Crafty Moms Share

A Native American Cinderella

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This week we are exploring Native American versions of Cinderella. November is Native American History Month, so I thought in honor of this, we would share these versions. Thus far I have found four versions. All four seem very similar. I am going to share two with you today and the other two next week. This week we will discuss Little Firefly: An Algonquian Legend written and adapted by Terri Cholene and Sootface: An Ojibwa Cinderella Story retold by Robert D. San Souci. First a bit about the Algonquian and Ojibwa People.

Algonquian Lands (Source)

First there is no and never was an Algonquian tribe. Algonquian is a word used to describe the hundreds of tribes that spoke the Algonquian languages. The Ojibwa is one of the Algonquian tribes. This may be why these two stories are almost identical. The Algonquian People lived all over the United States and in Canada. (Source) Last year on the Wampanoag Tribe which is also an Algonquian group. The Wampanoag Tribe are the Native People who were at the first Thanksgiving with the pilgrims.

Wigwam Replica at Plimouth Planation

There are some similarities among most Algonquian tribes. Most Algonquian tribes had birchbark or dugout canoes. Hunters and warriors usually used bow and arrows, spears and wooden clubs. In these stories the great hunter used a bow and arrow. Most tribes had some form of a tribe council for its government with a leader or chief to preside over it. Most tribes lived in villages made of wigwams. In all four versions I have found wigwams are mentioned. The one article of clothing shared by all Algonquian tribes was moccasins. (Source)

Our Paper Mache Wigwam

The Ojibwa are also known as the Chippewa with different spellings for both. They are the largest group of Native Americans north of Mexico. They live in both the United States and Canada. In the United States they were the fourth largest tribe.

An Ojibwa woman and child, Red River Settlement, Manitoba, 1895

Source: By Humphrey Lloyd Hime via Library and Archives/
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada from Canada
[Public domain or CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Most Ojibwa bands were sedentary and lived in wigwams. (Source) The Ojibwa who lived on the plains lived in tipis. Traditional dress for women were long dresses with removable sleeves and for men it was breeclothes and leggings. Everyone wore moccasins.Women carried babies on cradle boards. (Source)

Since the stories all had wigwams in them, Hazel and I made models of wigwams. We used the instructions for these in More than Moccasins by Laurie Carlson. There were two ways to make the wigwams: with a coffee filter or a brown paper bag and glue. First you need five strips of white paper each one-inch wide. Tape two together to make a long strip and then make them form a loop. Use the other three to give the roof some structure. If you are using the coffee filter paint or color it brown. Hazel used her dot marker. Once it is dry glue it on. If you are using the paper bag, rip strips and mix glue with water to paper mache the strips on. We made one of each. Once the glue is dry you cut a door. You can also glue grass, bark or other natural things to make it look more real. We however had lots of rain, so we did not do this.

Now onto the stories.

In these stories there is a man who has three daughters. The eldest two make the youngest do all the work and purposely burn her with the fire. She has scars on her face and hands and arms and her hair is short due to being singed. In one version her name is Little Firefly, but her sisters call her Little Burnt One, and in the other version she does not have a name, but her sisters call her Sootface. In both versions there is a great hunter who has the power to make himself invisible. The only person who can see him is his sister. It is said he will marry the woman who can see him. All the young women of the village try to win his hand. One day the eldest sisters decide to try separately. His sister greeted each of them and when they said they wanted to marry her brother, she asked them some questions. The questions were what is his bow made of and what is it strung with. The sisters guessed incorrectly and were sent home.

The next day Sootface or Little Firefly decided to try. (In one version her mother's spirit tells her to go and see The Invisible One in a dream.) Since she did not have a nice buckskin dress to wear like her sisters she made a dress from birch. She softens her father's old moccasins and does her best to fit them to her feet. Her sisters make fun of her as she goes, but she gets in her canoe and paddles across the water to the Invisible One's wigwam. His sister greets her. In Little Firefly she says she is there to help with the work, but the sister asks if she can see her brother. As he approaches she can see him and is able to answer that his bow is made of a rainbow and strung with the stars of the Milky Way or the Star Bridge of Souls. Upon hearing this, the sister takes the girl and washes her and her scars disappear. Then she gives her the finest buckskin dress to wear. She has her sit in the seat closest to the door which is the spot for the wife. The Invisible One comes home and is happy to meet his new wife.

