Fairies and Love Bug Dolls

So yesterday I was considering posting some of our crafts for the Chinese New Year or Valentine's Day, but when I came home from my Christian Education meeting at church, I didn't feel like formatting pictures and doing it, so I put it off until today. Then I was checking out some of my favorite blogs (which I have not been doing as regularly as I would like) and noticed that The Magic Onions is holding a giveaway of Margaret Bloom's new book, Making Peg Dolls. 

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Now I remember awhile back when Margaret mentioned to me in email that she had just gotten the deal for the book, but she was still keeping it low key. I am so excited for her and am so inspired for her. So my next stop of course was to check out we bloom here (Margaret's blog). Well on Monday, she kicked off her blog book tour and the post on The Craft Crow included a book review and a tutorial on love-bugs. I felt inspired, so I went and found some peg dolls and some clothespins as well as my paint markers and some flowers I had been saving for making flower fairies, felt and a few of our leftovers from different Valentine's Day crafts. I made two peg dolls--one a love-bug inspired by The Craft Crow's and a little flower fairy that I'm calling a snow drop fairy.

For the love-bug I painted the body red and cut pink felt stripes. I used a pink felt heart for wings. Then I cut a sparkly pink pom pom in half and it sort of fell apart, but I used it to cover the head. I painted a face on making the mouth heart shaped and then used a pipe cleaner as antennae.

For my little snow drop fairy, I painted the body light blue. Then used a fabric white flower (probably a daisy) as a skirt. I thought the light blue did not show up well so I went over the part showing with a more turquoise color. I used a white felt heart for the wings and painted on a face and hair. Then glued the same type of white flower together to form a hat. 

From the clothespins I made a chrysanthemum fairy and a queen of the flower fairies.

For the chrysanthemum fairy, I had flowers that were almost the same in two sizes. I used two large flowers on the bottom for the skirt and then used about five small ones for the top of her dress. I cut a pink felt heart in half and glued them together point to point for wings. I gave her a face and hair with paint markers and then put a sparkly plastic flower sticker for a hat.

For my queen of the flower fairies, I used a large felt flower for her dress and a small fabric flower for the collar. I gave her a green heart for wings and painted on her face and yellow hair. Then for her crown I used zig zag decoration and wrapped it around to be a rosebud. It takes quite a bit of glue and holding to get it to stay but you can also just pass a few stitches through it. My sewing stuff was not near me and I was being lazy. Then I just glued it on.

It was so fun to be inspired to craft again. Hazel is very excited to have some surprises this morning as well. How have you been inspired by something lately?

A Quick Little Valentine Project

While Hazel was making her lavender heart, I started making her a felt Valentine. I hadn't gotten very far with it that day since she needed more help than I had hoped on her heart, but I took it with me and finished it up at different places where I was sitting waiting (swim lesson, doctor's offices, etc.). I filled it with wool stuffing and a bit of lavender. She loves it even if her name did not come out all that well. Oh, well. It is a little Valentine for my little Valentine. I think I may try making some more with other decorations.

Fairy Tales from Different Cultures--Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

In honor of Black History Month, I thought I would focus on some stories with black Cinderellas or from countries with a majority of black citizens. With one exception being next week, where we will honor the Chinese New Year with Cinderella from China. This week we are looking at a different version of the story taking place in Africa. This story was inspired by a folktale collected by G.M. Theal and published in 1895 in his book Kaffir Folktales. The illustrations in the book were inspired by the ruins of ancient city found in Zimbabwe. The book is dedicated to the children of South Africa. The book is Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe.

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First a little bit about Africa. Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent. It covers six percent of the earth's surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area. Eastern Africa is widely accepted as where human beings began life.  The climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on the top of its highest peaks).  It's northern part is arid and desert. Central and Southern Africa has both jungles and savanna plains. 

