Turkey Kid Craft

 

On this day before Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a fun & festive project to keep little hands busy and to brighten up the decorations for your feast 🙂  It’s a wonderful sensory activity too working with feathers and glue!  Both of my children (3 and 1) worked hard and were able to make a turkey of their own. 

Here’s what you need:

• feathers
• construction paper
• glue (we used a glue stick and white glue)

For my son who’s 3 I let him use his own glue stick to glue feathers to a piece of orange construction paper.  For my daughter who’s 1 and a half I spread the glue on the paper and let her stick the feathers on.  I cut out brown turkey heads, orange beaks, and red snoods (the skin that hangs from a turkey’s neck).  I let my son glue his face onto the turkey head.  I did this step for my daughter.  Then I glued the heads over the feathers with white glue.  We drew on black eyes.  I think they turned out pretty cute!

I hope all of my American friends are enjoying this prep time for our feasts tomorrow.  There isn’t a holiday that beats Thanksgiving in my mind.  What could be better than too much food, family and friends, a warm home that smells delicious, and a morning snuggling and watching a parade?  All of the best things in life in one day 😀

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blog Hop: The Advent Table

It’s Blog Hop day again!  Today, we’re hopping over to Sure as the World for an inspiring post about setting up an Advent table in the Waldorf Tradition.  http://sureastheworld.com/2013/11/26/the-advent-table/

I’ll be back tomorrow with a fun little Thanksgiving craft to keep little hands busy while everyone prepares their feasts 🙂

Blog Hop: Thanksgiving, and Blessings…

Today is the second day of the Holiday Blog Hop, so hop on over to You Know What Mama… for a list of resources on the history of the Pilgrims.  It promises to be an engaging week of Thanksgiving posts.

http://youknowwhatmama.blogspot.com/2013/11/thanksgiving-resources-list-especially.html

I can’t bear to skip my blessings post, so… 

A moment to acknowledge the small things that make life joyful.

• Alice in Wonderland snuggled up with the whole family.
• “Pretty songs.”
• Game night with my sisters and brothers-in-law.
• A warm basement.

What are the small things in your life?

 

My Week in Review

This week has been harried and long, but it is coming to a cozy, cold, & white end!

• My husband worked all hours of all days (it seemed).
• I set up a play room in the basement and reclaimed my living room for adults!
• We wrote out a list of family rules and set out to stick with them (all of us).
• I reworked our rhythm to fit the winter darkness and my daughter’s constantly changing abilities and needs.
• Of course we danced, painted, and dressed up (a new favorite activity for both kids) through out all of the chaos 🙂

My daughter (1) had another week of fitful sleep.  I do not know what it is with her, but she doesn’t sleep predictably.  I find this really trying most of the time.  But, my oh my she is a sweet girl!  She has really taken to playing dress up and taking care of babies.  She’s developed some killer dance moves too.  She really knows how to get down.

My son (3) LOVES preschool and is really taken with many of his new friends.  I hear lots of stories about these children 🙂 He has really been struggling with listening lately.  3 is definitely a frustrating age!  It’s the tug-of-war between independence and needing/wanting help.  And oh how he tests his boundaries. He seems to be doing better with firmer rules and stricter follow through from both my husband and I.

I am busy trying to keep my house livable.  I am working on finding my rhythm with house work again.  It seems to have slipped over the past month or so.  I am also knitting like crazy in every spare moment.  With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I am dreaming of gravy and sweet potatoes and Christmas carols!

How was your week?

Playdough

This week’s sensory activity was play dough.  My son (3) helped me measure the ingredients.  And then he and his sister (1) played! I gave them long wooden cylinders from the block basket and a few leaf-shaped cookie cutters for fall.  They had a blast squishing and rolling and cutting.

Here’s my favorite play dough recipe. (It comes from a collection of recipes I have compiled over years of teaching.  I don’t recall its origination.):

Mix all of the ingredients together in a pan and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until the dough thickens enough to form a ball.  Dump onto the counter and knead (when it’s cool).  It should keep for a week in an airtight container.

1c. flour (I’ve used both bleached white and whole wheat and they both work well)

1c. water

1/4c. salt

2t. cream of tartar

1T. vegetable oil

food coloring.

If you don’t already make a point of giving your children a variety of sensory activities, I highly recommend it.  Not only are they wonderful learning experiences, they are often calming and incredibly engaging for children.  Best of all for us parents, they keep them busy and quiet for longer than you might think.

Blog Hop: Festival of Lights

This holiday season I am participating in a blog hop!  Please enjoy posts all season long from fellow bloggers sharing their experiences and tips for celebrating.

