Greenlee Is Growing -- a new picture book sharing the seasons of life

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I am sharing a new picture book that teaches kids about the idea of the seasons of life going with the seasons of the year. The book is Greenlee Is Growing by Anthony DeStefano and illustrated by Louise A. Ellis. It is recommended for ages 3 to 7.

Growing Senses & Imagination with Books About Nature and the Seasons

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

This week I spent three days in the woods in Vermont with some of my students. Every year our school goes on a field trip to an outdoor center in Vermont. The high school students can choose to go for two nights and the middle school and 5th and 6th grade are required to go for four nights. The time there is tech free for the kids. The goals are team building, bonding with one another and getting them out of their comfort zones. For many it is the first time they are away from their parents for this length of time. As much as I hate being away from home, it is a great experience, and I always enjoy it a bit more than I think I will. It is important for everyone to get into nature and enjoy it. Today I am going to share two new picture books about nature and uses your senses and imagination. The first is Tree Spirits Around the World words and photographs by Louise Wannier and illustrated by April Tatiana Jackson. It is recommended for ages four to nine but could work with any age.

Baba's Peach Tree

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Last week we shared a book about a Chinese American who fought for her right to go to school. This week we are sharing a new picture book (released today) about a father and daughter in rural China. It is Baba's Peach Tree by Marie Tang and illustrated by Seo Kim. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8.

Books for the Younger Kids

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

Do you have younger kids? Are you looking for some good books for them? I have a few suggestions today (like most days). Today's grouping is for the younger kids through beginning readers. The first is actually a new series by Brian Biggs: Tinyville Town. We will start with two board books from the series. The first is Tinyville Town I'm a Veterinarian.

Quilt Décor to get ready for the change of seasons

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in return for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. The links are affiliate links where I will receive a small percentage of any purchases made through them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

The weather here is beginning to change. Hazel is back at school and I feel fall coming. Do you decorate for the different seasons? Since September is National Sewing Month, I promised myself to share some of my sewing books that I need to review. Since all the sewing I have done is on the quilt that I reviewed last week (and making more masks for Hazel to go back to school), I decided to review one that I won't be actually making. Today I am going to share Wintertime Shimmer Quilt and Table Runner by Jennifer Sampou. Now I am not trying to rush the seasons. I love fall and am going to make some suggestions to change these patterns for different seasons. The photos however are from the book so they are about winter. I am not making these because my digital review copy did not come with the pattern pages so I don't actually have the patterns to try them.

Autumn & Change of Season Picture Books

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

With Thanksgiving this week, I feel like autumn is slowly slipping away. It is funny since I feel like it just began due to the warm weather we had for much of it. Of course it feels a bit like we went from summer to winter and skipped it all together. Plus the trees did not like the weather and never really turned as beautiful as they usually do. Today I am sharing three picture books with you. The first one is not actually an autumn book but with the shorter days I always think about lanterns and lights during this time of year. It is I Have a Little Lantern by Gan Dayong. 

The Wild Garden -- New Picture Book Perfect for Earth Day Everyday!

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Earth Day is this week! I wanted to share a book with you that screams Earth Day to me. Sadly, the book is not being released until May in the US, but it is the perfect book to talk about some of the Earth Day issues. The book is The Wild Garden by Cynthia Cliff. It is recommended for ages 5 to 9. I am also sharing a round-up of gardening crafts, activities, and recipes for kids.

It's On the Way -- a Religious Book to Help Pull You from Dark Places in Life

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Last week I shared a bit about what is happening in my life. Things have gone down hill since with my father. There has been a break-through Covid case in the staff of his facility. When I went to visit him we found out and he had a black eye when I saw him. Today we are waiting to hear the results of tests at the hospital after a nighttime fall and hitting his head. I have been so full of worry, anger, and shame. I felt my emotions getting to me and couldn't pull myself up. My depression was seeping back to a point I wasn't sure I could fight on my own. Then I picked up the book I'm sharing today and having just read a few chapters as well as the introduction and foreword my entire mood shifted. I didn't feel like I was falling into despair any more. I remembered to trust God. The book is It's On the Way by Lisa Osteen Comes. And before I tell you about it I want to say to Lisa, thank you! Your words truly are making a difference in my life. 

Sharing Saturday 14-7

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! We had over 100 posts shared!! I know I have been visiting and pinning away with all the great ideas shared! I am always so inspired by what everyone shares. If you have not had a chance to check them out, you really should! This week we had a most clicked. It is from Crafty Journal: Sweetheart Angel.

