This month some April showers are in the forecast which is a perfect opportunity to make a worm farm! Thank you to Barbie from Leaping Lizard Rescue for this fun idea.

First, get a large, wide-mouthed jar (a large mayonnaise jar works great) and fill it with various layers such as garden soil, peat, grass clippings, sand, small pebbles, and a thin layer of raw oatmeal. Water thoroughly. Make sure to make the layers distinct. Find some earthworms (after rain many will come to the surface, or you may need to dig for some), and scatter the worms on the soil’s surface in the jar. Cover the worms with some moist dead leaves and cover the jar with a light-proof cloth or paper bag, and place in a cool place. Do not screw the jar’s top back on. The worms cannot get out, and they need the oxygen. Check the worms after about a week and watch how the layers shift as the worms tunnel through the soil. If you keep the worms longer than a week, make sure to water the soil occasionally, although not too much or else the worms can drown. Look for mounds of rippled soil on the surface. These are castings, made when earthworms eat the soil and eliminate it. When you are done watching the worms, make sure to return them to the garden!

A really fun activity for teaching your child about what happens underneath the earth and how many rocks (and mountains) were formed is by making your own volcano! Many of the rocks in this area (basalt, rhyolite, and in some areas, obsidian) were formed by volcanic activity.

To create your own volcano, you will need a cardboard box, old newspapers, aluminum foil, wet sand, an empty soup can, 1/4 cup of baking soda, 1 cup of water, 3/4 cup of vinegar, 1/2 cup of dishwashing liquid, 10 drops of yellow food coloring and 10 drops of red food coloring.

Put the box on top of the old newspapers to protect your table’s surface. Line your box with aluminum foil and fill the box with wet sand. Place the soup can in the center of the box. Form the sand around the can into a volcanic cone to complete your volcano. Make sure the can is completely hidden by the sand. 

Then pour the backing soda into the can. Measure out all the parts of the eruption mixture into one large measuring cup. To start the eruption, add the complete eruption mixture into the soup can and watch the lava pour from your erupting volcano! One word of advise…you might want to tell your child that it will be more of a lava “flow” rather than an “eruption”. My son was a little disappointed that our volcano didn’t look quite like the ones we saw in the pictures of the books I showed him about volcanoes!

Children learn not just visually, but love to manipulate things with their hands and learn by touch. A fun project, which would be great tied to a trip to a tide pool, or even a place that has a “touch tank” like the Environmental Discovery Center, is to create your own starfish that feels like the real thing. First, cut out a simple starfish shape out of sandpaper (smaller children will need help with this step). Then let your child paint the starfish. Let dry and glue onto a piece of sturdy construction paper. The resulting starfish will feel just as rough as the real ones and will remind your child that many animals feel differently. You can compare the roughness of the sea star to the prickliness of a sea urchin, to the smooth shell of a crab. Challenge your child to think about why the animals are made this way - Does their exterior protect them? Make them blend into their surroundings? Help them catch food?