Photo Credit: DreamWorks Animation LLC
In "The Croods: A New Age," The Croods family encounters the more sophisticated Betterman family. A new threat forces the two families to set aside their differences to avoid extinction.
Watch our workshop "Gardening with The Croods" to learn how to grow like the Bettermans, Forage like the Croods, and create Eep's Butterfly Garden!
Extra Resources
Carnivorous Plants
In The Croods, you can see some scary looking carnivorous plants with teeth! You can actually grow your own carnivorous plants at home! Carnivorous plants thrive in bog ecosystems in the wild. A bog ecosystem is very wet and consists of a light peat and sphagnum moss substrate. Because of this, carnivorous plants will need a wet high humidity setting in your home. When watering your carnivorous plants it is important to never give them tap water because of all the harsh chemicals and heavy metals. Carnivorous plants need to be watered with distilled water because there are no heavy metals in distilled water to slowly build up in your plant and kill it. Because distilled water lacks extra minerals and the substrate lacks nutrients, carnivorous plants need to be fed insects or other small organisms. This where carnivorous plants get their name, because they need to eat other critters to survive. Carnivorous plants are super cool and a blast to take care of!
Soda Botte SIP (Sub-Irrigated Planter) Craft
A Sub-Irrigated Planter can be super useful for a busy person or a busy hunter gatherer family like The Croods. A SIP is a self watering planter for your plants, the soil and wick is touching the water where it can suck up some water whenever the soil gets a bit dry. The soil also gets aerated making a perfect environment for your plants at home. This is a super low maintenance planter that helps your plants big time! Making a SIP is extremely easy, all you need is an upcycled plastic bottle, a box cutter or scissors, a marker, and a piece of cloth or string. You want to start off with cutting your 2 liter soda bottle in half. You then want to take the drinking end of the bottle and make small holes over the neck of the bottle for soil aeration (puncture with care!). You then take the bottle, hold it large hole facing up, and insert the cloth or string so that an inch of the cloth sticks out of the bottle from the funnel shape end. This is what is going to wick the water up from the reservoir and water your plant whenever it needs it. You can now fill the half of the bottle with soil and plant a water loving plant in the new bottle planter with he wicks. A few suggestions would be a Peace Lily, a Pothos, and a Heart Leaf Philodendron. In the photo below, we are growing basil! Finally you can take the untouched half of the bottle with only one large hole and fill it with water about 1/4 of the way. Then place your planter into the new water reservoir making sure that the cotton wick is fully submerged and the whole neck of the planter is in the water reservoir. Congratulations! You just made your own Sub-Irrigated Planter!
“Smell like flowers and soft rain” flower perfume recipe
Why not smell like the Bettermans and smell like flowers and soft rain? Lets make a fun and simple flower perfume. You will need flowers of your choice, making sure that they are non-toxic (a couple flower suggestions would be roses or marigolds), water, a bowl with a lid, a cooking pot, and finally a spray bottle of your choice. Once you gathered your ingredients, you want to separate your flower petals from the other parts of the flowers. After that you want to soak your flower petals overnight in pure water. The next day you want to separate the petals from the flower scented water and heat your liquid in your cooking pot on the heat until you have a potent perfume. After you let your liquid cool you can fill your spray bottle and enjoy! It was that easy, you now have yourself a brand new homemade flower scented perfume.
We love this in-depth recipe.
Eep's Butterfly Garden
Eep dreams of creating a home with her own garden of butterflies and flowers. Pollinators help our crops grow and are an important part of our ecosystem. You can use these resources to learn about pollinators and the flowers they love, and create your own garden!
Look up your region’s native plants with the NWF Native Plant Finder
Photo Credit: DreamWorks Animation LLC
“Follow the light to tomorrow” sun mapping activity
Sun tracking can be really important when setting up your garden. Tracking the sun can help you figure out what plants you can grow in your space, which can help you in the long run. Sun tracking is fun activity for the whole family. All you need is a long object that can stand tall, chalk and a timer (phone). You want to draw a very large circle ( at least 5 feet) that is even on your growing space. You then want to place markers like a clock on half of the circle. The object chosen should be placed in the center of the circle. You will now see that the sun is casting a shadow behind the object which falls somewhere on your circle. You want to time how long it takes for the sun to move and even distance on the circle. This will show you how fast the sun moves and where exactly it lands on your property. You can continue timing and observing the sun pattern from your first observation. There you have it, you just tracked the sun to help you grow!
Watch the Birds from your Window
In the movie, Thunk watches the birds through the "window box" for hours of entertainment.
“The birds are on!” Make your own window box and ID common birds in NYC using these resources:
Photo Credit: DreamWorks Animation LLC
Find more Croods' themed activities including making your own treehouse, recipes for Shark Milk, and coloring pages for kids here!