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!
Wow, I had a hard time picking my favorites from last week's Sharing Saturday. If you have not had a chance to check them all out, please do so!! (And make sure to leave some comment love!!) Well, apparently everyone was interested in one of my favorite ones since it was most clicked. (I knew I would feature this one, but you chose it for me anyway.) And, yes, I would love to make one of these some day!!
REMINDER: Monday is the first day of the Virtual Book Club for Kids this month and the author is Amy Krouse Rosenthal! I hope you will share an activity with us inspired by one of her books!
Well, one of my goals of this blog was to be a place where people could share ideas and get ideas. I love Sharing Saturday (and Happy Family Times) because this gives everyone a place to share. Today I'm going to share some of the ideas we have gotten from Sharing Saturday and loved!
We made an apple tree from a paper towel roll, tissue paper and red buttons. This idea came from I HEART CRAFTY THINGS. Thanks for sharing it with us!! We changed the idea a bit and made a free standing tree. Plus I let Hazel have a lot of control over it, so it is a bit messy.
Next we made a mini lavender rice zen garden. This wonderful idea came from Adventures at home with Mum. I used too much red food coloring, so Hazel calls it her pink rice. I also put some dried lavender flowers in with the rice instead of using essential oils. Hazel loves playing with it. This is her first rice sensory toy. We put shells, rocks, sea glass, pine cones, etc. in to play with as well. She likes the shells as scoops and we bury things in there.
Ok, this idea I know has been shared by many people. Doing a quick look I came up with You'll Thank Me One Day as being the most recent (or at least the one I noticed). Hazel has been wanting to make some homemade play dough. We did. We made two batches--blue and green. We scented the blue with orange extract and we scented the green with ground cloves. Then I put them in a large tupperware container and we added her dinosaurs and then some of her other animals from her zoo play mat. Oh, and she put Pocahontas wading in the water. Needless to say she loves it!! Have you tried any of the ideas shared on a Sharing Saturday? I would love to hear about it!
Continuing our pumpkin craze. Yesterday I shared with you our pumpkin muffins and some easy pumpkin crafts. Today it is pumpkin bread and some more pumpkin crafts and lessons.
We have had pumpkin on the brain. Did you know pumpkins are a member of the vine crop family called cucurbits? How about the name pumpkin comes from the Greek word "pepon" meaning large melon? Or pumpkins are 90% water and their flowers are edible? Or pumpkins originated in Central America? Or in 1883 the US Supreme Court officially determined a tomato and a pumpkin are vegetables. Botanically speaking they are fruit because they have seeds. (Source: Pumpkin Fact Sheet from Topsfield Fair)
We baked the other two pumpkins after using the smallest one in our Harvest Soup for Michaelmas. Then we needed to find time to do some baking. Finally this weekend, we found some time. We started with pumpkin muffins. We started with this recipe from All Recipes. I cut the recipe in half since I did not want to make 36 muffins and made a few changes.
We did not have any raisins so we skipped those. We used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of oatmeal. We were low on sugar, so we used 2 cups of brown sugar very lightly packed. We used a teaspoon of all the powders that called for 1 1/2 and used 15 ounces of pumpkin puree from our pumpkins. Otherwise we followed the recipe by cutting in half. They came out delicious!
We also made some pumpkin crafts. Today I will share the ones we made out of ribbon and paper. We tried the paper ones last year and as I was looking at the ribbons this year, I thought how fun would those be, so I tried them.
You start with four equal in length piece of ribbon (I found the wired ones work best), two brass brads, some brown and green construction paper and some glue. To start find the approximate center of one ribbon and stick a brad through it and then add the other three ribbons in similar fashion and close the brad. Then bend the ribbons up and taking the outside ribbon first stick each end into the second brad until all the ribbon edges are secured. Close the brad and turn your pumpkin over. Now you can add your stem, leaves and tendrils. See below for that tutorial. For an easier version for kids, the paper works since you can punch the holes where the brads go (three holes in each strip). Otherwise the instructions are the same.
To make the stem, take a strip of brown construction paper and roll it. Put a little glue to secure the edge. Cut the leaves from the green construction paper. I cut mine on a fold so the two leaves would be one piece. Then take a very thin strip of the green paper and roll it around a pencil tightly to curl it for the tendril. A piece of curling ribbon could also be used.
Then you just glue the leaves and tendrils together and then onto your pumpkin and then glue the stem. Hold the stem for a bit for the glue to set and then leave it alone until it dries.
If you use ribbon without wire, you may need to add some support on the inside to get your pumpkin to stand up on its own. I used a rolled piece of orange construction paper in the top left one and the one directly underneath it shows you the pumpkin without it. Well that is enough pumpkin for tonight, but stay tuned. I will share more tomorrow!!
