Art in the Park

I finally got a Friday off from work and I was so taking advantage of it!  Kristin and I decided to take the boys to the University of Michigan Botanical Gardens for their kids program.  We both had never been there before so it was all new to us. The weather was beautiful that morning!  The program was run by Uof M students and volunteers.  We met in the children's garden ampitheatre where they told us all the fun we would be having!  We first started my making a wind chime out of terra cota clay pots.  The boys enjoyed painting them while mixing all the colors together.  They were covered in paint which we later found out was not washable...seriously painting with children and the paint isn't washable?

Look at how they are concentrating on their painting!

What a great activity!

Next station we headed to was a scavenger hunt...we called it an i spy search.  They gave each kid a paper with pictures of lawn decorations that we had to look for on our walk through the woods.  The boys loved this.  It was a little tough to find a few of the items so Kristin and I started to give minor hints, such as "be sure to look up you might see something there". The volunteer lady quickly reminded us that we were not allowed to give any hints.  She was a little over the top about this which made me giggle and roll my eyes at the same time.  Carter was so interested in finding the items.  He would say, "I found it, it is on my yist.(yist=list)"  Landon even carried the list and checked of each picture we found.  

Finally the last station was creating and decorating a stepping stone that will be used to decorate a path through the children's garden.  The boys pressed their handprint into cement and used marbles, stones, and beads to decorate their stone.  I let them create without help so the end product is a little crazy but purely their creation.

After all the planned events we wondered through the children's garden to explore what they have set up.  There were quite a few cool things to see and do.  I can't wait to come back again with Bob so that we can all enjoy this great place.

"Mommy, this is a very big tortoise!"

Brotherly love

Carter and Landon climbing the spider web