A Ghostly Day

The past few days we have been finally doing some Halloween crafts. One of our focuses has been ghosts. So today I will share our ghosts with you.

Virtual Book Club for Kids--This Plus That: Life's Little Equations

As you may remember I joined the following amazing blogs to host the Virtual Book Club for Kids where each month we host a blog hop where we share an activity to go with a book by the author of the month. This month's author is Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids -
 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo -  The Educators' Spin On It -  
Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - 
Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom -  Mommy and Me Book Club -  No Twiddle Twaddle - 
The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - 
Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas -  
Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - 
Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls -  
Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles -  
Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn

Last week I shared optical illusions introduced by Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This week we are going to talk about This Plus That: Life's Little Equations. We really enjoyed this book! It goes through with pictures of little equations like "yes + no = maybe" and even the colors like "blue + yellow = green."  For our activity we made up some equations. Some we spoke and I put pictures to later and some she helped me find things to represent them. Here are some family ones that I found pictures (or took pictures) to make them.

Then we did some more basic seasonal ideas.

And one of my favorites, using her story stones:

What equations can you come up with for your life?

And of course for those of you who have children who know or are learning addition you could easily use numbers in your equations! 

Now it is your turn to share!! If you have a new or old post about an activity to do with a Amy Krouse Rosenthal book, please share below and grab the button and code if you would like to help us advertise! Also please make sure you visit the other blogs that are hosting to see what they have created with the various Amy Krouse Rosenthal books! November's author is Tomie de Paola!

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/VirtualBookClubForKids"><img border="0"src="http://i984.photobucket.com/albums/ae323/toddlerapproved/virtualbookclub-2012.jpg" /></a>

Happy Family Times #30--Visit to the Iron Works

Have you had a fun adventure with your family or a relaxing time? We would love to hear about it. Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting our family activities in hopes to inspire all of us to have more quality family time. Please share below!

Pop, Hazel, and Mimi waiting for tour to start

This week we had my parents visit for a long weekend. We did some fun things with them, but I think the most interesting was visiting the Iron Works. It is a National Historic Site. You may remember in September I blogged about going to an iron pour there. This time we went for the Industrial Site Tour. A group of tiger scouts went as well. They kind of took over the tour and Hazel did not have the patience for the entire tour, so we left a bit early. It was really interesting though.

Iron Works--View from above Blast Furnace

So the Saugus Iron Works is first place in America to use this method to make iron. It was started by Governor Winthrop who wanted Massachusetts Colony to be independent of England. Originally they tried to start one in Braintree, but that was a failure due to poor choices. Then they brought over an engineer named Leder to build it. He choose this site and got it working. He also insisted on bringing in people from Europe to run it which of course the Puritans did not like since they were not as strict about their lifestyle.

Blast Furnace

The most interesting thing is that this site is celebrated because it went bankrupt. As a result all the trained workers spread throughout the company starting new iron works and developing the iron and eventually steel industry in America. Going on the tour, they actually do have some of the wheels turn and do some of the actions of the iron works. All of this site is rebuilt. Since it went bankrupt, the original went into disrepair. They found the foundations and some parts and rebuilt it where the buildings actually were.

We also went into the Rolling and Slitting Mill. Here again they spun the wheel for us, but even more interesting was that they used the large hammer and anvil. We had to cover our ears.

After this Hazel got antsy, so we left the tour. We missed going into the Forge. We however got to enjoy looking at the map which is where the tour started but the tiger scouts were crowded around so we could not get close.

Hazel enjoyed feeling it. The Park Ranger had poured water in it to show us how it would have run back in the 1600's.

Overall it was a fun visit! We know we will go back again and see the rest of the tour. Check out the museum some more and go on the tour of the house.

I must say fall was a beautiful time to visit there though!

Saugus River

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times ~ use our button so others can join the fun

Button Code:

<a href="http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g424/cpericola/HappyFamily-003-1.jpg" /></a>

~ we'd love for you to follow us Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts
~ check out our Happy Family Times Pinterest board where we will be pinning some of our favorite ideas

Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Multicultural Monday: Halloween

Now that the church's Pumpkin Patch with Holiday Craft Fair is over, I can focus my efforts on sewing Hazel's Halloween costume. Since I'm working on Halloween now, I thought I would look into the history of Halloween and how it is celebrated around the world.

Puzzle Piece Ghost Pin or Magnet

Sharing Saturday is open!! Please share your child-oriented crafts and activities or come to be inspired!

Today at the Pumpkin Patch we had a simple craft that I found in All New Crafts for Halloween by Kathy Ross. To make them you cut the sides of a puzzle piece and paint the piece white. Then we had the kids draw on the faces and if they wanted add glitter or color. Then they decided if they wanted to glue a pin back to them or use a piece of magnet tape. Above is the pin I made. The glitter originally said Boo, but I didn't let it dry and of course messed it up.  Below is Hazel's magnet. The original pins in the book were made with smaller puzzle pieces and had two ghosts glued together to the pin. We used the larger pieces since we already had them. The person who painted them white said it took about five coats of paint. I'm not sure what she used though.