orignal beautiful boulders that inspired this whole amazing space.

Here's a finished cake that S has made for the dinosaurs from our Dinosaur Garden.  Doesn't it look delicious?  :)

A view up the dry stream bed.  Once we cleared the area of all the grass and vinca, we laid/buried the pipe, rough cut out the stairs, and dug and filled the sand pits.  We then laid the largest boulders that made the steps and framed the planters.  Next we brought in large river rock and placed them sporadically, finally we filled in the remaining spaces with smaller rocks and pea gravel.  We chose native grasses of varying heights for each of five planters - the largest grasses exist on the perimeters and will grow to about 5 feet in height at maturity, eventually creating an even more private area.

A closer look at the upper sand pit from behind the upper grasses.

My mom also found this long rectangular flagstone and earmarked it for a bench/oven.  S can sit on it to eat her fantastic baked goods, or she can place the muffin tin and some of the smaller pots and pans underneath to cook them in the "oven".

Going back up the path to fetch another bowl.

The sand pits are so much fun.  We'd considered mud, but ultimately decided that sand would be easier for S to work with as mud can sometimes get a bit difficult to dig through when it's dry.

My little chef hard at work in her little sanctuary.

Well, I hope I've managed to capture a little bit of the perfection and peace that exists in our amazing dry stream bed play space.  We are so thankful to my mom who had this incredible vision and brought it to life!  I still can't believe this used to be a snarl of grass and vinca...

Sometime next week I will try to post the remaining elements of our backyard so you can see how everything works together!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Not a Fairy Garden - a Dinosaur Garden!

 This post is part of a series on Playspace Design.   Other posts in the series include:
Our Playroom

Our Reading Room

Our Art Room

DIY Outdoor Sound Wall
Natural Rock Play Space and Outdoor Kitchen

This is the second of four posts on our Backyard's Design.  One of the elements I wanted to have in our yard was a place for imaginary play.  When I was perusing Pinterest, I saw so many fabulous Fairy Gardens - but fairies are just not S's thing.  However, dinosaurs are.  So I settled on creating a Dinosaur Garden instead.   :)

First we needed to decide where in the yard to create this world/garden.  My mother was super instrumental in our entire backyard design.  She's got a background in landscape architecture, so she was full of helpful tips.  She suggested playing off a feature that was already present in our backyard.  We had these two huge tree stumps from trees that were damaged in an ice storm and had to be cut down - so we built from there.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

On either side of the tree trunks, we created large, wide mounds of dirt.  I really wanted a water feature for our Dinosaur Garden, but I didn't want to deal with standing water.  I'd seen aquarium rocks used to make trails in fairy gardens, so I settled on making a giant lake out of blue aquarium rocks(I bought them at a local pet store).  To make the lake I flattened one of the mounds and made sort of a crater that I filled in with the aquarium rocks.

Next we needed greenery.  I just love sedum in general, and it was the perfect addition here.  It looks so prehistoric, it has so many varied textures, and it's drought tolerant (who doesn't love a plant that rolls with you forgetting to water it, right?).  I bought three flats of sedum (at our local home improvement store they sell these large flats of sedum that look almost like a giant plant carpet) and we broke them up into several large clumps and laid them on top of our dirt.  We did all this a year ago - so by now the sedum has mostly filled in the gaps.  It is a type of groundcover, so if you aren't picky about some gaps the first year, you can save money by just planting spaced handfuls and they will fill in over time.

Finally, we needed some dinosaurs!  Safari Ltd makes some great dinosaur models,but we were a bit more frugal and I raided the local Goodwill.  I actually love the crazy faded plastic dinosaurs I found there!  They're pretty awesome.  S has decided that they are a family - there's the Dada in the background below, the Mama is the Triceratops in the foreground, and they have a baby (smaller) triceratops as well.  In addition to the large scale dinosaur family, I also bought a bag of tiny dinosaurs- half of which lived out here and the other half of which live inside our house and play in some of our small worlds.  I like the tiny guys because usually S sends her friends home with one or two (which is great - because you get so many in a set she's happy to share) and the tiny guys hide really well in the sedum.  :)

Here's another view of Dinosaur Lake.

There's S playing with a tiny dinosaur guy.

S LOVES her Dinosaur Garden.  She spends hours quietly chattering telling all sorts of stories, making them meals of grass and gravel, and generally having a great time.  It's such a fun addition to our backyard!  PS - Her cuteness in this picture melts my heart!!!!

