Art with children: Bark rubbings

 We love being outdoors and doing "art projects". When the two can be combined, we get pretty excited around here! Even though my kids are young for this, they still enjoyed it. 

All you need are a couple different kinds of trees, some paper, and crayons. That's my kind of craft...no runs to the store required!! 

We discovered that white copy paper holds up much better than construction paper. Block crayons or chunky ones without the paper work best but any will do.

Simply pick a spot on the tree that is flat enough to hold the paper against it evenly. Hold it down tightly.

Then let a child (or demonstrate for them, as I did most of the time) color vigorously and evenly back and forth. The pattern of the bark from your tree will emerge on the paper. The larger of a section you color, the more obvious the pattern will be. 

Then repeat on a couple different trees, preferably with very different bark, so that you can contrast/compare them. 

We talked about the different kinds of trees in our yard, how bark is to a tree what skin is to us, and how we can distinguish different kinds of trees from their bark and their leaves. One tree had a spot on it, pictured below, where it had oozed some sap. I told Nate that sap was like the tree's blood that flowed through them and kept them alive. This was fascinating to him and he was very concerned about the tree's "boo-boo". 

This is what my sheet of "rubbings" looked like after we did three trees. The red and top right blue were different places on the same tree.

Evelyn was much more interested in going to visit the chickens then in talking about tree bark. 

 And so we did.

12 Minute Total Body Workout

This workout is not original to me, but it is amazing so I wanted to post it! Think you don't have time to complete a truly grueling workout?! Think again!

 I personally am a huge fan of super quick, intense workouts because then I have no excuses. Who doesn't have 12 minutes to be healthier and feel better? Because this workout is so intense, I like to break it up into two 6 minute segments. Even if I only get around to completing one segment, I can still feel it the next day!

All you need is a timer and your body.

12 Minute total body workout

50 seconds jump squats

10 seconds rest

50 seconds burpees

10 seconds rest

Repeat twice, so a total of three rounds. 

Take a full minute rest (or a couple hours). 

Do it again from the top! 

This works your abs, back, arms, thighs, butt, calves, and probably any other major muscle group I'm forgetting. Your heart rate will go through the roof, but just for a short time, which revs up your metabolism and gets you burning calories! 

Since I'm pregnant and getting bigger, I don't want to be doing all that jumping and working at such high intensity. This is very simple to modify though and it is still extremely effective.

Pregnancy Modification

50 seconds squats with calf raises

10 seconds rest

50 seconds walk out to push-up position, push-up, walk back up

10 seconds rest

Repeat twice more.

Rest 1 minute (or however long you need to)

Repeat from the top.

*Personal note: I did the pregnancy version a few days ago and was sore in a good way for a loooong time afterwards. It works!! And confession: I only did the first section. Of course, I have not been faithfully working out during this pregnancy so if you're one of those super moms that works out every day then you might have to do the whole thing to get the burn I did!!*