Autumn Nature Walks & Crafts

The last few days Hazel and I have taken nature walks. The autumn colors are so beautiful around here. We bring along her red wagon and a pail in which to put our treasures.

When she gets tired of walking, I pull her and she then takes any treasure I pick up and pretends I'm paying her and the pail becomes the cash register. 

One day it was particularly windy and Hazel commented on how the leaves were racing. I asked her which one was going to win, but she wasn't sure. We tried to get a picture of the leaves floating around, but had no luck. However we did get a pleasant surprise at the other end of the street.

Have I mentioned that Hazel loves cement mixers! And to watch the cement go up the big thing and back down to form the basement walls was really neat. We picked the perfect time to walk!

Now on these walks we have been gathering lots of treasures. Most of the treasures are leaves of every color. We bring them home and I have been sealing them with Mod Podge.

My craft room has several spots that look like this. Ugh!! The leaves are taking over and she keeps wanting more. Now we need to get crafting with them again. We made a few pictures.

Hazel's Leaf Fairy

My Leaf Fairy

My Leaf Owl

My favorite treasure thus far however is this huge pine cone we found. I have never seen one so big before.

We will share some of the pine cone crafts we have been doing at a later date. Enjoy!!

Lavender Fairy & Bedtime routine

Continuing with our fairies of late, meet Lavender Fairy. We light a lavender candle most nights at bedtime. It stays lite while Hazel gets dressed and we read our three bedtime books and I tell her a made up story. One of my made up stories was about Lavender Fairy who always brings calm and relaxation wherever she goes. When we blow out the candle we thank the Lavender Fairy for her relaxing scent. 

I made this little Lavender Fairy using felt, purple beads and stuffed her hat with dried lavender, so she smells of her scent as well. Needless to say, Hazel loves having her to play with the Mushroom Fairy of the earlier post.

Tomorrow I will share some of our nature crafts from all the treasures we have collected on our nature walks!!

Mushroom Fairy & Mushrooms

After having quite a bit of rain lately, we have been noticing lots of mushrooms popping up all over the place. And we have been noticing the different sizes, colors, shapes of them all.

We look at every mushroom and think about what fairy will live there. So when we saw bunches of them we called them villages. We had quite a bit of fun finding them.

The past couple of days we have had gorgeous afternoons, so Hazel and I went on a nature walk and/or a nature bike ride. Today she rode her bike around the short loop, but of course there were several times where Mommy was walking the bike. She also had to get down and count the yellow mushrooms to see how many fairies could live there.

Our mushroom fairy story is simple. When it rains the mushroom fairies get to work growing their mushrooms so all the fairies have places to live and animals have things to eat. After several days of rain then a day of sun and then more rain, our neighborhood is loaded with mushrooms so we have been having fun looking at them and thinking about the fairies that might live there.

I made the little mushroom fairy peg doll the other day for Hazel. I used a paint marker for the face and hair and felt for the clothes and hat. I did my best at French knots for the dots on the mushroom, but I still have not completely mastered them. Then I took a piece of tulle for the wings and tied it in the center and sewed it on to the felt. 

Have the mushroom fairies been to your neighborhood lately?

Happy Family Times--A Baby Shower

Have you done something fun or different with your family this week? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. Please share it below!

This week Hazel went to her first baby shower. Although she had a chance to attend a baby shower a year and a half ago for her godparents, she was not at a point of being able to handle it that day, so she didn't. So this week, we got invited to a baby shower that the library staff was putting on for the children's librarian. Most of the guests were library staff, but somehow we got on the list even though it has been  four years since I volunteered there and the staff has mostly changed since then.

Hazel was so excited to get to go to the shower. She told everyone about it. Then while there she sat next to Ms. Bethany and also was the one who passed her which gift to open. She also enjoyed two pieces of pizza, salad, and M&M's. She was going to spend the night at Nonni's who was not happy she ate so much at the library when she had cooked dinner, but it ended up not mattering since Hazel caught yet another cold and had to come home.