Got a dinosaur lover?  For even more dinosaur fun, be sure to check out:

No Sew Dinosaur World Playmat

Dinosaurs and Sticky Mud Small World

Make Your Own Dinosaur Fossils

Frozen Gelatin Excavation

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Raising Butterflies

Disclosure:  Safari Ltd provided me the Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly free of charge at my request.  Though I was offered this product for free, the opinions offered are my own and were not swayed by the free product.  This post also includes some affiliate links to Amazon for your convenience.

We have been raising butterflies every summer since S was old enough to walk.  As the daughter of a former science teacher, it's probably not a huge surprise that S adores bugs.  Butterflies are just so interesting - and to be honest, I just can't pass up an opportunity to hold one.  It's still rather like magic to me.  :)

Even at 20-some months, S was very intrigued by the process.  She would act out the lifecycle and visit with her caterpillars every day.  Though when she was this young, the rate at which they grew was a bit lost on her.  Here she is visiting with her caterpillars.  This set of caterpillars was from a science education company and there were 8 of them in that tiny little cup - so yes, I may have felt badly for them and upgraded them to the bigger house which you see below.  As a general rule, they are fine to be raised in the cup they arrive in.  :)

S was an avid bug handler, and had learned how to be gentle - and understood that you could not grab/touch the butterflies wings, so she was able to release them herself.  See what I mean?  Isn't this photo pure magic?  

Somewhere around 3, S was old enough to really learn about the life cycle of butterflies and to be able to notice the caterpillars' rapid change in size.  So I was thrilled when Safari Ltd. was willing to send us  one of their Safariology Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly sets.  Manipulatives are such a great teaching tool for children in general - and in this case, I really feel they are extra useful since handling caterpillars/chrysalides is likely to result in their death.

We have raised butterflies from several companies and have had success with all of them; here you see us using InsectLore's Live Butterfly Pavilion.  We generally get several uses out of their butterfly tent and order our "refill" caterpillars from whichever company is cheapest (often science education companies will run specials during the summer).

Here is S loving on her caterpillars right after they arrived this year.  She's made them a "snuggly nest".

They are soooo tiny when you first get them.  Almost cute, even.  Almost.

Here's where the manipulatives start coming in handy.  S got to touch and poke and handle the pretend caterpillars and eggs on the leaf (she is always sad that she can't handle the real ones) and then we compared the sizes.  She observed that the yellow pretend caterpillars were much bigger than her real caterpillars.

Two days later, we checked, and they were about the same size.  "Whoa!" exclaimed S.

She was even more surprised to find that the real caterpillars were bigger than the yellow pretend caterpillars just two days after that.

Not long after, we got to watch as one by one the caterpillars made their chrysalides.  Here S is comparing the model to the real things.  The model is of a Monarch Butterfly and the butterflies we raise are Painted Lady butterflies - so there are differences which S noted.

When the first butterfly hatched, S eagerly watched it pump its wings.  We've watched several videos of butterflies emerging (YouTube is great for this) and last year and this we were lucky enough to catch a butterfly emerging.  It happens really quickly.  Surprisingly so!  In both instances the butterflies emerged in just a few seconds.

A few days later (so long as you have warm weather), your butterflies are ready to be released.  They generally don't fly very far at first, so it was fun to watch them land on the plants and trees in our yard before moving on to the great wide world.

A little (touch free) snuggle before sending the butterfly on its way.

Between reading some great books (I'd really recommend this one)and playing with the Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly, S is now a pro at explaining the butterfly life cycle.  I asked if she'd be willing to teach you all for the blog and she agreed, but was (adorably) nervous.  I love her little timid voice (and the hilarious mistake she makes) - she was a little intimidated to teach you guys!  :)

You can find Safari Ltd on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter.

If you haven't already, you can check out our Butterfly Small World here and our Make Your Own Butterfly Wings here!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Backyard Design: DIY Outdoor Sound Wall/Music Station

 This post is part of a series on Playspace Design.   Other posts in the series include:
Our Playroom

Our Reading Room

Our Art Room
Dinosaur Garden

Natural Rock Play Space and Outdoor Kitchen

I'll talk more about the whole layout behind our backyard design in the final post that gives the overview, but one of the things on my list of must-haves was an outdoor sound wall.  There's a beautiful hydrangea behind it and when it's in bloom with giant blue-purple blooms this view is rather breathtaking.  (The two other tan beams you see in the background of the photo are the supports for our deck above.)

