Sleeping Beauty of Chile - Fairy Tales in Different Cultures

I have been MIA for a couple of weeks. I have decided to put an end to Crafty Weekends since there was not much participation in the link parties, but keep an eye out for all my fun crafts and craft reviews in the future. A few weeks ago I promised to bring back Fairy Tales in Different Cultures and since today is the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month I thought I would share a Hispanic version of a fairy tale. We decided to focus on Sleeping Beauty so today we are sharing a Sleeping Beauty tale from Chile. I have shared various stories, information and crafts related to Chile previously. Including two fairy tales from the same book which I found today's. It is Folktales of Chile edited by Yolando Pino-Saavedra. I took it out of the library, but it available used on Amazon.

Learning about Juan Felipe Herrera and His New Book Imagine

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

Today I am participating in Multicultral Kid Blog's Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Hop. I am going to share a new picture book by Juan Felipe Herrera called Imagine. It is illustrated by Lauren Castillo. When I read the book, I wanted to know more about the man who wrote it and I soon learned he is an interesting man to learn about and I thought I would share about Juan Felipe Herrera with you.

Horsing Around -- Fun Facts about Horses, 2 Picture Book Reviews and Craft & Book Round-Up

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

Have you ever horsed around? Today is the day! I have two beautiful, horse-themed picture books to share with you and I thought it would be fun to look at some fun facts about horses and share a round-up of crafts and other horse-themed books. Ready for some horse fun?!

Fun Facts about the Tooth Fairy & Lost Tooth Traditions from Around the World

Did you know that August 22nd (and February 28) is National Tooth Fairy Day? In honor of this fun holiday I am sharing some fun facts about the mysterious Tooth Fairy. No one knows what the Tooth Fairy looks like, but often the Tooth Fairy is betrayed as a female with wings.

New Year Traditions from Around the World

How do you celebrate New Year's? Most of the people I know go to a party or celebrate with their family at home, but have you ever looked at what some of the traditions are from around the world? There are some interesting ones.

Christmas in Nigeria -- Jollof Rice

Today we get to share our post for Christmas in Different Lands. Before we do, however, I want to share a quote from Hazel: "Next year you should pick four countries and cook something from each one for each week of Advent to post on your blog."

We decided to explore Nigeria because Hazel wanted to learn more about it. One of her best friends' family is from Nigeria, so I asked her mother for information. So much of this information is straight from someone who grew up there and still has family there.

Christmas Church Services Around the World -- Christmas in Different Lands

In many parts of the world church services or masses are an important part of Christmas. Many countries have traditional times for the service. Does yours? Growing up we always went to what was called the midnight candlelight service. It started at 11:00 p.m. and ended around midnight. The service always ended with singing Silent Night and having each person light a candle from the flame of the Christ candle in the Advent wreath. Now we usually go to the earlier Christmas Eve service so Hazel can stay awake. 

Novena

 For many the celebration of Christmas takes place in the church. In some countries the church services begins on December 16th. In Venezuela there is an early morning church service called Misa de Aguinaldo held every day from December 16 to December 24. Often there are bells and firecrackers to wake the parishioners for the early services. In the capital city, Caracas, it is tradition to roller skate to these services. As a result the streets are often closed to cars until 8 a.m. On December 24 the mass is at midnight and is called Misa de Gallo. (Source) Chile also celebrates with a Novena. There are church services throughout December in Chile, but on the 16th special prayers begin the day as well as visits to local churches. (Source) The Philippines also have early morning or pre-dawn masses for the nine days prior to Christmas. (Source) In Puerto Rico it is called Misa de Aguinaldos and is held from December 15 to December 24th. The mass is held at dawn (around 6 a.m.) and the services are usually sung with traditional Puerto Rican instruments accompaniment. On the 24th the mass is at midnight and is called the Misa de Gallo. (Source)

Christmas in Different Lands: Stockings, Shoes and more!

