planting a paper garden

i must say i often struggle keeping ben busy -
he loves learning, he has TONS of energy, and he loves to help me with whatever i might be doing.
which is wonderful, but sometimes i need something he can work on by himself.
i've seen some fun ideas for busy bags and projects for preschoolers,
but i don't always have time to organize projects or ideas.
so i've been trying to come up with some of my own simple, interesting and frugal projects for ben.

here's something we've been doing this week -
planting a garden (on paper).

since we are not growing a garden of our own this year (trying to tackle some other home projects),
i decided it was okay to cut-up the garden catalogs.
ben has really enjoyed helping with our garden the past couple of years,
so he got pretty excited about choosing his vegetables, fruits and flowers for his own garden.

initially i did not have the images cut out when this idea came to me,
but i quickly realized that it would be much better with the images already being cut out.
i think i cut the rest of them while watching a little tv in the evening,
and the next day ben was able to plant his garden without much help from me.
just a few "what is this called?" and he was occupied.

we've also been outside doing fun things like sidewalk chalk.
i traced ben and he helped me color in his clothes,

and a kite was most appropriate for a windy kansas day.


and what was miss julia doing?
observing, of course.