To make our sound wall, I first went shopping at our Seattle Goodwill.  I searched for anything that I felt would make interesting sounds (for the wall itself) and for any interesting and unusual items we could use as "drum sticks".  I ended up purchasing two types of colander, a cream (tea) dispenser, a fish and a clover gelatin mold, part of a broiler, a drying rack, a bell, and a pot lid.  The awesome rusted crow was actually left behind by our home's previous owners and he is the perfect addition there in the upper right hand corner.

I also picked up a few strange shaped whisks, some interesting large spoons, and a potato masher for, well, banging.  :)  I keep those loose parts in a clear plastic shower caddy (the caddy keeps them organized, but the holes in the shower caddy don't allow for the collection of water).

Once I'd purchased all the items, I laid them out to determine the size of the wall I wanted to make.  We decided on a 2 x 12 single piece of wood and had it cut at Home Depot to the length we wanted/our space was able to accomodate.  We bolted that piece of wood to two 4 x 4 pillars that we also had cut to size on site.  The pillars are buried 1/3 in the ground (you can just dig a big hole, and once you get the wall where you want using a level, and then add pea gravel to "set" the pillars before adding dirt) and we chose the height based on S's height at the time (we built this over a year ago, and chose a height that she could reach at the time, but that would also grow with her).

I mounted most of the items with the same hooks I used to mount X's texture circles for his Sensory Board, though a few items necessitated screws.  I tried to hang them in ways that would create the widest variety of sounds - for instance, you can see that the broiler plate S is "playing" is partially on and partially off the board so she can investigate how that affects the sound it makes.  I love that we were able to make a wall long enough that several children can make "music" at once (as they do when S has lots of friends over).

And if you're not yet standing on your own, you can always watch and make music with the spoons and whisks in the shower caddy.   :)

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Simple Small Worlds: Butterfly World

You can read about our other Simple Small Worlds here:

Fizzing Hidden Ocean World

Froggy World

Insect World

Dinosaurs and Sticky Mud

Farm World

Dragon World

For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links.

I knew I wanted to make a second small world based off of our Insect TOOBcreatures, and since we love butterflies (and raise them every year!), what better world to make than Butterfly World?

Our Michaels store is constantly running specials on their faux flowers, so I waited until these brightly colored gerber daisies were two for $1 and bought several in purple, white, yellow, and pink.  S loves having different sensory materials in her worlds, so I settled on using some fresh green grass and adding a little pond.  And of course we used our Dollar Tree gems, because, well, we almost always use our Dollar Tree gems.  :)

At first, I cut the stems of the flowers to the height I wanted.  But then I saw S bending the stems and realized that because they had wire inside and I could bend them to the correct height!  Thank goodness for S!  So I bent the remaining flowers and stabilized them with tape throughout the world.  I left an opening in the center for the butterfly's pond.

 A quick trip to the backyard with a grocery bag yielded the grass necessary and we added a few drops of blue liquid watercolors to make the pond especially blue (you could instead use blue food coloring).  S required gems both in the pond and randomly scattered throughout the world.  It was then ready to be populated by our guests - a few creatures from our Safari Ltd Insect TOOB and one rogue Monarch (from a really cool Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly set we used to learn about Raising Butterflies).

S immediately set to work storytelling, as is always the case with our small world set ups.  The butterflies in Butterfly World lived on the flowers and needed to make beds because they were sleepy.  They also needed to bathe in the pond (there's a lot of sleeping and bathing that goes on in our small worlds - they are for sure recurring themes).

The butterflies would fly down into the grass, gather wingfuls of it, and transfer them to the flowers.

They also loved including a gem or two in each of their beds.  To decorate, of course.

Blue butterfly was pretty serious about constructing her bed/nest.  I was so impressed with how much these flowers held - there were 2-3 gems and a giant pile of grass on most of them, and there was no bending or falling!

Blue butterfly really has a serious bed happening there.  I bet that fluffy grass is extra cozy.

S had so much fun with the grass - and after not too long, little X woke up from his nap.

And he also loved the grass!

Luckily he was content to sit with his own giant pile of grass for dumping and just observe all the nest/house building that was going on.

Once the butterflies were all content and sleeping soundly, S moved on to making houses for the "little buggy guys" that were in the world, lest they feel left out.

For more butterfly fun, check out our posts on Raising Butterflies and Making Your Own Butterfly Wings!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.