Welcome to Garden Web and The Seed Saving Forum. I'd suggest you checking out the Seed Exchange Forum. Look for posts that say SASE, or SASBE or NEWBIE. Those will be posts where members who have an abundance of extra seeds are generously offering them up for a bubble envelope and postage. Sue

Thanks for the reply. The problem is that I cannot be there to watch the beans, I rotate between 9 different schools and I cannot trust the children to watch their own bags to see if it would outgrow the bag or not (Most of the time we meet in the teachers lounge and the children dont have access there without it being a Girl Scout meeting time) What I am looking for is a common type of bean that takes usually about a week and a half to germinate, that way the sprout wont die before I get back in two weeks.

At one time, we had not one shoe box left in our house because of all the dioramas!! He can paint the sides of the box with scenery typical of eagle habitat. Then add a sturdy branch of a tree that you have cut from the yard and make an eagle's nest in it from grass and staw and twigs and LOTS of glue. Put eggs in it in the color and quantity of a typical Eagle clutch of eggs. You can cut grass or other trimmings from the yard for the scenery too--evergreen shrubbery tips make good "trees," which can be anchored in a daub of clay or glued to the sides of the box to make a 3D forest. Also can use cut out pictures from magazines to glue to the walls of the box or to stand up on props for scenery. Add little rocks from the yard to the landscape. Use crumpled Saran Wrap over a painted blue splotch to make a lake or river. Make a clay or salt clay mountain. Paint snow on it, and insert bits of the evergreen to make trees. (I would avoid buying mini model building scenery pieces.) Add fallen logs, etc. I used split peas, various kinds of macaroni, beans, etc. from the kitchen for items too. Make a lone log cabin from twigs. Make a fire lookout tower that the Department of Forestry uses for spotting forest fires. A narrow fire road of mixed beans or peas. We often cut up those long fireplace matches for contstruction, such as for the fire tower. Maybe popsicle sticks too. Glue florists moss for grass or onto sticks to make trees.

Thank you for all the kind words! I finished grouting the second one tonight. Now to clean them up good and seal them. Yes, the kids got to pick out the glass and color to use. I wanted to actually use their own handprint, but they were too big. I had to get 20 hands on the top. So we just used a pattern from a coloring book. The same with the sun, stars & moon patterns. I had all the glass cut and tumbled and they each picked out their color. I had to use the ball chain. Some of the hand prints were hard to tell what they were! One looked like a skeleton hand! And the other edward scissor hands! By using the ball chain, it defined each one so much better. I went to the hardware store and explained what I was doing. (They just couldn't understand!) They special ordered me a 100 ft roll and sold it to me at their cost since it was for the school. I am going to take a picture back there and show them. But then again, they are used to me coming in with "odd" requests!) The kids pictures are on the back of 1/2 clear marbles. That was a story in itself! I ended up doing them three times. The first time, the kids glued their school picture on the back...some got glue between the picture and the back of the glass. Made the pictures all cloudy. So i took them all apart and redid them with another glue that dried clear...BUT there was a chemical reaction between the color ink of the pictures and the glue...just ate the ink all up and turned them into colored "blobs"! So the third time, used different ink & papter and glue. It worked thank heavens! I will let you all know what they bring. I am very anxious to see. This was a fun project to do, but so many hours! But the kids were so proud of their own work it made me happy to be part of it. becky