Our Coffee Filter Wigwam

I hope you will join us next week for the other two versions that are very similar. Then we will have one version that is very different from these four. Tomorrow is the day for Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month's author is Karma Wilson. I hope you will come see which of her books we are sharing!

Sharing Saturday 13-43

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Thank you to all who shared with us last week and to everyone who visited. I once again did not get to visit everyone's. As you can tell, I'm posting this late. It has been a crazy week. However the ones I did check out were amazing!! Here are a few of my favorites.

1) From Teach Beside Me: Bubble Science-Square Bubbles

2) From Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom: Free Long Sleeved Peasant Dress Pattern

3) From We Made That: Acorn Necklace

4) From Makeovers & Motherhood: Thankfulness Trees

5) From Enchanted Homeschooling Mom: Poppin Book Nook The Reasons for the Seasons

6) From Crafting Connections: Less is More & Little Ones

7) From Makeovers & Motherhood: Twelve Things Your Child's Kindergarten Teacher Will Tell You

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.

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From Your Hostess:
This week we shared our special events coming this November, a Cinderella tale from Thailand, a review of Christmas craft kits from Oriental Trading, information on the Little Pim Giveaway, a review and giveaway of The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD, and some information on the Greater Flamingo.

Make sure you enter my current giveaway!!

The prize is a wonderful, heartfelt DVD!

Now for This Week's Party
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Flamingo Friday: Greater Flamingos

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Source: By Yogendra Joshi
(March baby MarchUploaded by Snowmanradio)
[CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Today I thought we would take a look at the largest species of flamingos, the greater flamingo. The greater flamingos can be found in Africa, Southern Europe and Southern Asia. The picture above is of four greater flamingos in India.

Source: By Jmalik at en.wikipedia
[GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons

Greater flamingos range from 43 to 60 inches in height and weigh between 4.4 to 8.8 pounds. The greater flamingo has pinkish-white plumage with red wing coverts and black secondary flight feathers. There bills are pink with a black tip and their legs are completely pink. The remain the whitish-grey until several years into their adult life when they gain their pink coloring.

Source: By aschaf (http://www.flickr.com/photos/aschaf/4830702055/)
[CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The lifespan of a greater flamingo in captivity is said to be 60 years, however the oldest is around 80 years and is in Adelaide Zoo in Australia. Like most flamingos their greatest threat is man. Ancient Romans considered flamingo tongue a delicacy. And occasionally flamingos in the Rann of Kutch salt marsh in Pakistan and India get electrocuted when they sit on electric cables near their breeding grounds. (Source)

So that is a little about the greater flamingo. If you missed the other species we have shared: Chilean and Caribbean and Andean flamingos. We still need to discuss the lesser flamingos and James flamingos. I hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday this weekend!

The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD Review & Giveaway

Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment gave me a copy of the DVD free of charge and is supplying the one for the giveaway free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD. Thank you to NCircle Entertainment for giving me a copy to review. Now we have not read the book, The Snowman and the Snowdog, however we have read and love The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. The Snowman and the Snowdog is a sequel to The Snowman. Both books are wordless and so is the movie. We have watched The Snowman movie on YouTube. Both movies make the book come alive. They literally seem to be the pictures of the book moving. Raymond Briggs worked with the producers to make sure the movies were what he wanted from his books and you can tell. If you do not know the books, they are lovely stories of the magic of childhood and snow.

Snow Globe

Now Hazel has been asking for weeks about when it will snow again. For several weeks we had a white sheet down on the floor of our family room so she could pretend it had snowed. Needless to say she was very excited to watch this movie and we really enjoyed. She was also excited about the crafts we made to go with it. I found the crafts and printables at The Snowman Craft Activities.

The movie shows a young boy and his mother moving into a house with their dog. The dog dies around Halloween. Around Christmas time he discovers a loose floorboard in his room and discovers a box with the making for a snowman and a picture of the boy and snowman from the first story. It happens to be snowing, so he goes out side and makes a duplicate of the snowman. He runs inside to get a new tangerine since the old one is shriveled and sees his dog's leash. He makes a snowdog next to the snowman with socks for ears and spots and using the shriveled tangerine for his nose. Similar to the first story, the snowman comes to life at night and so does the snowdog. The boy discovers this and goes on a magical adventure with them flying in the sky. They find an airplane to fly around in as well and then go sledding with other snowmen. Then they come to a Christmas tree with Santa packing his sleigh. The boy helps Santa and he tells him his Christmas wish. Santa gives the boy a small gift. The sun is about to rise, so the boy and his snowfriends must get home. I am going to leave the end a surprise for you since it is such a happy ending.

