Decorating for Halloween & Fall

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This past weekend we made a very easy Halloween decoration. Our decoration was inspired by the DIY Halloween Tissue Ghosts I saw over at Shindigz back when I was doing a review for them. I happened to find the tissue paper bells on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop and I think I paid something like a dollar for all four. Then we took a piece of black construction paper and cut out eyes and mouths. I let Hazel cut her own and then we glued them on.

Since the bells had strings and the bottoms had the round ball that would ring the bell, we hung them on our chandelier to greet anyone who comes to our front door. Since we were hanging them, we skipped the tulle as well.

I guess we did a good job since Steve thought I had bought them that way. We also hung the extra spider web we had leftover from our various crafts and added the big spider we used at Hazel's nursery rhyme birthday party for Little Miss Muffet.

We also went on a wonderful nature walk around our neighborhood. We of course took our wagon (to carry everything and in case Hazel got tired) and a bag to collect things. We some saw fun mushrooms. We thought this one might be a fairy bathtub or pool.

And here is a fairy village.

The colors were also beautiful on the walk.

The trees have been so wonderful this fall. The colors are so vibrant.

We were collecting leaves and such and Hazel picked up a stick and started putting leaves on her stick. She decided it was a leaf stick. It came out beautifully and we have it sitting in a glass jar on our table now.

We planned on making more, but haven't made it out there yet.

But in the jar it looks like a flower. We love it! How are you bringing nature in to celebrate the season?

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

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We found a fun book for the autumn: We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. It is a fun take off of We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Now Hazel got scared of We're Going on a Bear Hunt so we have not made it all the way through the story yet. However she enjoyed this version. It lends itself for a perfect scavenger hunt activity. I put together different sheets to vary it depending on age and on what you want to focus: colors, sizes, types of trees, types of seeds. If you have a group you can also make it a competition to see who gets the largest, etc. I made a sheet for that as well. 

 




For younger children you can look for colored leaves. Then of course they can also just collect leaves and sort them by color, shape, and/or size.

We went on a leaf hunt today and had a wonderful time. Hazel asked if we could go on one every day. We had a large wind storm with some rain the other day,so many of the leaves are down. Hazel loved walking through the crunchy leaves on the side of the road.

We decided to look for the colors. Here is Hazel holding up the orange leaf we found. And, yes, she had me hold it up so she could take a picture of me as well on her camera.

Then in typical Hazel style after picking up many leaves, she discovered mushrooms.

Then of course she wanted to take pictures since I was.

We also found many acorns and acorn tops as well as a few sticks. On the way home, Hazel decided to ride in the wagon.

When we got home we looked at all of our treasures.

We have needed to make two cards, a birthday card for her teacher and a thank you note for someone at church who bought her a beautiful dress. We decided to use our treasures to make the cards. Hazel stamped a piece of white construction paper with "Happy Birthday" and another with "Thank you." Then on the front we glued (or at least attempted, I may need to use some hot glue) sticks on as the trunks and Hazel Mod Podged the leaves on back side and stuck it onto the paper and then put a layer of Mod Podge on the front. The Mod Podge glue will help keep the leaves from losing their colors.

I let her do the gluing so they are still drying.

Our other plan is to needle felt some acorns and make necklaces or just acorns for her friends and teachers at school. And here is a picture of my favorite tree right now (the photo really doesn't do it justice):

OH and a quick update on our painted acorns. We pulled out the nail polish I bought for Hazel this summer and I let her paint with that. She had a blast and they came out really well.

Pottery Barn Inspired Painted Acorns

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So a week or so ago, Hazel and I were walking around the new mall near our house and went into Pottery Barn to look around. My little shopper girl did not want to leave since there were so many beautiful things to look at, however one thing we saw were gold painted acorns. We decided we could make some and Hazel wanted to make them rainbow colors. While we were out making apple and nature prints, we rolled some of our acorns around int he fall colored paints.

After the paint dried I glued the tops back on and we displayed them. First we did a display with the needle felted acorns I made in the past.

Then we pulled out some of our autumn decorations and found leaf bowls to put them in.

Today, I also made some gold colored ones, however what I thought was gold paint ended up being more of a glitter paint. Oh, well. I like them still.

To get the ones like Pottery Barn I am guessing you would need gold spray paint. We don't have any, so these will have to do for now. Happy Autumn!!

Welcome Fall! Apple Prints and More!

This weekend fall began here. On Friday it was nice outside, so I decided to get Hazel outside and doing something. Now in our backyard we have two apple trees that have had many apples this year. We do not pick these apples. Steve told me they were not the kind of apples you eat. After smelling them this year, I think he may be wrong. However I am not tall enough to get them and fear ladders too much to try on my own. He hasn't bothered to pick one for me and the ones on the ground do not look so good, but the deer are enjoying them. Here is one tree after most of them have fallen to the ground.

Here is what it looks like on the ground. Steve goes and picks up the ones in the grass and puts them in the "garden" under the trees, so no one trips and the landscaper won't have a problem with the mower.