Winter Solstice

On Saturday winter begins where we live although with the weather this week, I think winter is already here. We have had two snowstorms since Saturday. Hazel has made her first snowman of the season! However the snow was a bit icy to make snow angels at least in the first storm. The second one she has not gotten to play as much since she got sick (after playing in the first snowstorm). We have been talking about the shorter days. Of course Hazel is trying to figure out what that means--are there less hours in the day?

Picture of Our Back Yard This Afternoon

To get ready for the first official day  of winter, I thought we would read some winter books and try a few crafts. After reading some winter books, Hazel decided we needed to make some paper snowflakes. This is one of her favorite things to do.

Then we read some more books. We went to the library and found a huge selection of winter books and here are some we got as well as some of our favorites from our own collection.

Although I keep explaining about there being less sunlight on the winter solstice, I am not sure Hazel gets the concept yet. I hoped some of these books would help her. The first two books in this collection are about multiple seasons. The third, Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer may sound confusing, however the story is told by a boy who explains how his world becomes warm (for example, hot chocolate instead of cold milk, pajamas with feet) because of the cold temperature outside.

We also had to look at some books about snow. After all that is the best and the worst part of winter.  Red Sled by Rita Judge and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats are two of our favorite snowy/winter books.

Three of these books have activities and/or crafts in them. The top two are just about crafts and activities. It's Winter by Linda Glaser has some winter activities and explorations to do at the end of the story. It goes through what the animals are doing while it is cold outside. In the Seasonal Crafts series, Winter by Gillian Chapman has crafts for many holidays and events. The craft we decided to do was make construction paper finger puppets to go with stories that the Inuit women tell on winter nights to pass the time.

Now the Inuit people live in the Arctic. As we can imagine their winter days are long and dark.  To pass time they shared stories. Many were about the animals they lived with and ate: the caribou, the walrus and seals. Then of course there are stories about the sun, moon and the Aurora Borealis. The Inuit traditionally lived in igloos in the winter.

Source: By Ansgar Walk (photo taken by Ansgar Walk) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

 How would you like to live in here for the winter?

Addition on the Winter Solstice: We read the best book for the winter solstice tonight. It is The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson. It goes through history on how the winter solstice was celebrated as well as giving an experiment to try to understand the seasons. I highly recommend checking this one out!!






 





Looking for more winter ideas check out:
Winter Solstice
Let It Snow! Winter Wonderland Tea Party
A Wonderful Winter Book: Red Sled
My Winter Pinterest Board

Paper Quilling Four Seasons: Chinese Style -- Crafty Sundays Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I have become a bit fascinated with paper quilling. I shared my first projects previously. After trying it a bit I wanted to get some books about it. I bought a paper quilling kit from Amazon. Then I looked for some books to review. Tuttle Publishing answered my quest. Today I am going to share one of the books they sent me. Paper Quilling Four Seasons Chinese Style by Zhu Liqun and Zhu Liqun Paper Arts Museum. 

Learning Some Science Part 1 -- Back-to-School

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

Today we are going to look at some books that make science (and math/computers) interesting. These books are perfect for the younger grades and teach a bit of history, science and more. The first is Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts. 

Books for Earth Day

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It is hard to believe Earth Day is next week! I feel like April is flying by and as a former teacher once April hits--well April vacation (next week)--I feel like the school year is basically over. Hazel's new school has a different vacation schedule so she had two weeks off in March, but I know the public schools are off next week so the feeling is still there. Today I am going to share an other set of books that are great for Earth Day. These books range for ages 4-7 and 7-12, so basically books perfect for elementary grades. We will start with Sunrise Summer by Matthew Swanson and illustrated by Robbi Behr. 

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Little Sister and the Month Brothers

Today we are going to discuss a wonderful Cinderella story called Little Sister and the Month Brothers. From the research I have done it looks like this story is from Czechoslovakia. There are also other versions around, but I have not checked them out yet. In the collage below are the other two versions as well as both the paperback and hard cover of our featured book.  I also found another version on-line here.

Before going into the story a little history on Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state from 1918 to 1993. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into two countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Source

From 1939 to 1945 Czechoslovakia was under Nazi Germany rule, however its government was still operation in the United Kingdom. In 1945 the Soviet Union took over the eastern part of the country.(Source)

Now onto our story. I found the full text available here.

In this story, there is Little Sister. No one knows her name and everyone calls her Little Sister. She lives in a cottage with her stepmother and stepsister. Little Sister is an orphan and her stepmother makes her do all the work. However Little Sister is always singing or humming to herself and always pleasant. Each day she grows more beautiful and kinder. One day the stepmother realizes that if a suitor was to come to the house he may choose Little Sister over her own daughter. The stepmother and stepsister plot to rid themselves of Little Sister. They decide to send her out in the cold winter weather to look for violets. They lock the door behind her and tell her not to return without the violets.