Africa's population has increased greatly in the last 40 years. The population has a large proportion of its members under 25-years-old as a result. It is estimated that over 1,000 languages are spoken in Africa. Traditional African cultures have become less practiced in recent years due to neglect and suppression during colonialism and post-colonialism regimes.  (Source)

Now onto our book.  Mufaro's Beautiful Daugthers: An African Tale by John Steptoe is not your traditional Cinderella. In fact there is not very much of the traditional story in this one. There is a father and not a stepmother. There is a sister and not a stepsister and there is no talk about shoes lost or found. There is a bit of magic and of course the good and kind win over the cruel.  To begin let me tell you mufaro means happy man, nyasha means mercy, manyara means ashamed and nyoka means snake. This is in the author's introductory notes.  

Nyasha Doll

This story is about the two beautiful daughters of a man named Mufaro. His daughters are Nyasha who is kind and caring and Manyara who is selfish and mean. Manyara only mistreats her sister when their father is not around. She is often heard saying some day she will be queen and Nyasha will be her servant.  Nyasha does not understand why her sister is so unhappy and miserable. She wishes Manyara could enjoy her life more. 

Nyasha is always kind to everyone and has no problem helping with the household chores and even has her own vegetable garden. She loves singing while she tends her vegetables and it is said that her plants grow bigger and more bountiful than anyone else's because of her singing. One day she finds a green garden snake in her garden. She welcomes the little Nyoka since he will scare away the animals that may eat things from her garden. Each day she sees him there and sings to him.

One day a messenger comes to their village saying the king would like all the beautiful and worthy daughters to come to the palace so he may choose a wife. The palace is on the other side of the river is a half a day away. Mufaro tells his two daughters that they both will go with a wedding party the next morning. Manyara tries to convince her father that only she should go since Nyasha will grieve to death to be separated from their father and home. Mufaro says that the king must choose between two such worthy daughters so they both will go.

Manyara leaves during the night by herself since she wants to be the first to see the king. She has not traveled through the forest during the night before and is a bit scared, but wants to be there first. She sees a young boy who begs her for food, but she says no. Then an old woman calls her by name and gives her advice and Manyara yells at her. She also does the opposite of the advice.

At daybreak Nyasha gets dressed for the journey and meeting the king and hears commotion outside. It is discovered that Manyara is missing. They find footprints on the path to the city, so they assume she went on her own, but Nyasha is worried about her sister. 

When Nyasha sees the young boy she gives him the yam she had packed for her own lunch before he even asks for food. The old woman points the way and Nyasha gives her a small bag of sunflower seeds. Finally the reach the peak and see the river and the city and Nyasha says she has never seen anything so beautiful.

When they enter the gate of the palace they hear screaming and Manyara runs out. She begs Nyasha not to see the king saying that there is a snake with five heads in there. Mufaro comforts Manyara while Nyasha goes in to the king. On the throne she sees her friend, Nyoka. She smiles and asks why he is here. Nyoka then changes to the king and he tells Nyasha he knows her to be the most worthy since he has visited her as Nyoka and was the young boy and old woman in the forest. He asks her to marry him. Mufaro is proud that one of his daughters is the queen and the other is one of her servants. Quite the opposite of how Manyara always planned it.

Here is my summary sheet for our different Cinderella stories for this book. 

Our craft this time was to make a green snake to represent Nyoka. We used the tutorial at Ziggity Zoom which was a craft for the Chinese New Year since this is the year of the snake. We used Q-tips and masking tape (well we used blue painters tape because we had it) and then painted them and added some eyes and a tongue.

Next week we will be discussing some Chinese versions. I hope you will join us!

Groundhog Day and Play Again Film

So last night I noticed that Tippytoe Crafts had shared an adorable Groundhog Day Craft. This one was easier than the one we tried last year and she provided two links to pictures of groundhogs to color. We of course had to try both. Hazel wanted to decorate one with snow and color the other with blue and purple snow.