I had Hazel look for two non-mushy ones that we could cut to make apple prints while I got the rest of our supplies. I cut one apple down the center of the core vertically and the other horizontally (so you get the star).

Then I gave her fall colors of paints and white paper and let her have fun.

She was having so much fun with the apples, we decided to add in pinecones, acorns, flowers and leave.

She made four nature prints. On a few you can see the stars of the inside the apples, but not too much. 

Now we have some beautiful fall prints. I was thinking of cutting them and making cards, but Hazel said she would miss them too much. We will see. How did you welcome the new season where you are?

Math Lessons: Math in Nature

Today I am sharing some books to combine math with nature. Now as a math teacher I know the importance of seeing math everywhere. It allows the student to really see why mathematics was invented. People needed to understand the world around them and mathematics helped them do this. 

Picture a Tree--Book Inspired Art

Today we are sharing a wonderful book, Picture a Tree, by Barbara Reid. This book is a fun book that looks at the different ways to picture a tree for example trees look differently in the four seasons. Through its wonderful story and picture it compares spring trees to paint or art class and it compares trees to other things like a tunnel, an ocean and more. It also looks at how trees can be used as homes and as toys (for example pirate ship, or clubhouse). It is a fun book to get you noticing and thinking about trees and nature more. 

How do you picture a tree? We decided to paint some trees. Here is how Hazel was picturing trees this day.

Hazel's first tree was pretty basic, but I was happy to see how her painting could actually look like something and not just a mess of colors. After this tree I asked her what trees look like in the fall. She added a tree to the painting.

She however decided to make it with unusual colors for the leaves. As you can see she had fall color paints, but used blue, pink, yellow and silver. At least I know she is creative.

After painting two trees she wanted to paint her old way--just colors everywhere, but she was practicing mixing colors. So that is our simple way to think about trees. How do you picture a tree?

Song Inspired Activities

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Today I am going to share some activities we have come up with to go with Daria's song, Beautiful Rainbow World. I considered doing some rainbow crafts, but since we did them at the beginning of each spring, I thought we would go a different route. The song itself refers to the rainbow of skin color that makes the world beautiful, but since we have already done some skin color activities, I thought we would focus on the idea of the world being colorful. Our first idea was to look at food. We started with fruit and arranged a rainbow of them. 

We talked about vegetables, but never got them all together for it. 

Next we went for a walk in our neighborhood and looked for flowers and plants in the rainbow colors. We found that one of our neighbors had all the colors in one garden (see the above picture) and we found many more of the colors throughout our neighborhood.

Our next activity we tend to play when we are driving or out and waiting near a street. We look for all the colors of rainbows in cars and trucks. Purple is by far the hardest to find followed by orange and yellow. We have however found all the colors on at least three occasions. I however did not take pictures. Sorry!

Finally on another walk around our neighborhood, I gave Hazel a sheet to record the flower colors she saw. I gave her rainbow smiley face stickers and she had a blast. The red filled up the quickest followed by the yellow. Then I think she started just filling up the columns for blue and purple at the end. My plan was to use the graph for some of the other ideas we have had--cars, fruit, food, birds, etc. We just haven't done them again. If you are interested in a blank copy of this graph you can download it here.

I hope you enjoy the beautiful rainbow world we live on each day!!

Beach Inspired Rock/Nature Art

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A few weeks ago when we were at Cape Cod visiting my parents, Hazel and I saw some really neat nature artwork in a store. We thought we could have a go at making them. When we went to the ocean, we collected rocks. I tried to collect small rocks, but Hazel really liked the big ones.

Hazel's Creations

I was trying to figure out a cheap background for these and came across a discontinued sample of a home dec fabric at Jo-Ann Fabrics on sale for $1. I bought it and we made homemade canvases with popsicle sticks. Then we began to arrange them. Hazel wanted to use all the big rocks on our little homemade canvases, but of course it did not work. We actually went and bought some larger canvases so she could have fun with the bigger rocks and I made most of the smaller ones. While buying the canvases, we noticed the river rocks and glass gems were on sale for $1, so we bought some and used them as well.

Our Animals: Whale, Turtle and Crab and Turtle

The original designs we had seen at the store included a turtle, a shell wreath and a map of Cape Cod. We copied these and made some of our own designs. I have a cousin getting married on Cape Cod this fall and thought they might like to have one of the maps. I put a red rock where they are getting married on  the map for them and used a store bought canvas. I am thinking we may give one of the other maps to my parents and of course keep one for ourselves.

We used a low temp glue gun to attach the rocks to the fabric or canvas and use the glue gun to make the canvases. Then afterward I glued some more popsicle sticks to them to be a frame. I also added some blue glitter glue to make the whale more recognizable. 

I also used some small shells I had bought ages ago to make the wreath and put a small star fish in the middle. Overall we had fun and it was an easy way to make something with the rocks we collected (and bought) to keep our beach memories alive.