We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

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.

Halloween is Coming: Wiggly Halloween DVD Review & Giveaway with Halloween Crafts

Today I am going to share with you a few of our Halloween preparations as well as a wonderful DVD from The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween. I was sent a copy of this DVD to review here (all opinions are my own) and I get to give a copy away to one of you! Thank you NCircle Entertainment for this opportunity!

Math Lesson: Finding Shapes and Patterns Everywhere!

Congratulations to Danelle for winning the Pocoyo's Circus DVD. Come back tomorrow for a new giveaway!

I haven't done a math lesson post in awhile, so I thought I would share some great picture books on shapes and patterns and a fun activity I use to do with my geometry students made easier for younger kids. The first book I am sharing is Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Greenfield Thong. Since it is still Hispanic Heritage Month, this is the perfect book to share and use for shapes. The book goes through many shapes: circles, squares, rectangles, stars and more. Each shape has several different things that are that shape. Many of the objects are mentioned in Spanish or are Hispanic in origin. We really enjoyed reading this book as it taught a bit about the culture as well as the shapes.

The next book is A Star in My Orange: Looking for Nature's Shapes by Sana Meachen Rau is a fun book about looking for stars in nature. Some we have thought of are on the leaves of tomatoes. This one had a few of its points bent and/or broken, but you can get the general idea.








 Another place is in an apple when you cut it horizontal instead of along the length of the core.

Our final book for today is part of the Math Every Day series and it is Patterns Outside by Daniel Nunn. It is a wonderful book to introduce looking for patterns. The focus of  the book is patterns found at a park in nature.




Now to go with these three books, I thought a fun activity would be a shape scavenger hunt and scrapbook.  This is an activity I use to do with my high school geometry students. Their list was much longer and harder, but I made a simple one in Word that you can use or change to what your child knows. (I did this project with the students at the beginning of the year to introduce many of the vocabulary words to them.)

The activity itself is to find different triangles either in a picture from a magazine, newspaper (some place they can cut it out) or take a photograph of one. Ideas would be the triangle formed to make a roof, a triangle musical instrument, the triangle in a butterfly wing, etc. I gave numbers for each shape. The list is done by pages so all the pictures of the triangles will be on the same page, then the pictures of squares, etc. The object of the activity is for kids to see geometry and shapes everywhere as well as get use to the terms. If you try it, please let me know how you like it! Again feel free to adjust the shapes and vocabulary words to make it age appropriate for your child(ren).

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: Cinderella Tales from Mexico

I have shared with you several Cinderella tales from Mexico as well as many different crafts and such from Mexico. Last April and May I shared two tales that are available in picture book form: Adelita and Domitila. I gave a brief history of Mexico in the Adelita post. Today I am going to share two more Cinderella tales from Mexico. These I found translated in English in Latin American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions by John Bierhorst.

From our Adeltia Post

The first tale is very similar to the Polish Jewish Cinderella tale, The Way Meat Loves Salt by Nina Jaffe. It is called Love Like Salt. In this version it is a king who has three daughters. The king asks his daughters how much each loves him. The eldest says more than the world's gold. The middle daughter says as much as all of her jewelry and the youngest replies as much as salt. The king is angered by his youngest daughter's answer and vows to have her put to death. He sends a servant to take her to the woods and kill her bringing back her little finger and eyes. The servant cannot kill the princess, but has to cut off her little finger and took the eyes from a small dog lost in the forest. She wandered the forest looking for food and shelter. She found a hermit that lived in a cave.  The hermit lets her stay with him. Her life has really changed. She digs roots for food and drinks water directly from the stream and the cave is no palace. One day a lost prince finds her gathering flowers. He is overwhelmed with her beauty and proposes marriage to her. She accepts at once. They go home to his parents and he tells them he wants to marry this girl. They agree and the wedding invitations go out. On the day of the wedding she sees her father has arrived and points him out to the prince. She tells him to have the cooks not put any salt on the food that her father will be served. At the reception, the king complains about the lack of salt. She asks why he cares about salt so much now. He says you cannot eat without salt and she asks if he was ever offended by someone saying they loved him as much as salt. The king remembered his youngest daughter and she told him she was his daughter and shows her missing finger. He begs for forgiveness now realizing how much she meant.

