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DIY Pina Colada Candle Project

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This Pina Colada candle is a fun and easy summer candle project that looks good enough to drink. It also smells yummy because of the added Pina Colada candle fragrance oil.

First I melted the soy wax in a coffee can inside of an old pot with a few inches of water (a makeshift double boiler).  Before I even turned the stove on, I hooked a candle thermometer onto the can.

While the wax was melting, I glued the wicks into the glasses with a glue gun so that they would stay put. One was a little wobbly, but I straightened it out later.

Then, I added the yellow dye and the fragrance oil. The dye is in chip form and requires one chip per pound. I used 60 ml (2 tbsp)or 2 oz. of fragrance oil. Some people use one ounce and you could probably get away with that.

Finally, I poured the wax, waited for it to harden and added an umbrella to each. This candle makes a nice decoration and smells good, even if you never light it!

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Lesson Plans – Moss and Lichen Unit Study

I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]