Exploring, creating and learning together

We have been working on something special to share with all of our readers at Wee Folk Art (the crafting blog my mom and I run) for this holiday season. We have an adorable pair of Holiday Gnomes who will be celebrating the holidays with one of our lucky readers. Enter to win Holly and Noel.

I invite all my Nature’s Way Learning readers to stop by Wee Folk Art and check out the contest… and some of the fun free patterns we have listed there. Good luck!

My two year old loves play-dough. It is a constant request of hers. I long ago gave up buying the tiny tubs of play-dough and instead make my own every month or two as needed. When the Pixie girl got out our play-dough yesterday… it was too dried out so we decided to whip up some new Christmas play-dough. We made two batches… one scented with mint, the other with cloves. They have a wonderful holiday scent.

Here is my favorite recipe for play-dough (note the changes for the Holiday dough).

Kool Aid Play-Dough
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. salt
2 packages unsweetened Kool Aid For the Christmas dough we used 2 tsp ground cloves and red food coloring in one and 1/2 tsp food grade mint extract and green food coloring in the other.
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 c. boiling water
4 T cream of Tatar (if you have it… I often skip this but it does make for a nicer texture)

DIRECTIONS
1. In bowl, mix together all dry ingredients.
2. In saucepan, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Turn off heat and add oil.
3. Pour oil and water mixture into bowl, blend and knead.

Tip:
*Remind children that this dough is not meant to be eaten (the Pixie girl seems to enjoy it as a snack though - lol).
*This dough lasts for months when stored in an airtight plastic container. It lasts even longer when the container is refrigerated.

Note: I let the kids help blend the dry ingredients but I take over once we need to add the boiling water. I knead it to begin with and then hand it over to them to finish working in the color once it has cooled down a bit.

We started this nature study in a most unusual way… on the sofa watching tv. We watched the Magic School Bus episode “Wet All Over” about the Water Cycle (on The Magic School Bus: Catches a Wave DVD). We then read Oh Say Can You Say What’s the Weather Today?: All About Weather before digging for mittens and heading outside.

Have I mentioned it is cold here? This was our first sunny afternoon in several days and the kids were quite happy to get out to play in what was left of yesterday’s snow. We took a few minutes to look at the clouds but they were really much more interested in what was going on beneath their feet.

Bug pretty much has the water cycle down. After I asked him a few questions about the state of water around us I left him to his own devices. He was really interested in watching his breath and collecting icicles.

Unknown to me, Bug brought several icicles in the house when we decided it was time to warm up. He wanted to see what would happen. Sure… but can we not have them just sitting on the sofa please? I got him a little jar to place the icicles in for his experiment.

I did have to tell him later that it probably isn’t a good idea to drink water from melted icicles found hanging off of who knows what outside and out of a jar we use for painting no less. LOL. Boys!

Join in the Outdoor Hour Challenge #39.

LOL - I totally forgot to post this week’s lesson plans. I think this really shows how much I’ve moved into holiday mode. My evenings have been spent crafting away to get holiday presents and decorations completed in time. Not to mention the fact that we are taking the whole month of December off from preplanned activities. I think my mind has moved on from this term and I might have started my break a week early.

Week Twelve (Nov 17-22)

Book of the Week:

The Story of the Pilgrims

Expansion Book:

Sarah Morton’s Day

Samuel Eaton’s Day

Letter of the Week: L

L is for Lily-of-the-Valley
We will be coloring the Lily page from our Flower Fairies Alphabet Coloring Book and reading the accompanying story in the Flower Fairies Alphabet Book.

Craft for the Week: Table Decorations

We are still working on stuff for our Thanksgiving table.

Baking Recipe for the Week:

Sorry I don’t have anything to share this week. I’m hosting Thanksgiving for 22 people next week and we will be doing so much cooking and baking I will probably take this week off of any planned kitchen activities.

Poem of the Month for October:

Over the River and Through the Woods (or A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day)
Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood -
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, “Ting-a-ling-ding”,
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound,
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood -
And straight through the barnyard gate,
We seem to go extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood -
Now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!
by Lydia Maria Child

Kindergarten/Preschool Term One Overview: Harvest Time

This week’s Unplugged Challenge was Junk. For this activity we dug into the recycling bin and the box I keep in the back of the craft shelf filled with “useful junk” like toilet paper rolls and old magazines. We didn’t do anything fancy… definitely an all about the process sort of project but the kids had fun.

An hour and a half later… the older two had finished, bathed and moved on to other activities but the Pixie girl was still going strong. I don’t know if she was cleverly avoiding bed time or what but she was quite intent on gluing fuzzy pompoms to her favorite cereal box. I only removed her from the activity when I realized that she was no longer content gluing the pompoms to the box and had moved on to gluing them to her chair.

