Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: The Persian Cinderella

Today we are going to share The Persian Cinderella by Shirley Climo. Now Persia is known today as Iran. Iran is known to be home to one of the world's oldest civilizations. In the 7th century, Rashindun Muslims invaded Persia (putting an end to the Roman-Persian Wars). During the Islamic Golden Ages Persian literature, art, philosophy, and medicine played important roles in the development of the Muslim Civilization. 

Source: Samuel Augustus Mitchell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Thanksgiving Books and Being Thankful!

Congratulations to Rebecca P. for winning the Snowman and the Snowdog DVD! 

This year we discovered a great book that really helps hit home the whole Moms Fighting Hunger. Since Thanksgiving is so much about food around here, it is the perfect time to think about giving to those who do not have enough to eat. The book is The Can-Do Thanksgiving by Marion Hess Pomeranc. The story is about a class who does a can food drive and one little girl wants to know where her can will end up, so she writes her name and the school name on a label on it. The class gets invited to serve a Thanksgiving meal at a soup kitchen and the girl finds her can there. She also is able to save the day when the vegetable platter gets dropped on the floor. It is a great book about caring and sharing.

Hazel noticed the other day that the library was collecting food and asked about it. I told her that the library collects food for the local food pantry every November and December. If you bring in food for it, they forgive your overdue fines. Hazel wanted to bring some food to it, and since we were going to the grocery store I let her pick out some cans. Of course, I didn't take a picture of those, but I did buy some more to drop off there.

I hope you will join us in giving to those who are hungry this holiday season!


While on the topic of food, we did a quick corn craft. I am calling it our Thanksgiving Corn. I found it on Pinterest earlier today, but it comes from Highlights for Kids. I love how they do it for the Thanksgiving table, but we did it putting in things we are thankful for since we haven't done that yet this year. I also had Hazel use fingerprints to be the kernels since I knew she would not like drawing that many circles.

At Thanksgiving time we have fun reading books about Thanksgiving, turkeys and Native Americans. Here are some we have read and/or shared in the past:

 1) Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
2) Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey by Joy Cowley and Joe Cepeda (will be sharing about this one soon!)
3) 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey
4) Squanto and The First Thanksgiving by Joyce K.Kessell and Lisa Donze and here
5) A Child's Story of Thanksgiving by Laura J. Rader
6) Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
7) The Very First Americans by Cara Ashrose
8) The Naragansett by William S. Simmons
9)  Native American Stories by Joseph Bruchac
10) Children of the Wind and Water by Stephen Krensky
11) Algonquian Indians by June Behrens and Pauline Brower
12) The Wampanoag by Laurie Weinstein-Farson
13) Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross
14) Messner Holiday Library Thanksgiving Fun by Judith Hoffman Corwin
15) Holiday Handiworks by Gillian Souter
16) Thanksgiving Day Crafts by Arlene and Herbert Erlbach 
     and more crafts here

We also shared a round-up of our Thanksgiving crafts here in case you missed it!

Fun Facts about Honey Bees and Honey -- National Honey Bee Day!

Today (August 18) is National Honey Bee Day. It is the third Saturday in August each year since 2010. (It was the fourth Saturday in the first year, 2009.)Why do these buzzing little stingers deserve a special day? Well the numbers of honey bees is way down and life without these little flying miracles would be awful for us all. There has been so much out there about helping the bees. I thought today I would share some fun facts about these amazing pollinators and the delicious food they make themselves (besides all the food they help grow for us).

St. Nicholas

December 6th is St. Nicholas Day. And to let you in on a secret, he is visiting the Nursery Classroom at Hazel's school tonight. The children will be surprised when they go inside tomorrow morning. They will also hear a little about St. Nicholas. Do you know about him?

Saint Nicholas was born in the third century in Asia Minor, now Turkey, to a wealthy family. He was raised to be a devout Christian and lost his parents in an epidemic. There are many stories about his giving spirit and caring for the poor, the sick and the suffering. There are also many stories about how he cared for the children. For more information you should check out my source of this information, the St. Nicholas Center.

In the classroom tomorrow the children will hear about a good boy named Nicholas who was given so much good food and toys that he would walk with his pockets full of them and when he saw someone suffering or poor he would give that person his things. He went on to become a Bishop when he grew up and heard about an entire town that was suffering from hunger. He had all of his servants gather food and sailed a ship with blue and white sails to the town and knocked on the doors of the people. No one saw him, but when they answered the door there would be food at it.

There are also customs in some countries of leaving shoes out for your gifts. Apparently one of the times Nicholas threw the food in the windows it landed in a shoe and after that the shoe legend began.

So not only will Hazel get some St. Nicholas celebration at school in the morning, but we also made the hand puppet pictured above using the pattern I found at St. Nicholas Center. We followed the directions and glued everything. Hazel will get to play with it tomorrow.

I also made a felt ornament. I am going to give it to Hazel in the morning. I found the pattern at St. Nicholas Center as well. They also have stories, pictures, printables, find hidden object game and other crafts.

In the morning we will rush to school, but after school we will have some time to explore St. Nicholas a bit more. I printed the hidden object game (one of Hazel's favorite things to do nowadays) and pages to color as well as some of the paper crafts for us to try. 

We also found this book at the used book store, so we will be reading it tomorrow again. The book, The Gift from Saint Nicholas by Dorothea Lachner is a wonderful story about how children making a wish to St. Nicholas and he comes through with giving everyone what they wished even though it had been snowing for days and no one could leave their homes.

Now why do I love celebrating St. Nicholas? Well I love the fact that it changes Santa Claus to someone who believed in Jesus and followed God. I love that it takes the importance of what you receive away and makes it more important that you are a giving person. I feel that it reminds us of the true spirit of the holiday.  How will you be celebrating St. Nicholas Day?

A Place Inside of Me -- #blacklivesmatter

 

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

It is Labor Day, a day for rest. I have been taking this weekend off somewhat so I can get Hazel ready for the new school year. It begins tomorrow and she is going back in person. After being home for six months it is a hard transition. But I wanted to continue our Black Lives Matter Series. Today's post will be different. I have had this book to review that is a poem meant to heal the heart from all the riots, hatred and wrongs going on in the world these days. As a white person I find it powerful to read and get a glimpse into what my Black friends are experiencing. I have been trying to figure out how I wanted to share this book with you. It is powerful yet simple. I knew I didn't want to group it in without picture books, because its message is too important. So here it is, A Place Inside of Me by Zetta Elliott and illustrated by Noa Denmon.