Little Sister knows she will not find violets in the winter, but searches for them anyway. She walks without a coat through the fierce wind and snow. Finally when she feels she cannot take another step she sees a light high above her. She goes towards and and uses all her courage and energy to climb a tall rock mountain. At the top of it she finds twelve men around a fire. She knows at once that they must be the Month Brothers. She approaches them politely and January asks her what she needs. She asks politely to warm near the fire and then explains about needing violets to return home. Since she is so polite, January tells his brothers they must help Little Sister, so he passes the staff to Brother February. February passes it to March  who passes it to April saying April is the only one who can give violets. Sure enough with each pass of the staff, the weather and trees change like the seasons. When April has the staff the grass grows and the violets grow. April tells Little Sister to pick as many as she would like. She uses her dress to hold them and fills it and runs home.

Stepmother and stepsister are amazed to see her with the violets. They do not thank her, but try to come up with another scheme to get rid of Little Sister. The next night they send her out with a bucket telling her not to come home without fresh strawberries. Again she does not have a coat, but she knows where to go this time. She heads to the Month Brothers. Again she is polite and they help her. The staff is passed to June. June tells her she may pick only five strawberries, which she does and runs home. The stepmother and stepsister greedily eat the strawberries and find them to be the best thing they have ever tasted. They ask her where she got them. The next day the stepsister dresses in all her fur to go out and get more. She finds the Month Brothers and when January asks what she needs she says she will only talk to June and is very rude. The brothers do not like this so January bangs the staff on the ground and there is a blinding blizzard and stepsister cannot see. She tries to find her way home, but cannot. After waiting quite awhile for her daughter stepmother becomes worried and goes to look for her. They were never seen again. 

Little Sister still had to do all the work, but now there was no one to complain, yell or order her around. One day an honest farmer came and asked her to marry him. She did and they lived happily in the cottage sharing the work with  minimal complaining.

Our craft for this story was to color twelve outlines of men as the Month Brothers. Then we made them into a wreath. We used an embroidery hoop wrapped with  four seasons of ribbon.

We taped the men onto it and then added some tissue paper in the center to be their fire.

Magical Forest Fairy Crafts Through the Seasons -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: I was given this ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Are you getting ready for the holidays? We are and are loving it. Today I am sharing a fun book for kid crafters or for adults to make crafts for or with kids. This book reminds me of our Waldorf days perhaps because they always had their first Forest Fairy book on sale at the holiday fair at the Waldorf School. Afterall fairies are part of the magic of Waldorf. The book is Magical Forest Fairy Crafts Through the Seasons by Lenka Vodicka-Paredes and Asia Currie. 

Fairy Houses, Fairy Gardens & More

Last weekend our next door neighbor (a 10-year-old) came over to play with Hazel. They decided to build a house. They started with a fairy house. They started by gathering materials--sticks, rocks, pine cones and leaves (though I had to stop them from pulling up all the lily of the valley leaves--oops!). I also brought out our collection of treasures from our nature walks. I think they did a nice job.

Hazel has been getting into fairy houses a bit more since we discovered the book Fairy Houses by Tracy L. Kane. It is a wonderful book about a girl whose family takes her to an island off the coast of Maine and in the woods there is a place where people build fairy houses following the rules of the woods which are posted. At the end of the book, there are ideas for building fairy houses in all four seasons.

On our walk through the woods at Mass Audubon, we looked for fairy houses or at least good places for one. We liked this one below. A fallen tree with another tree winding around it. It looked magical to me.

Last year I saw at The Magic Onions her fairy garden contest. Hazel and I entered it. Here is my entry. Here is Hazel's entry. Then Hazel wanted to put the three little pigs in it and build their houses, so here is that one. Donni at The Magic Onion is having the contest again this year. Now I'm really going to work on getting Hazel into it. We shall see what we can come up with this year. I always like to get Hazel thinking about such magical things.

My plan this year is to take Hazel to pick out plants/flowers for it and find a good container to put it in. Then we can add the rocks and furniture, etc. We shall see where Hazel's imagination takes us this year.

How about you? Will you entertain some fairies this year?

Christmas in Hawaii -- Hawaii Challenge -- Christmas in Different Lands

As part of the Multicultural Kids Blog's annual Christmas in Different Lands Series, we are taking a look at Christmas in Hawaii. I figured since we are participating in our Hawaii Challenge we might as well find out what Christmas is like on the islands.

