Putti's World: Outdoor activity

Showing posts with label Outdoor activity. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Snow Play in Florida

2:47:00 PM Roopa No comments

Living in Florida, we unfortunately do not experience much of a winter. Putti, does wish she gets to play with snow sometime, especially when she sees my niece's photos of playing in snow and all. Recently, a neighboring county had a winter festival and when I read that they are gonna bring some tonnes of snow for kiddos to play, I knew we HAD to attend it. And boy! am I glad we went there. Putti really loved playing in the the cold stuff.

Though it was not nice and fluffy like the real snow, she loved it. After all it was crushed ice which was crushed right there and poured in for the kids to play.

I think we could use a few days of cold and snow. Then, I'd like to come right back to t-shirts and flip flops :)

She later loved the Vietnam era exhibits and riding some of them.

Ice Cube Fabric Painting !!

10:00:00 AM Roopa 6 comments

This colorful piece of fabric was painted with frozen acrylic paints!

Putti has played with icecubes almost everyday for last 2 weeks. Well, temperatures have been soaring high here and she really needed some cool play!! Be it Ice cricket, rolling the ice cubes in paint, slide paint or just plain ice cubes to chill off.

Here's what we did today:

I first add some acrylic paints to icecube tray and mixed in water. Froze them over night. Then, just lay out some fabric, spread the colored ice cubes on it to melt and let Putti "paint" it with the ice. Putti loved moving the 'cool' paint all over the fabric.

The color will be all over your hands soon. Do not wear good clothes for this project. Putti asked for some paper and tried making some handprints as and when she got paint on her hands.

As the ice cube melted the cool squishy paint was left on the fabric and Putti happily used her hands to smear the colors on the fabric. She kept moving the colored cubes to new spots on her fabric. And soon most of the ice cubes had melted, leaving behind its colorful marks.

The fabric looked pretty cool and colorful. It has become a saree, a blankie for her animals, a scarf so far in her imaginative play. And she is very proud of the fact that she painted it all by herself:)

Spring, the sweet spring!!

6:11:00 AM Roopa No comments

Spring, the sweet spring,
is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing,
then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting,
the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may
make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play,
the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet,
the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet,
old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street
these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Spring, the sweet spring!

-Thomas Nashe

This is translated to kannada by B.M Shrikantaiah.

WWLF Part 3 - Reptile Show

10:52:00 PM Roopa 1 comment

Reptile Show is one of the huge attractions at the Wakulla Wildlife Festival. It is an attempt to get the small and big kids be friendly towards snakes and other reptiles. To make us realise snakes are an essential part of our eco system and un-necessary killing of snakes needs to be stopped. Putti along with many other kids got to touch various snakes.

Grey snake

Blue Tongued Skink

Red Corn Snake

Black snake

Turtle

Snakes do not have ears, yet the first thing we all do the moment we see a snake is to yell and shout! This creates panic among those around us and leads to more trouble.
Kids raced with a couple of snakes to see who were fast. It made us all realise how slow most snakes are. Th fastest snake in the world is Africa's Black Mamba which is 10-12mph. So, instead of running panicky and getting hit by a tree or pole. It is best to just slowly move 1-2 steps back and then turn around and run.

Aneesa, Sarah and other volunteers holding the mighty Python.

Putti touching the Python..

In 2008, when Putti was just 3 mnths her dad and grand dad had carried the python around their necks..

Part 1 and Part 2

WWLF Part 2- Come Be a bear !!

9:46:00 PM Roopa 4 comments

Bears are commonly mistaken to be carnivores, but they are Omnivores. And over 90% of its food includes grass, leaves, flowers, mushrooms, fruits, berries and nuts. And the meat that it eats is basically just insects, frogs etc.
Putti and I learnt many of such facts about bears at the Wakulla Wildlife festival, we attended recently. There was a fun activity called "Come Be a Bear". The kids would get dressed as a bear and walk around various stages depicting 4 seasons and learn what the bears eat in those seasons.

And in winter, the bears stay inside their dens for many months. Putti too crawled through a den.

And every year a lot of bears die in road traffic accidents. So it is important to keep the trash cans closed to avoid attracting the bears for food. Kids dressed as bears tried to cross the road while trying to avoid cars(ball here) Putti loved pretending to be a bear.

Part 1
Part 3

Wakulla WildLife Festival - Part 1 !!

9:22:00 PM Roopa 4 comments

Just like every year, we attended the Wildlife Festival at Wakulla Springs this time too. Putti had been there when she was 3 months baby with my parents. This time around we visited with my inlaws. Putti did really enjoy most of the activities there. She loved touching the reptiles and other animals.