This morning Steve and I went to Hazel's school to see the film Play Again. This is a documentary about the generation growing up with more time indoors and in front of screens then outside and exploring the real world. It is really scary to think abut what the consequences of this may be. If you think about the fact that children in the United States spend 90% of their time indoors and about 11 hours a day in front of a screen (television, computer or video). Many kids are learning on screens now and this is not the same as learning by exploring nature. They are also showing that their brains are being developed differently because of this screen time and exposure to violent video games (I believe the statistic given in the movie was 7 out 10 kids say they have played a video game rated M for Mature). You can read an article in Bamboo Magazine about the film.

Think about it, many children's exposure to nature is on a screen. You can learn many things about an animal or a flower on the computer or a television show, but can you really experience it and understand it that way. Is that really how we want this generation to think of nature?

One of the specialists in the film asked the viewer to think about his/her most magical childhood memories. Where are yours? Most I would guess do not include a television, movie or computer. In fact I would even guess most are outdoors. I know mine are. 

So what are we doing to our children today with their overfilled schedules and very little free time to explore the world and to just be in nature? Have any thoughts? I know I said to Hazel's teacher after the film that I was glad we made the choices we have for Hazel. Her teacher had just mentioned how she was trying not to think about the scary side of the film and where our world could be going. I know I work hard to get Hazel to be in nature as much as possible. Plus our choice of Waldorf education also gets her outside. 

The other day when I picked her up from school she was covered in mud. I mean covered completely. We had an appointment to go get our picture taken at Sears right after school. I took her outer layers off and had luckily brought extra shoes. Her rain pants (first time she wore her new ones) were caked with mud as was her jacket and boots and mittens. I through everything into the trunk and took her to Sears. When we got to the studio I took her shirt that she had under her dress off since the sleeves were muddy and we hid the mud spots on her tights and the ties of her dress. But to me seeing her all muddy meant she had a great day. None of it bothered me, because I know it is important part of childhood to enjoy the mud. I always try to encourage it, so I was happy to see her that way. She is still talking about playing in the mud on Thursday and how much fun it was.

So do you let your children have time to just play outside like we did when we were little? Why or why not? What effect do you think this change in society will have?

Sharing Saturday 13-5

Wow, I had a hard time choosing some features from the amazing 90 posts shared last week! If you have not had a chance to check them all out, you should. I am so inspired!! Now to find some time to try some of the great activities out. This past week Hazel was home sick and was a bit needy, so we did not get as much done as I had hoped and I had very little time to post.

Anyway, on to this week's features. First as I went through I noticed there were a large number of posts about polar climate animals. Since there were six posts on them, I felt they needed to be featured. Note: since some blogs shared two on this topic, I only took pictures from one and shared both links below.

1) From Gift of Curiosity: Arctic Animals: 9 Learning Activities (This is one of two posts shared on arctic animals by Gift of Curiosity last week.)
2) From Raise a Boy: Preschool Penguin Craft
3) From The Usual Mayhem: Polar Animals
4) From Sugar Aunts: Polar Bear Science (This is one of two posts shared on polar bears by Sugar Aunts last week.)

And now a few of my other favorites!! I will also be featuring some of the great ideas for Valentine's Day as we hopefully try to do them and if not I will feature them on Valentine's Day, so be sure to come back and check!

1) From Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes: Cultural Play Date for Chinese New Year
2) From 4 kids, 2 guinea pigs one happy family: Recycling Christmas Cards-Literacy and Math Ideas
3) From Zing Zing Tree: Make An Ice Cave
4) From Carrots Are Orange: Culture & Activity for Kids for Chinese New Year
5) From Learning & Growing the Piwi Way!: Pre-K Monet
6) From Inspiration Laboratories: Frozen Vinegar Hearts--Science for Valentine's Day (Sorry, I had trouble getting a picture for you, but such a neat activity!)

Remember to also check out Chelle's features at Having Fun at Chelle's House!! Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! If you were one of the ones picked as a feature here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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From Your Hostess: This week I shared about International Book Giving Day, Russian Cinderella books and crafts and a simple Valentine idea made by a preschooler!

 

 

Now for This Week's Party 
 
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