Kids Growing Strong traveled to Paradise, CA to help the Gold Nugget Museum and Paradise Garden Club members celebrate Heritage Days. The 100-degree heat was just right for the bugs...that is the ladybugs and caterpillars. 

Children painted ladybug rocks and made ladybug masks as they learned about the life cycles of little spotted creatures. Members of the Paradise Garden Club helped kids create Haiary Caterpillars out of stockings, soil and grass. Click here for Hairy Caterpiller instructions.

 A Very Hairy Caterpillar

The Paradis Garden Club, in Paradise, CA helped more than 200 kids (of all ages) create a little "hairy" friend during the Heritage Days celebration at the Gold Nugget Museum in September, 2011. With the help of volunteers from the club, kids fashioned little creatures out of stockings, soil and grass seed.

Here is how they did it:

Decked out in heritage attire, kids at the Paradise celebration practised the old-tume art of pounding flowers.

Announcing...

The very first KGS "Friends" mailing was FINALLY sent out on June 28th to over 400 new "friends."  "KGS Friends" are the special people who joined our family of Friends when they visited our exhibit at an event earlier this year.  Because we were so slow getting it all together, we made it extra special with three packets of different seeds and some BUZZ-Z-Z about Bees.

 In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration and National Institute for Health set a nationwide goal that aimed to have 75% of American adults consuming two or more fruit servings a day and 50% consuming three or more vegetable servings a day. The report released this month announced no state reached that goal.

 We are still going on and on about how plants take calcium from the soil, then the humble cow eats the plant and puts the calcium into milk. The calcium in cow milk helps kids grow strong and healthy. So why not do something different. CELEBRATE THE COW!  by making a cow-planter and planting some cow beans.  

We use Vaquero beans from Rancho Gordo. They are an heirloom dried bean that most people use for pot beans, chili and stew. We soak them over night, wrap them lightly in a damp paper towel and them put them into a plastic bag until they sprout. (They take less than a week to sprout.) Almost all the beans sprouted which tells us they are fresh, wholesome beans. Kudos to Rancho Gordo! 

  Hundreds of kids and their families came out to the California State Home & Garden Show at the Convention Center last week and had a great time. Young shefs prepared some crazy, edible creatures out of fresh fruits and vegetables. Mr. Tomato Head was a crowd favorite. They also made Veggie-Man masks and planted coe beans in some cleaver "cow pots" made with recycled toilet paper tubes, genuine paper "cow hide" and sprouted "cow beans.

August, 2010

Tyler Carver planted his packet of seeds from Kids Growing Strong back in Iowa last spring.  While some of the seeds washed away in the heavy rains this year, the Mammoth Sunflower surived and grew to almost 10 feet tall. It must love that midwest humidity!