For my post today we are going to explore the Christmas tradition of stockings and/or shoes. This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Christmas in Different Lands Series. Growing up stockings were always a big thing. One of my sisters loves stocking gifts. We all would run down the stairs and get our stockings and start opening the gifts. As we got older it changed to us taking turns opening one stocking gift at a time so everyone could see it. As we got older still (adults) we started buying a few stocking gifts for everyone. As a child I always thought my stocking was not as exciting as the rest of my families. I had a hand knitted one that was going to be a sock for my father, but was too big. Everyone else had felt ones that had fun decorations and their names on them. My mother tried out all sorts of things on her sewing machine when making them before my birth. My sisters always tried to tell me my plain one was better because it stretched, but I didn't buy it. When we were adults my mother hand knitted new ones for all of us that are beautiful. She still has them at her house in case any of us are there for Christmas morning (my family usually is not but everyone else often is). My family still has the stocking tradition. Hazel is always very excited to hang our stockings and actually has made, bought and found stockings for Ducky and some of her dolls. (I recently shared one that I made for her doll as well.)

Sharing Saturday 15-34

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!!Once again your ideas blew me away!! I love seeing all the great things shared. The features this week are for our little ones, learning about the world and science. Remember the features are just a sampling of the things shared so if you did not get a chance to check them all out, go back and be inspired!

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Senegal -- Poulet Yassa

Today we are catching up with January's Around the World in 12 Dishes. We visited Senegal. We read many books about Senegal and some stories from Senegal, but did not find any recipes of things my family would eat in the books, so I found one on-line. Be sure to check out the introduction post I wrote about Senegal. 

Pointe des Almadies, the westernmost point of the African continent (mainland),
located in the area of Dakar, Senegal By Jeff Attaway [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Happy New Year!

I know I promised to keep posting and somehow between Hazel and I being sick (Hazel still is) and Hazel's birthday party, I feel like every time I sit down to write I just want to go to sleep and I didn't want to write a bad post, so I waited. So this is a bit late, but I thought I would share about New Year's Eve and Day with you. How did you celebrate? Did you celebrate?

Did you know there are different times of the year that people in the world celebrate New Years? Hazel and I took some books out from the library to let her know more about New Year's and I have learned so much reading them. The first one is Happy New Year! by Emery Bernhard. This book gives a bit of history of New Year's and how it has been celebrated throughout the times. It also goes into the ways different cultures have and some still do celebrate it and when. It even discusses the change of the calendar to make January 1st the new year introduced by Julius Caesar. (This is the reason on months do not match their prefixes by the way.) Caesar changed the beginning of the year to January instead of March. By the way if you are in Rome on New Year's Eve, watch out for dropping crockery. Their tradition is to throw their cracked or chipped crockery out the window at midnight. Noise-making was originally meant to scare away evil spirits. In Bali it still is. On New Year's do you celebrate the new year or say goodbye to the old one? Each culture seems to differ on this as well. 

The other books we took out (so far) are craft books. We have Holiday Handiwork by Gillian Souter. For New Year's it has a noise-maker craft as well as a dancing dragon for the Chinese New Year. By the way the Chinese New Year and other lunar new years (like  Vietnamese and Korean) will be January 31st this year. This year the Tibetan New Year is March 2nd; the Persian New Year is March 21st; the Hindu New Year is March 31st; the Hmong New Year is April 12th; and the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is September 25th. (Source of dates)

Our third book is Happy New Year, Everywhere! by Arlene Erlbach. This book shares information about the new year in twenty different countries as well as a craft/project to do from that country. This book is wonderful for teaching about different cultures! And the activities look so fun!

This year is the first year we actually "celebrated" New Year's Eve with Hazel. We went to our local library. They had some crafts and a countdown to noon. Then they played fireworks on a large screen television and had the kids jump on bubble wrap (it sounded like fireworks). Then they served sparkling cider and fish crackers. Hazel had so much fun. Oh, and the librarians had a balloon drop at noon for the kids too. Each child could make three crafts. The first was a New Year's crown. They used some Grinch crowns they had.

