Happy Family Times #19--A Trip to Witch City (Salem, MA)

Update: Yesterday we started a popcorn experiment. Just wanted to share what it looked like today: The popcorn is coming out of the top of the cup.

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting all these great ideas to inspire all of us to have more quality family time. Please share below!

This week we adventured to Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is best known for its witchcraft trials in 1692, which is how it got the nickname, The Witch City. They of course play it up. Even the police cars have witch logos. However, Salem also was one of the most significant seaports in Early America. There is the Salem Maritime National Historical Site as well as all the witch museums, etc. as well as being the setting of several of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels including The House of Seven Gables. As I mentioned in a post last July, it is a place Steve and I like to go to because it does not have the traffic other shore locations of Cape Ann have, but has a nice area to walk around and we found a nice coffee house there.

Our adventure started off at the newly renovated Weight Watchers Office in Salem since they were hosting an Open House and I wanted to check it out. Since Hazel was behaving we promised her ice cream afterwards, so we headed to the downtown area. Unfortunately even though they predicted rain for the day, everyone else had the same idea and we had trouble finding parking. We drove to The Willows to check it out and there was no parking there either. We drove back by the coffee house and got lucky this time. We found a parking spot right near this lovely witch. pictured with us above. Then we headed over towards the coffee shop. Hazel of course needed a bathroom by this time so we went  to the Orientation Center of the Salem Maritime Historical Site. While there Hazel played with the dress up clothes (while Daddy checked out all the ship and nautical stuff).

Then we went to the coffee shop. Hazel tried her first gelato ever since that was what they had. Then we walked around a bit and did some shopping. We found some great postcards.I guess we should have gone to Salem last week when I was looking for Massachusetts postcards since they had exactly what I had wanted.

Then we went back to the bathroom and Hazel insisted on going on the Friendship of Salem like we did last year. Steve did not want to go again so I took her.

This year Hazel was not as afraid or as shy as she was last year. She even wanted to go downstairs and check out the crew quarters. She even checked out a bunk!

Afterwards she couldn't wait to see Daddy and tell him all about it!

He had been enjoying the view of the harbor.

Then Hazel decided she wanted to sit on the rock with me and of course climb on me. And then she wanted to give Daddy a turn to be climbed on.

Then Hazel posed by the sign/anchor.

She also posed by all the signs we stopped to read. Here are a couple of them.

Then we made one more stop in a store and headed home. We had a fun day, but we all came home exhausted!

Don't forget to go read what Kelly and her family have been up to this week!

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

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Halloween Children's Book and Needle Felted Characters

21 Days left until Halloween

Last night I made Hazel four characters from Erica Silverman's book, Big Pumpkin. When we had this book out of the library we read it at least three times a day. It is a Halloween story with a witch, ghost, vampire, bat and mummy, but is not scary at all. The overall story is the witch plants a pumpkin seed so she can make pumpkin pie for Halloween. Her pumpkin grows and grows, and when she goes to pick it hours away from Halloween it is too big for her to pick. Each of the other characters come along and try and only the little bat comes up with the idea that works (working together). Then they all enjoy her pumpkin pie at her Halloween party.

I told Hazel that the Pumpkin Fairy must have left them. I'm not sure if she believes me or not, but she has been a bit afraid of fairies due to the toy fairy story, so I want her to see some good in fairies as well. To make the ghost, I started with a small bit of white roving and folded it up small. Then I needled it into a ball. Next I took pieces of roving and draped them over the ball. I needled them into the ball and shaped the ghost how I wanted it. I tried to turn the ends out so it could stand on its own. Then I took small pieces of black to be eyes and a mouth.