Hazel's Fairy Garden

The arbor entrance to the large garden

Large garden overall view

Easter Around the World: Guatemala

As Easter is approaching, I started wondering how it was celebrated differently throughout the world. I know every church seems to have its own way of doing it as well as every family, but I wondered what traditions were out there. I have close friends who are Greek Americans and gone through many Easter seasons with them. At some point I will share some of their traditions.

The first thing I discovered is that the different celebrations seem to also incorporate Holy Week. Holy Week is the week starting with Palm Sunday (one week before Easter) until Easter. The special days differ a bit but the major ones include Palm Sunday (the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem), Good Friday (the day Jesus died), and Easter Sunday (the day Jesus rose from death).

Flag of Guatemala

Today we are focusing on Easter and Holy Week in Guatemala. Guatemala is a country in Central America. It borders Mexico, El Salvador, Bolivia and Honduras as well as the  Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Guatemala has had many different types of government including Mayan rule. It also had a Civil War being fought from 1960 to 1996. Since the Civil War it has had economic growth and elected a new president in 2011. Nearly all of its residents are Christian with only 1% following the indigenous Mayan faith. During Colonial times Roman Catholic was the official religion, but in recent years Protestant religions have been popular with nearly one third of residents being Protestant. (Source)

Source

The first thing that peaked my interest in Easter in Guatemala was a book we found at the library called Sawdust Carpets by Amelia Lau Carling. The book is written by a Chinese woman who grew up in Guatemala. One of her fondest childhood memories was the sawdust carpets or Alfombras de Acerrin made for the parades re-enacting Holy Week or the procesiones. The most famous of these occur in Antigua, Guatemala. The author remembers a trip to visit her aunt, uncle and cousins that lived in Antigua one Semana Santa (Holy Week). In the story she describes seeing the neighbors making the beautiful colorful sawdust carpets and even helping a neighbor with one. The neighbor gives the leftover materials to the children so they can make their own. They design and make one just as the procession is beginning. The young narrator tries to stand in the way of the procession so their special carpet will not be ruined. The neighbor steps in to explain how each carpet is an offering to life. They then watch the procession and see the different floats with statues portraying the story of Holy Week. There are bands who follow each float playing music to set the mood of the float. Overall the day is exciting and sad all rolled into one which seems like a wonderful description of Holy Week to me.

Source: By Municipio de Patzún (Municipalidad de Patzún)
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We also researched some more of these sawdust carpets by reading about Semana Santa in the Fiesta! series Guatemala. This book describes Holy Week or Easter as the most colorful and biggest fiesta in Guatemala with Antigua having the best festival. During this time planting is done and Indians ask their gods to give them a good harvest. The week however is very solemn. The stores close and there are long religious rituals. Antigua was the capital when the Spaniards ruled and the traditions date back to that time, so this is why it has the biggest festival.

To make the carpets, local people make big stencils of birds, flowers, and religious symbols. They first lay down plain sawdust onto the wet ground. Then they use their stencils and colored sawdust to make the designs. They also embellish the carpets with flowers, pine needles, and fruit. To reach the middle of the designs without messing up what is already done they have raised pieces of wood to walk upon. These are made before Good Friday. The procession beings very early. Riders, dressed as Roman soldiers call for the death sentence of Jesus. Floats carry the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John as well as the effigy of Jesus. The men who pull the Christ floats are allowed to walk on the stenciled shapes on the street. They wear purple until 3 p.m., the time Jesus died on the cross. They carriers then change their clothes to black until Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is a day of joy with music and dance. (Source: Fiesta! Guatemala by Grolier International)

Source: GuateRob at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

The largest float requires 80 men to carry it. They are switched every 10 to 15 minutes so the procession can require more than 2500 carriers. Women carry the float with the Virgin Mary on it. It is an honor to be a carrier and often it is passed down through generation to generation of a family. Incense is lite before the procession starts and the streets fill with spectators as well as carriers and smoke and scent from the incense. (Source)

Source: By Jialiang Gao www.peace-on-earth.org (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

The entire procession sounds like a perfect way to celebrate Easter. I hope some day to actually see it. I wanted to do a craft with the idea of sawdust carpets using colored sand, but we have not had time yet. If we do make one, I will be sure to post pictures here. How do you celebrate Easter? What are some of your family's traditions?

For a great first hand experience of the flower carpets in Antigua, check out World Travel Family's post Flower Carpets in Antigua Guatemala.

Be sure to check out:

• My Easter craft and book round-up
• My Lent round-up 
• Easter in Ethiopia
• Easter in Sweden 
• Legend of the Sand Dollar (an Easter Story)
• Easter in Spain, Portugal and France
• Easter in Ukraine and Russia
• Multicultural Easter Books
• My Easter Craft Round-Up
• My Easter and Lent Pinterest Board
• My Multicultural Pinterest Board