Papel Picados we made last year

The second tale is The Dragon Slayer. This is a tale about a father with three daughters. The youngest daughter has the most beauty and the older two are very jealous. The oldest two take their father's money and hide it under the youngest's mattress while she sleeps and then tells their father when he discovers the missing money where it is. He cannot believe it, but checks anyway. He takes her by the hand with his machete in the other. She begs for her life saying she will go far away. He lets her go. She wandered for miles and eventually sat down to rest and eat the tortillas she had. An old woman came and asked for some food. She tells her to help herself. The old woman tells the girl where to go for work and gives her a magic wand. 

From our Hispanic DIY Musical Instrument Post Last Year

The girl uses the wand to find the castle the woman told her about and gets work in the kitchen. The king was very gloomy however and the girl asks her wand why. She hears that he must send his son, the prince, to be eaten by the seven headed dragon or the dragon will come eat all the people in the kingdom. The girl takes the advice of the wand on how to kill the dragon and manages to kill it. She then asks for the prince's hand in marriage. The king does not want his son to marry a kitchen girl, but he cannot go back on his word and they plan the wedding for the next day. She uses her wand to help get a dress and the wand tells her to ask the Virgin Mary for help. She wakes to find a beautiful gold dress. The prince falls in love with her instantly, but so does the king. The king gets jealous of his son and wants to kill him so he can marry the princess.

Dancing with a Rebozo from last year's post.

The princess uses her wand to find out how she can prevent this and she has to find a giant and get the ring from his tooth. She does this with the help from her wand and the ring gives her the power to change things and she changed the king into a wild pig. The prince shot the pig and went off to win the war his father had sent him to fight. When he returned home he and the princess lived very happily.

From our Adelita Post

Now that concludes our fairy tales for this week. Next week's fairy tale will be on Sunday since Monday is the Virtual Book Club for Kids day. This month's author is Nick Sharratt.

Teaching the Trinity to a Preschooler

Last call to enter my current giveaway!!

The other day I was looking at the e-mail post from Catholic Icing on ABC Christian Crafts. Now I'm not catholic though Steve is. We made the decision to bring Hazel up in my protestant church. Hazel does occasionally go to mass with Steve and his mother. Hazel and I usually go to our church every week except when we are sick, and I'll admit to not going a few times in the summer since I found without childcare I was not getting as much out of the service with the distraction of "Mommy, is it almost over?" for almost the whole service. During the school year Hazel goes to Sunday School class while I am in the service. Our church has a wonderful children's program and I know Hazel will learn a lot from it. However, I do try to also include lessons at home so she understands that God is not just something we talk about at church. Ok, back to Catholic Icing and the ABC Christian Crafts. I was intrigued by the ABC Christian Crafts since Hazel learns a letter just about each week at school or should I say her class focuses on a letter each week (she already knows all the names of the lower case and upper case letters). I explored around there and discovered the book 3 in 1: A Picture of God by Joanne Marxhausen. I was able to get a copy out of our library network. It uses an apple to explain the idea of the Trinity.

The basic idea of using the apple is simple. There are three parts of an apple: the peel, the flesh and the core. Although there are three parts it is still only one apple.

The Trinity works the same way. There are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but all three make one God. 

After reading the book, we did a simple Trinity craft which I found on Catholic Icing as well. You need three popsicle sticks, pen and glue gun. You write Father, Son and Holy Spirit (one on each popsicle stick). Then you glue them to be a triangle. Add a string or ribbon and it is an ornament.

 We added God and Jesus to the Father and the Son sides. I also suggest not using markers since they bled a bit on the wood. I think a ball point pen would probably have been better.

Next I wanted to extend the lesson and did a search for Trinity crafts. I discovered Preschool Post and their amazing Free ABC Preschool Bible Lessons. The first lesson is the Trinity lesson as well as a lesson on apples and the letter A. They have some wonderful printables and lessons as well as our new favorite song to sing! Here is one of the printables we did. Hazel practiced her letters. The song is in the corner and I wrote on our apple the three parts being one apple.

They also had these neat printables. Hazel colored them for me.

Then while singing the song, the child folds the appropriate part. You get this.

The final printable we used was their bracelets. I colored one in for Hazel and I think she will wear it to church tomorrow.

Again all of these printables came from Preschool Post scroll down to the Bible lesson. They also have wonderful printables for apple lessons!

I have to say, I think Hazel actually gets the idea now, so the book and lessons worked. Plus we love singing the song. Have you approached the concept of the Trinity with your child(ren)?

Sharing Saturday 13-39

Thank you to everyone who came and shared last week and to those who came to be inspired by all the amazing things shared. I know the range of ideas last week was tremendous and there were so many interesting things to read--from turning a bad day around to everything fall. There was a four-way tie for most clicked, so instead I am just going to share a few of my favorites.