For the witch, I made a ball out of biege roving and then shaped a piece of it for her nose. I added green hair--needling it on. For the hat I spiraled the black for the bottom and made it as flat as I could then I used a styrafoam cone to help get the shape of the top, but in the end it was too big so I folded it over and needled it flatter until I was happy. Then I attached the two pieces and attached the hat to the head (with the needle of course). Then I made arms by folder a long piece of black over and needling it into the shape I wanted. Then I used the cone to help with the body. Attaching long pieces at the top and draping it over the cone. I attached the arms to the head and the body to the arms. Once all attached I made adjustments until I was happy. Again I tried to stiffen the bottom outward to make her stand. She is a bit tall to stand on the roving, but can a bit.

I did the bat in a similar fashion making a small ball out of black and the wings were similar to the arms but flatter.

For the vampire, I used white for the face. Then I used black and red for the eyes and mouth. I tried to add fangs, but they blended in with his face a bit. Then I did the arms and body similar to how I did the witch.

I haven't figured out a way to do the mummy yet, which is why she didn't get one. Still thinking about it.

Today I'm hoping to plant some fall bulbs and the lavender plant I bought at the farmer's market this weekend. I'm hoping to get Hazel out digging in the dirt with me. She hasn't been as afraid to get dirty as she use to be. Have a great day!!

Summerween Continues with the Ghost Edition

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in order to provide honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

Last week we introduced Summerween and three books with lots of ideas to celebrate! Today we are going to look at the ghost side of it. If you are celebrating Summerween or just excited to get new books for Halloween these books are for you. Today we are sharing two new ghost themed books. One is released this week and the other will be released next month! Starting with the one released this week, it is To Knit a Ghost with words by Z.B. Asterplume and pictures by Heather Brockman Lee. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8. 

New Takes on Classic Fairy Tales

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

Today I am going to share with you three books based on classic fairy tales. Two of them star Hello Kitty and the third is perfect for Halloween. Hello Kitty is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company, Sanrio. She was created by Yuko Shimizu in 1974. She is currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi and worth about seven billion dollars a year!! (Source) Hello Kitty's birthday is November 1st and she is a bright little girl cat that has a heart of gold. She is about as tall as five apples. Her best friend is her twin sister, Mimmy White. (Source)

Halloween Books

Two of Hazel's all time favorite books are Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. Last year, I needle felted Hazel the characters to Big Pumpkin, and we made some from toilet paper rolls. Then I made her a memory game with the clothing and pumpkin and the sounds they make from The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.

This year we have been doing the story stones, so I made her story stones of the different "characters" from each book.

For Big Pumpkin, I gave her the big pumpkin and a pumpkin pie! I was able to use stickers for all of these except the witch. I did my best to paint a witch for her. We also needed a house for the witch, so we used the lovely cottage that Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts made for Hazel.

I made the little old lady as well as each of the things she runs into with the sounds they make. These I had to paint mostly by hand except the giant pumpkin head since we had a great sticker for that from Trader Joe's. (I think this sticker was leftover from last Halloween. Several of the employees really like Hazel and give her so many stickers every time we go. We have them all over the house.)

Now we can act out while reading the book or without reading the book. Yes, Hazel has both memorized so she really does not need someone to read them to her, but she still loves to have them read!

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures-Vasilissa and Baba Yaga

Today we will look at a Russian version of Cinderella. I found two picture books with basically the same story and we will look at both today, but first a bit about Russia. Somehow after a week of a deep freeze in New England, Russia seems like the right country to talk about. (I literally heard a radio host mention a town in Russia for having the record for lowest temperatures. She kept checking them because it made our temperatures seem so much better.)

Teaching about Hunger--Young Children

As you know I have joined the group, Moms Fight Hunger, for National Hunger Month. Our goal is to help end childhood hunger. I have been struggling with ideas to make a difference and for ways to explain hunger to Hazel. Today I'm going to share with you a few of my solutions with more to come each week.

One thought I have had is about nutrition. I feel so lucky that I can buy my daughter and my family nutritious food. Often I even am lucky enough to buy organic produce and organic dairy products. It troubles me that the food that is best for you is also very expensive. A friend from middle and high school who currently lives in Germany commented on how expensive it is to buy good, nutritious food in the United States when she was here visiting. That is troubling, because for the people without as much money, it means they are often deciding between quality and quantity. Is it better to get a small amount of more nutritious food or enough food to fill you? I'm glad that is a question I have not had to personally decide on. 