Then they had an egg shaker with plastic Easter eggs, popcorn kernels, decorative tape and stickers. Every child needed one to shake at noon!

The final craft was a homemade kazoo. It is made with a toilet paper roll, tissue paper, rubber band and a hole punch. Punching the hole is key to it working.

Hazel had so much fun!! She did not want to leave. Luckily we were headed out for a nice lunch with her grandmother at Hazel's favorite restaurant so we got her out of there.

And to make it even more interesting for you here are a few fun New Year's traditions I found on-line:

• In the Netherlands, they burn their Christmas trees in bonfires to get rid of the old and welcome the new. They also have fireworks.
• In Spain they eat twelve grapes at midnight to secure twelve months of happiness.
• In Japan they host "forget-the-year" parties in December and then on New Year's Eve the buddhist priests 108 times to expel the 108 human weaknesses. 
• In Brazil it is customary to wear all white except also brightly colored underwear. It is customary in Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia and Venezuela to wear brightly colored underwear. Yellow is supposed to bring money and red brings love.
• In Chile, they eat a spoonful of lentils at midnight to have a year of work and money.
• In South Africa, they throw old appliances out their windows.

Source

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/newyearcelebrations.html

http://www.latinopost.com/articles/2498/20131226/new-years-eve-2014-oddest-new-years-eve-traditions-from-around-the-world.htm

Now I would love to hear your family's traditions.

Flamingo Friday: Chilean & Caribbean Flamingos

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Continuing on looking at the species of flamingos, I thought I would give you some information about the last two that live in the Americas: the Chilean and the Caribbean Flamingos. Now these are the only flamingos I have seen live since our local zoo and Sea World have these kinds.

Source: By Kevin Walsh from Bicester, England, UK.
(flamingoscene.Uploaded by PDTillman.) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Chilean Flamingo:

Source

The Chilean Flamingos range from 31 to 51 inches in height. Their weight ranges from 4.2 to 6.6 pounds. It is closely related to the Caribbean and the Greater Flamingos. Their plumage is pinker than the Greater flamingos but lighter than the Caribbean. Their legs are also grey with pink joints and a large amount of black on their bills. Their young are grey and remain grey for two to three years. Both male and female Chilean flamingos produce the "milk" to feed their young.

Chilean and Caribbean Flamingos at Stone Zoo, Stoneham, Massachusetts

Here is a YouTube Video of some Chilean flamingos at the Atlantic Zoo.

They breed in temperate South America: from Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Argentina and east to Brazil. They also have been introduced in Germany and the Netherlands and have a small population in Utah and California in the United States.

Hazel and a flamingo at Sea World

Source

Sources:  Sea World Animal Bytes and  Wikipedia

The Caribbean Flamingo:

Source

A Parent feeding a Young Chick at Stone Zoo

 The Caribbean flamingo is also known as the American flamingo. It is the only species of flamingo that inhabits North America naturally. The Caribbean flamingo is one of the larger and the brightest of the flamingos. Their height ranges from 31 to 57 inches and their weight ranges from 4.2 to 6.6 pounds. Their feathers are pink with  red wing coverts. They have black flight feathers (like most flamingos). Their beaks are pink and white with a black tip and their legs are completely pink.

Source: By Martin Pettitt from Bury St Edmunds, UK
(Caribbean flamingo) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Caribbean flamingos are found in the North Coast of South America, the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and a range of Caribbean islands. There is also a small population in the Galapagos Islands. They are the only species of flamingos that breed in small groups (sometimes as small as 3-4 pairs).
Sources: Wikipedia, Sea World Animal Bytes, and Flamingo Resource Centre

Source

Here is a video from YouTube of a Caribbean flamingo chick taking its first steps.


That is what we have for this week's Flamingo Friday. Soon we will talk about the Greater and the Lesser flamingos. Enjoy!!

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  
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