Korean Doll & Nature Turkeys

Today I thank God for my extended family and keeping all of us save through the hurricane and for the amazing cats we have been allowed to adopt and have part of our family.

I finally made our poor Korean doll some clothes. I made this doll a few months ago from the Joan Russell pattern for her world dolls. I bought the materials to make all the dolls in the series. Now to find the time. Hazel has been playing with her naked.

This book also has a series of Native American dolls which if I have time I would love to make. Hopefully I can make some this month since it is Native American Heritage Month.

When Hazel saw her clothes, she looked at me and said what should we name her. I explained to her the pattern calls her Soh Ni, but we decided to name her Kongi after the Korean Cinderella. We have been reading different versions of Cinderella which I will post about on another Monday. Hazel has loved them!

Now unrelated, I would like to share some of our nature turkeys we have made. Mine are on the right and Hazel's are on the left.

More Turkeys (and Thanksgiving Books) and Some Angels

We had one of those long days that involved a migraine for me and no nap for Hazel. UGH!! Plus I tutored and the drive there and back was not worth the time I spent with the student. Oh, well. Since we did not have a nap, we did some crafts finally!!

Some Finished Projects Finally

After Hazel's nap we finally finished some of our projects. First we made some easy paper lanterns for our Martinmas celebration. We did not do the lantern walk tonight, but are planning on it tomorrow night, so for tonight we hung them in her "house" made of Waldorf playstands and cloths. I also strung the four felt lanterns I got to sewing and hung them up. We had four of the battery operated tea lights, so I put those inside and promised Hazel we would get more tomorrow (I got a 3-pack at Dollar Tree).

What I discovered from making the lanterns, the thicker paper is better for the bigger ones. The smaller ones are easier to make. Hazel was able to help a bit with them. Oh and she pretended her Match game cards were candles in the ones we didn't have candles for. I also hung the paper mache one we did at school.

After dinner we finished some cards and some turkeys. We did handprints for the turkey tails the other day. Then I cut out some of her handprints for the body. We added googly eyes and drew a beak a wattle and feet. Then we stuck on some stickers from Trader Joe's. I love the ones that say "I'm thankful for_______" I always write in the name of who the card is for. We also did one out of all cut-out handprints.

My turkey

Then our final craft is from a library book called Holiday Handiworks by Gillian Souter. We didn't add the feet, but I like them.

Hazel's turkey

Thanksgiving Crafts, Books and Games

Well this morning we finished our centerpiece turkeys. We got the instructions from Messner Holiday Library Thanksgiving Fun by Judith Hoffman Corwin. It is a book I found at the public library. It had a few crafts I liked but not too many. These turkeys were very easy. You need a toilet paper roll, paper (I used card stock), newspaper and googly eyes and glue (and we used a piece of tape). You could also use paint on the toilet paper roll, but I took the lazy way out and covered it in paper. The toilet paper roll becomes the neck and head. You use a piece of paper rolled with the newspaper stuck inside for stability for the body and cut the tail feathers out of two different colors and add the wings. As you can see Hazel and I had different ideas where the wings should go. Neither of us chose the place the book suggested though Hazel's were closer. Mine are on the body instead of the tail.

Next we read The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri. I used Rachel's squirrel from I HEART CRAFTY THINGS (she shared it at our Sharing Saturday link party, which is still open if you want to share with us). She got the squirrel template from All Kids Network. We decided to gather the same food as the busy little squirrel. So we made a tree trunk for his home and added the food we saw him gather in the book, bird seed, acorns, apples, corn, and berries. The book starts with the leaves are falling so we also glued on some falling leaves. We used real bird seed, acorns and leaves, a Christmas tree ornament apple, and some fall decorations of miniature corn and fake berries.

The next thing we did is we talked about Thanksgiving. I made up some memory games for Thanksgiving. This time I did not put the clear contact paper on them since I don't think they will get played with enough to get that messed up and they are easy enough to make. Hazel is at the age where she doesn't really remember much about Thanksgiving from the past so I thought I could introduce her to the whole story using these cards. Then we could play with them and keep talking about it. I did this in Word and you can download it  Thanksgiving Story Match Game.  If you need another format, please let me know. It is easy to save it as a pdf as well.

I also made a Thanksgiving dinner game, so we could talk about the food she might see at the Thanksgiving table. I figured this might get her excited to try some of it even if she hasn't had it before or didn't like it before. Again I did this in Word and you can download it at Thanksgiving Dinner Match Game Again let me know if you need it in a different format.

To make the game I cut the cards out and cut cardstock into 3 inch by 4 inch rectangles and Hazel and I glue sticked the pictures onto the cardstock.

Turkey Time

Today has already been a long day. When I was getting ready to take Hazel to the library for the Move 'n Groove program, I realized she had a fever. We went back to the doctor's office for the fourth time in about a month. They think she still has her sinus infection (for the past month though we thought it was cleared up last time we were there). She is back on antibiotics--which hopefully won't cause more issues like the last round did. We also had the pleasant surprise that my sister decided to visit last night and tonight so she could go to a conference in Boston. She had gone back and forth about going, but decided yesterday that she wanted to and was able to register still. Plus luckily Steve is no longer working the overnight shift but is feeling lousy from the crazy hours and being rundown. He worked from home today.