My Plans and What You Can Do This Week:
This week I planned with the local library's children's librarian to hold a story hour well actually three (for different ages) about food and hunger (depending on age group) and ask each child to bring in a can (or more) of food for our local food pantry. Now the local librarian knows me and about my blog and is always helpful when choosing books for the Virtual Book Club for Kids and any other topic I can come up with. She already knew I was participating in Moms Fighting Hunger and was more than happy to help. We planned the story hours for the first week in October, so we will have plenty of time to advertise it and get the needed food. I also talked to the local newspaper editor this weekend about the possibility of doing it and he is on board to cover it for us.

What can you do to help? How about donating some canned food or boxed food to your local food pantry.

Helping Children Understand There Are Hungry People in the World:

Then I was telling Hazel a story the other day. Now some of the traditional fairy tales scare Hazel. For example, in Hansel and Gretel she becomes afraid of the witch. Well before I had Hazel I had entered a dollhouse competition and made a gingerbread dollhouse and changed the story of Hansel and Gretel a bit for my entry. I had made the witch a nice old woman who had lost her family due to a house fire. She went off the woods to live since all the people in the village stared at her and talked about her. They called her the witch. The only way she knew to make a house was to bake a gingerbread house so that is what she did. When Hansel and Gretel arrive she invites them in and feeds them and teach them to make gingerbread houses. 

Source

Well I took this version and tweaked it a bit and told Hazel a story. You can download the story (it is two pages) at the following links.

Page 1                               Page 2

After reading the story to your child, have the conversation about helping others and that there are people hungry in the world and for that matter in your own town. Remember 1 in 5 kids are hungry!! We can put a stop to it if we all help!

What We Can Do Next Week:
September 17-22nd is Dine Out for No Kid Hungry Week. Please go check out what the offers are at your local restaurants and make plans to have dinner out with your family and/or friends. The more the better!! And tell all of your friends about it!! We need everyone so we can end hunger!!

Here is a flyer to hang around and advertise the week. You can also make your own to have the specific restaurants in your area listed as well.

Fairy Tales that Teach Hygiene: Book Reviews

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Quarto Books USA. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

I have not done one of my Fairy Tales in Different Cultures posts recently and these books are not really from a different culture as much as have a different twist than the traditional fairy tales. They are fun and have important lessons in them. There is actually a series of them called Fairytales Gone Wrong at Quarto Books. Each has an important lesson about hygiene or healthy habits. Since my focus has been on Cinderella and Rapunzel mostly, I asked to review those two. 

Welcoming Fall Free Printables!

I have been working on some autumn decorations and of course with fall comes Halloween. Hazel and I made some frames, and I printed some autumn quotes to put in them. We will mail them to our family (my family lives in three states and the closest to us is 2 hours away). I taped the sayings in so they can easily be replaced with a picture if the person we give it to would like.

Sharing Saturday 17-43

It is time again for Sharing Saturday! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Show Me a Story Review & Giveaway--Ways to Inspire Creativity in Our Children

Today I have the pleasure of telling you about a book, Show Me a Story by Emily K. Neuberger. Even more exciting is that Storey Publishing is giving one of my readers a copy of this book. See below for details. 

Demon in the Woods -- New Graphic Novel from the Shadow and Bone Series

 

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

Have you discovered the Shadow and Bone Series? There are a series of books as well as a television series on Netflix. We discovered this amazing series when they released the television series. We got to review the first book in the series. After reading the first book, Hazel could not wait to get her hands on the next book and really all the books in the three series of Grishaverse. At the time they were hard to come by because of the television series. The second season was released recently. Today I get to share the newest book with you. It is a graphic novel and it gives a bit of the background story of the Darkling. It is Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo and illustrated by Dani Pendergast. 