We tried a new technique this week with our water color painting… adding salt crystals to create an interesting texture.

NOTE: setting down a bowl filled with salt then immediately walking away to answer the phone is NOT a good idea when a 2 year old is completing said craft. This produces the “It’s SNOWING in the Dining Room” effect.

We started by choosing a picture in our book “In November” to use as inspiration. The kids picked a page with 2 cardinals on a bare branch. Then we drew outlines in crayon. We applied the watercolor paints. Over some of the wet areas of paint, we sprinkled kosher salt. I highly suggest you place a tray under your painting first - unlike us! Our intent with using the salt was to make it look like it was snowing in the picture. Once the paint dried we brushed off the salt. It created a tie-dyed looking background and left some sparkly, glittery salt residue (can’t see in the photos) that looks like ice crystals on the page.

Drying with the salt still on.

Close up of texture.

Well, not specifically knowing of any Elms, Chestnut or Hickory trees in our neighborhood… and the fact that there are NO leaves left on any trees to aid in any identification, we ended up doing something a little different for this week’s Nature Study.

Amazing the difference a week has made. Our last study we were outside in just long sleeves, enjoying the sunshine. We have now had snow and the winter gray is settling in.

My mom serendipitously bought a large bag of mixed nuts and a coconut for the kids to try this week. I thought that this might make a good tie in… since at least a couple of the trees in question drop nuts. After dinner, we gathered around Gammy’s kitchen table to complete our study.

We had Walnuts, Pecans, Brazil Nuts, Almonds, Hazelnuts and Coconuts. The kids enjoyed playing with the nuts and trying to get them open. Bug actually managed a few. Once we had several open we made up a chart to record our taste test… using a thumbs up or thumbs down reaction.

Pecans and Almonds were by far the favorite with the Coconut Milk being the least favorite (insert EWW here ). BTW Walnuts and Almonds were accidentally recorded in the wrong columns… ooops on my part.

Join in the Outdoor Hour Challenge #38.

I just stumbled across a free quilt contest and thought I would pass it along. Red Barn Co is giving away 3 amazing quilts right now. They are absolutely beautiful. Check them out!

I was watching my 2 year old play with our chess set a couple days ago. She was carefully putting the figurines to bed on beanbags and whispering Shhh to anyone who came by. It got me thinking about true multi-tasking toys. I don’t know if anyone is familiar with Alton Brown from the Food Network… Good Eats/Iron Chef host but he has an abhorrence of any single-task kitchen utensil. I’ve tried to apply a similar criteria when considering which toys take up room on our shelves.

One of our best investments has been this King Arthur Chess set shaped like actual knights, kings, queens, etc. So many ways play with that toy. My son got is last year for Christmas when he started showing an interest in chess and it has become almost a daily play item. Chess of course, but paired with a set of Haba blocks the perfect sized characters for castle play. They are a bit more fragile than say Holztiger or Kathe Kruse dolls so I try to have the kids keep them in the carpeted rooms to reduce the chipping from falls. But overall this has been a super hard working, multi-tasking toy for us. I just thought I would throw it out there for anyone looking for holiday shopping ideas.

We have been working really hard on our Spoon Dolls which is this month’s Wee Folk Art Crafting Club free pattern. I figured since the base of the dolls was a Wooden Kitchen Utensil it would work nicely for our Unplugged Challenge kitchen theme tie in as well.

For the body pattern and step by step directions, visit Wee Folk Art.

We started by drawing what we wanted our spoon dolls to look like. I made photo copies of a spoon outline and the kids made several renditions. After several tries on the girls’ parts I ended up having them dictate what they wanted and jotted down the sketch for them. Bug wanted a knight with a helmet, Fairy a princess with a crown and Pixie pink with hearts. I decided to make a Native American inspired doll.

We took our drawings to the fabric store and everyone got to pick out their base fabric.

The following day we raided Gammy’s craft room for trims, laces and buttons.

I cut out the fabric from the pattern and ironed under the hems. Then each kid got a turn to sit on my lap and helped me sew their doll (even the Pixie girl). They love getting to “use” my sewing machine and learned some key safety rules.

Once the base of the dolls were sewn we picked out and added the final trim.

Now for the faces… I had the kids tell me what they wanted. They were very specific. Fairy wanted pink checks, gold hair and big, red lips. Bug wanted angry eyebrows and a Not-Smiling but Not-frowning face… very serious.

We used yarn to make the hair.

They aren’t 100% done yet. Bug’s still needs a better sword, helmet and shield and Fairy’s needs a crown but I wanted to share them anyway. These are going to make great puppets for their puppets shows.