Going Daffy with the kids
BY LUCRETIA VOIGT INDEPENDENT CONTRIBUTOR
Kids love a parade - and the Daffodil Kids Parade is no exception. While it's easy to buy some fresh or silk daffodils and let the kids decorate their rides, punch up the fun this year by helping them create their own daffodils. For the environmentally sensitive family, recycled egg cartons and junk mail can be transformed, with a little yellow paint, some fancy cutting and a bendable straw, into a garden of daffodils.

First, cut a single egg cup off the carton, and then paint it yellow. Cardboard egg cartons work best for this, so if you are using Styrofoam cartons, skip the paint.

Next, use any old mail or magazines and cut out six petals. (You can paint these yellow or keep them funky and colorful.) Using a hole punch, punch a hole in each petal. Then, poke a hole the size of the straw in the center of the dried egg carton cup. Thread each petal on the underside of the egg carton, and attach a small bead of glue to keep the petals in place. Finally, bend the straw and the trash of yesterday becomes the beautiful flowers of today!

For the youngest parader (we're talking the "no sharp objects" set), take a yellow cupcake liner and flatten it, then glue to its center a white cupcake

liner. A green pipe cleaner poked through both

makes a stem and - viola! - your little one is an instant gardener.

For those kids who are really industrious, check out the Daffodil Crown at Familyfun.com, or the Daffodil Windmills at www.4ormore.co.uk/projects. Both are sure to make your kid the parade favorite!

In addition to taking time to make some daffodils, talk to your kids about how daffodils come from bulbs. Kids think it's pretty magical that the bulbs that were planted in the fall become the daffodils they see in the spring. A fun book by two Gloucester residents, A. Roberta Wiatt and Jackie Wiatt, called "When Daffodils Ran Free," tells a whimsical fairytale about the origins of daffodils, and how they came to be bulbs that announce the beginning of spring each year.

Even though this weekend is all about daffodils, kids love to play in the dirt. You can use this to your advantage; take a trip to the Atheneum and check out any science-related books about gardening. Then, plan a garden with your kids. Get some seeds and watch them germinate. When your children can make a bouquet of flowers they grew - well, that big smile you see on their faces will rival

any daffodil Mother Nature could create. I