A quick craft to share

Last night I was visiting all the link parties and found this idea from We Like to Learn as We Go! I didn't pull out my flannel board, but I have one put away that I use to make tags for my quilts. But I love the idea of giving Hazel different ways to decorate an felt pumpkin. I think Hazel will love this since she has been very into Melissa and Doug magnetic dress up dolls and some paper dolls.

Thanking a Soldier

Hazel decorated one side

I wrote a letter...

Today Hazel and I worked on cards for American Soldiers. With Veteran's Day fast approaching and the holiday season, I always like to take time out to thank a soldier. I googled to see where we could send our cards. I found amillionthanks.org. So Hazel and I pulled out our Fourth of July stickers and decorated some blue paper. Then I printed a letter thanking the soldier and his or her family for their sacrifices and service. It seems like such a nice way to teach Hazel about Veteran's Day.

My Fairy Princess

My Witch Princess

We also hit the post Halloween sales for dress-up clothes. Hazel has been loving her "White Snow" (as she calls it) costume. She also likes her witch hats--especially the one with green hair attached. And her fairy/butterfly wings. We actually went to Sears today for portraits and Hazel wore her wings in half of them.

My Little Fairy at Sears

Rapunzel's Tower and other indoor play

The past couple of days Hazel has been complaining that her stomach hurts. The first day I had to run errands before going to work and Steve was working from home so we let her watch television while I was out (and he was working). I think her stomach still hurt in hopes of watching television today. I'm not sure though since she has been sleeping more than usual. Her appetite is not down though, so I'm not too worried. Anyway, we took it easy and stayed home. We missed our last class at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday which was disappointing, but not really a big deal. We pulled out Hazel's zoo mat that I made her and all the animals we could find for it. We used some of the animals from the Noah's ark that my sister gave her awhile ago. She decided that Joseph and Mary were the people on the ark and they were in charge of feeding the animals. All of the animals that belonged on the ark had to return to the ark each night to sleep. The Rainbow Princess that I needle felted for her was the zookeeper (and is laying down in the middle of the zoo).

Then she has been obsessed with the fairy tale, Rapunzel. I started telling it to her at night since lately she has wanted to hear stories after we read three books. Steve tells her a water-downed version of Cinderalla and Snow White (they are the only ones he remembers). I change it up a bit and have made some up like the Star Princess and the Rainbow Princess. (At some point I will have to share the Rainbow Princess story.) Lately she has been wanting to hear Rapunzel. I also have discovered some wonderful stories on CD told by Jim Weiss. Jim Weiss is an amazing story teller who changes is voice for the different characters and adds songs to the stories. I have gotten a few out of the library and the ones in the picture are her favorite two so far. I am going to purchase a bunch of them, but thought we would check them out first to see which she really likes. She loves to listen to these. Often she will get up in the morning and I will get to sleep another hour after getting her some milk and a snack while she listens to these. For awhile it was Tell Me a Story! all the time because she loves Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but now she often plays Fairytale Favorites to hear Rapunzel. Needless to say I highly recommend them and there are some educational ones for older children as well.

I took Crafts From Your Favorite Fairy Tales by Kathy Ross out of the library. The craft I liked the most was Rapunzel's tower. We tried making it the past few days. I took a wrapping paper tube and cut the top to look like a tower/castle tower and cut a window. Hazel then painted it. We then let the paint dry over night. This morning I cut a circle out of construction paper and drew a face and then Hazel glued on a few pieces of yarn to be her hair. I braided yarn to be the hair that gets let down. Then attached it to the tower with another piece of yarn so that it looped through the tower from the window to the bottom. The second piece of yarn is suppose to be the color of the tower. Since Hazel painted it, our tower is multicolor and mostly just the cardboard tube since she got board. Then we glued the head at the bottom of the window. Now the hair is adjustable to be let down or brought up.

Hazel had the best time reenacting the story. We pulled out a witch bendy doll I made her last Halloween. She changed the story...

Apparently the witch has some magic to survive the fall from the tower and to climb back up after falling! Oh, I love the imagination of my little one!

This is where I link up...