It’s the 1st day of our Holiday Blog Hop! And with Hanukkah just around the corner (next week) we begin with a beautifully informative post about the Festival of Lights by Lavender’s Blue Homeschool. It is full of history and background for those of us not familiar with the Jewish celebration. You will also find plenty of ideas and resources to include in your own family’s winter festivities. Happy Hanukkah!

Hop on over to http://lavendersbluehomeschool.com/hanukkah-the-festival-of-lights/

Blessings…

A moment to acknowledge the small things that make life joyful.

• Safety
• Bowling
• The building anticipation of winter going around
• Love

What are the small things in your life?

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday to y’all!  It’s a beautifully warm and sunny one here.  We’ve had a fun week.

• Dancing, dancing, dancing our socks off!
• Dinners at other people’s houses, meaning very little cooking for Mom.
• Planning winter vacations.
• Looking for a new car.

My son (3) continues to worry about the bugs and the winter.  He is very happy to know that the worms can survive the cold.  He has been a big help raking leaves (and jumping in them with his sister), harvesting carrots and distributing them to family and friends, and decorating our home for Thanksgiving.

My daughter (1) has cut 3 new teeth this week.  Needless to say she and I have been missing our beauty sleep.  She has taken over her brother’s digital camera and has become the family photographer 🙂  She continues to love books and to drive her dad and me (and anyone else who visits) bonkers with constant requests for reading.  I try to remind myself that this is a good thing, but oh how it tries my patience when every time I sit down I’m asked to read aloud.  Good thing she is so adorable!

I am busy planning my contributions to the Thanksgiving feast and getting gifts chosen, made, and purchased for Christmas.  I hope to spread the work and cost over a longer period of time this year to limit the stress.  We’ll see how I do.  I am really looking forward to the 1st blanket of snow to cover the yard!  The coziness of coffee by the picture window as the snow falls is intoxicating.

I hope you all enjoyed your weeks and have a very happy weekend!

November Reading & Knitting

The book basket is filled with silly turkeys, Native Americans, Pilgrims, and families giving thanks.  These are the books filling our days and getting us in the spirit of giving thanks and eating great food.

• The First Thanksgiving Day, Laura Krauss Melmed (This is my fave.  The illustrations are beautiful and the story pays homage to both Pilgrim and Native American contributions to the tradition that we celebrate today.  It is respectful and easy for small children to understand.  It’s also a counting book)
• Run, Turkey Run! Diane Mayr (This is my children’s fave.  A silly book about a farmer trying to catch a turkey for his family’s feast.)
• Our Thanksgiving, Kimberly Weinberger (An easy reader, which makes it a simple story about a family gathering for a Thanksgiving celebration.)
• Thanksgiving Day, Gail Gibbons (No holiday reading list is complete with out a Gail Gibbons non-fiction picture book packed with information and facts.  The illustrations are nice too.  Unfortunately some of the info is quite Eurocentric.)
• 10 Fat Turkeys, Tony Johnston & Rich Dias (Another silly counting board book)

Yes, that’s The Great Gatsby and yes, I’m still reading it 🙂  I’ve been spending most of my free time knitting Christmas gifts.  I’ve also been reading my holiday magazines and as usual working through Amanda Blake Soule’s The Rhythm of Family.

Here’s what I’ve been knitting.  I decided to knit cowls for each of my sisters for Christmas this year.  I began with the purple one and it turned out so soft and cozy.  It also knitted up in a couple of evenings.  Then I started the green one which is beautiful, but taking a lot longer.  I’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now and I’m not even half done.  So I ordered more yarn for the first pattern and I’m planning to knit up a few more of those.  Maybe the green one will be for me when ever I manage to finish.  I ordered both patterns and the yarn from Knitpicks.com, my favorite knitting store!

What are you reading and working on this November?

Happy :)

I’ve been really happy lately…  No, I didn’t win the lottery, my husband didn’t get a big raise, I didn’t just enjoy a day at the spa.  I’ve just been happy.  My world has been turning in much the same way that it has been for months.  Not much has changed. My kids still whine far more often than I’d like.  My house is still messy most of the time.  I still feel like the time flies by so fast that it takes my breath with it many days.  Yet in the midst of my hectic life, I feel immensely blessed.  In the quiet moments before I fall asleep at night, or while listening to the radio in the car on the way to pick my son up from preschool I find my self smiling and breathing slowly and joyfully, and I realize that I am truly happy.  The calm, in the moment, happy that you find in your soul when you least expect it.  The kind that you realize is there only when you slow down long enough to feel it, but know is there all the time tinting everything you do with an added purpose and kindness.  The kind of happiness that reassure us that everything will be OK and makes us say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”

I share this today because I usually write reflectively when I’m feeling overwhelmed or struggling with some aspect of life.  I think it’s important to acknowledge and bask in the moments of joy and peace too.  I wish you all happiness and joy this morning.  It’s a heavenly day!