For a gift, we finished up the baby quilt I started making for Hazel. Our nursery was Beatrix Potter themed so her quilt was as well. It seemed like the perfect quilt for a children's librarian. All I had to do was quilt the border and bind it. I also added some ribbons so she could use it for tummy time and give the baby something to play with.

I didn't take too many pictures at the shower, but thought I would share our mother/daughter time which was spent in a traditional female event. She loved the attention of being the only child there, but did get bored after awhile. Of course we had a long day with hair appointments (her first full hair cut), dance class and the shower. It was a fun time which unfortunately ended with her complaining of a sore throat.

The Favors

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

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Virtual Book Club for Kids--Duck Rabbit by Amy Klouse Rosenthal

Can you believe it is already the third Monday in October? October is flying by. I better get sewing on Hazel's costume. Aghh! Anyway, each month on the third Monday, we join a group of wonderful bloggers (see them listed below) to present the Virtual Book Club for Kids and October's author is Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Each blogger chooses a book by the author for the month and posts about it and then shares it in our blog hop. We also invite you to join us by doing something with a book this month by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and sharing it here in our blog hop! It is such a fun way to learn about new authors! (To see the schedule for the authors of each month through August 2013 you can visit my Special Event Page.)

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids -
 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo -  The Educators' Spin On It -  
Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - 
Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom -  Mommy and Me Book Club -  No Twiddle Twaddle - 
The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - 
Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas -  
Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - 
Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls -  
Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles -  
Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn

 This week we are going to share about Duck! Rabbit! This is a cute little book full of a famous optical illusion. You cannot tell if the illustration is a duck or a rabbit and the two speakers in the book are fighting over it and trying to convince the other that it is the other animal.

Now I will admit this one intrigued me because of the whole optical illusion geometry connection. I mean when I taught geometry I usually had a unit on optical illusions. And I always started my new school year with an overhead of this optical illusion.

Source

In this optical illusion you can see a young woman looking away from you and an older woman facing to the left of you. The younger woman's chin is the older woman's nose. I loved to start off a school year with this because in so much of math you can see the problem completely differently than someone else and solve it completely differently, but still get the correct answer. I always like to promote having the students listen and learn from one another since the best way to master something is to be able to teach/explain it to someone else and sometimes one way makes more sense to one student than another. It all has to do with learning styles and ways of thinking.

So I went searching for more pictures that you could see more than one image in. I found the Quirky Mind Stuff of Richard Wiseman and he has a wonderful list of all the duck rabbit illusions (including the book). Now since we are trying to minimize Hazel's media exposure, I printed out the images removing the one of the book.  If you want to print them, you can click on the image above to get it in docx form. But make sure you check out Richard Wiseman's site since he is taking a vote on your favorite one.

Then I looked for other optical illusions that did not involve a duck and a rabbit. These came from four different sites and all have been sourced on the page. Again if you would like a copy in docx form, you can click on the picture. (If anyone needs me to save them as a pdf, please let me know.) The sites I used are Berro.com, Brain Den Animal Ambituities and Brain Den Face Illusions and Imagixs. These sites go into detail of what the images are and how to find them.

Hazel got a bit confused by them, but she had fun. After I showed her each one she could see them or at least claimed to. I'm guessing this activity might be a bit better for an older child.

Are you interested in finding more Amy Krouse Rosenthal books. We did an activity for Multicultural Monday awhile ago using her Chopsticks. And next week we will do it on This Plus That: Life's Little Equations.

Now it is your turn to share!! If you have a new or old post about an activity to do with a Amy Krouse Rosenthal book, please share below and grab the button and code if you would like to help us advertise! (FYI, the blog hop goes live at midnight!!) Also please make sure you visit the other blogs that are hosting to see what they have created with the various Amy Krouse Rosenthal books! (Plus next Monday we will share another project to go with a different book!)

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