1) From True Aim Education: Birthday Wishes: DIY Card Holder (love this idea to display the cards)

2) From Peace but not Quiet: Lion Cupcakes (these are so cute and look pretty easy to make)

3) From Happily Ever Mom: Fall Tree Art (so beautiful and looks fun to make)

4) From Teach Beside Me: Flannel Board Pumpkin Face Match (looks fun and like something Hazel would love)

5) From Kid Activities Blog: Building a Catapult for Kids (what a fun activity)

6) From Toddlers through Preschoolers: Green Vegetables (great activities to do with green vegetables besides eating them)

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

From Your Hostess:
This week I did a review of Pocoyo's Circus and am offering a copy to giveaway, we shared a Cinderella tale from Chile, we shared our October line-up, we welcomed fall with Pottery Barn inspired painted acorns, we shared Hazel's waterbead fun, and we shared a flamingo book to use for Fire Prevention Week (next week).

Our current giveaway ends Sunday, but there will be many more coming this month!! I have several products to review that have offered a copy to giveaway as well.

Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post. 

3) Post the newly updated button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook,  Google+, and Pinterest 

 Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest. 

Flamingo Friday--A Flamingo Book for Fire Prevention Week

Next week is Fire Prevention Week. I thought it would be fun to start our planning for the week with a flamingo book. Yes, they actually have a fire safety flamingo story. We are going back to the Miss Mingo series of books. You may remember we featured Miss Mingo and the First Day of School about a month ago or so. If you don't know the series, Miss Mingo is a classroom teacher and her class is a mix of many different types of animals. In each book you learn about all the animals. In the First Day of School one you learned what was special about each animal. In this one you learn about how the animals deal with being scared or how they defend themselves.

In Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill by Jamie Harper, the class goes through fire prevention week with a series of lessons and practicing what to do when the fire drill goes off. Their week starts with Chief Grizzly coming to visit the class and talk about what to do if you hear a fire drill--get out as quickly as possible and what to do if your clothes catch on fire--Stop! Drop! and Roll! The next day the class practices the route of the first emergency exit route. They are not very successful at following the rules of staying with their partner and being quiet. Miss Mingo warns them there will be a fire drill soon. Then on Thursday Hippo sneezes and they think it is the fire drill. Miss Mingo is having lunch in the teacher's lounge and the armadillo lunch monitor is with the class. Miss Mingo comes back to total chaos. However when the fire drill does happen the class pulls it together and does a great job and is the first class to be out and counted. It is a wonderful story to introduce a fire drill to children. 

After reading this story (and having a fire drill at school) Hazel wants us to have a fire drill at home. I am planning on doing this next week. If you look at the facts about fire at the National Fire Protection Association, you see that seven people a day die in the United States in a home fire. For this reason, we will practice and also review what is necessary to know. I also printed out some of the activities and safety checklists available at the National Fire Protection Association's site for kids. There is a lot there including games and more. There are also more ideas available at Scholastic. Some of their activities are done by grades so you can print out the appropriate ones for your children.

When I was buying a treat for Hazel, she picked out this stuffed flamingo at Joann Fabrics. She named it Miss Mingo after the books! 

What are your plans for Fire Prevention Week? Do you do fire drills with your family?

Fun with Waterbeads

At our town's founders' day (a town festival) there was a waterbead vendor. Instead of doing sand art, we let Hazel get a container of waterbeads. It was set up literally like a sand art area where she could fill the container with whatever colors she wanted. After getting it the container just sat for weeks filled in my house. Then after doing our apple/nature prints, we pulled it out. Well actually we started with our very dry clear ones that I bought at the Dollar Store and left out for months. We added water and watched them grow. Then we pulled out the colored ones. Hazel wanted to sort them. We gathered bowls and cups for the sorting. I also gave her scoops and tongs to see what would be easiest.

After trying the tongs, she decided her hands worked much better. She got them all sorted by color. They have been doing sorting at school, so this was an extension of her class in many ways.

Once they were all sorted she had fun mixing color combinations. Then it was time to go run and play in the yard.

Have you played with waterbeads yet? They remind me of peeled grapes. I remember going to and creating "haunted houses" in elementary school and there was always a bowl of peeled grapes that you put your hand in and were told it was eyeballs. Waterbeads always make me think of this. Though I do have to admit, waterbeads is much easier to get out than peeling grapes. What do they remind you of?

Pottery Barn Inspired Painted Acorns

Have you entered my current giveaway yet? You can enter it every day!!

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!!