The DVD does have a bonus feature. We looked at it briefly, but it was not going to hold Hazel's attention. It was about Raymond Briggs.

The Snowman and the Snowdog Mobile

For crafts we made a snow globe. We decided to make a dry one with fake snow and glitter instead of the liquid. We also made a mobile using the printable at The Snowman website. We also made the garland. I printed out extra of the snowdogs from the snow globe and used them in the garland so it would not be just the snowman. I hung the mobile from the garland and hung it in Hazel's room. She can pretend it snows every day in there now.

Garland

We also made some paper snowflakes using the patterns found at The Snowman website. We hung them from the garland as well.

Finally we made some marshmallow snowmen. Again the idea came from The Snowman website. After making the first one, Hazel decided to get creative. I pulled out toothpicks since we were having trouble keeping them together. We also used some mini chocolate chips on some. I had trouble getting black frosting at first and bought the chips in case I didn't find any.

Now it is your turn to try to win a copy of this loving DVD. You can follow the Rafflecopter for what to do and follow my Giveaway Rules. Or if you cannot wait, you can purchase it at Barnes and Noble or Amazon. (Note these are not affiliate links, but are here for your convenience.)

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More on the Little Pim Giveaway

Oriental Trading Christmas Craft Kit Review

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

Recently I was contacted by Oriental Trading to see if I would be interested in doing reviews on some of their products. Having bought from there and knowing my church uses them for Christian Education crafts, I jumped at the chance. Now for those of you who have not explored Oriental Trading yet, it is a wonderful company with party supplies as well as craft supplies and so much more and all of it is reasonably priced. To be honest I have gone through some of their craft pages just to get inspiration. I also bought several items for my wedding reception there as well as things for my classroom and parties.

For this week's fairy tale in a different culture we are sharing a Cinderella tale from Thailand. We are exploring Thailand with Around the World in 12 Dishes this month and I happened across this Cinderella tale when I was looking at books from the library that came up with the key word Thailand. The book is Kao and the Golden Fish: A Folktale from Thailand As Remembered by Wilai Punpattanakul-Crouch retold by Cheryl Hamada and illustrated by Monica Liu. Now one thing I loved about this book are the beautiful pictures. The story is wordless, however at the end of the book the story is written in words. The first time through the book, we just looked at the pictures trying to figure out what was happening and then found the story. The second time through I was able to tell the story as we looked at the pictures. I was very happy to discover it was a Cinderella tale. Before we get into the tale, a little about Thailand.

Thailand is officially the Kingdom of Thailand and was formerly known as Siam. It is in Southeast Asia. It is a constitutional monarchy with King Rama IX reigning since 1946. He is the longest serving head of state and the longest reigning monarch in Thailand history. The capital city is Bangkok and it is the largest city in Thailand.

Thailand is considered an emerging economy and a newly industrialize country. It offers free public education through age 17. Teaching is done mostly by rote memorization. Thailand exports rice, textiles and footwear, rubber, cars, computers and more. Thailand exports the most rice in the world. Rice is the most important crop there. (Source)

Now onto our story. Kao is a young Thai girl who lives happily with her parents until her mother dies. Her father remarries a woman who also has a daughter. The stepmother and stepsister make Kao do all the housework. One day after Kao's father has died while bathing in the pond a golden fish comes up to Kao and talks to her saying it is her mother. Kao spends more time bathing and comes back happy and her stepmother gets curious as to the cause. She sends her own daughter to spy on Kao the next day. She sees Kao talking to the fish. Then the stepmother has the stepsister go down and trick the fish and capture it. They cook it and eat it. Kao is so upset. She buries the fishbones and waters where she buries them in hope her mother will come back. Soon an eggplant plant grows there. Kao talks to the plant on her way back from bathing in the pond each day. Her stepmother is jealous of Kao's happiness and sends her daughter to dig up the plant. They eat and burn the plant, but Kao finds some seeds. She takes the seeds away from the house near the road and plants them there. When she can she goes and waters them. They grow into two beautiful trees. Kao hears her mother's voice when the wind blows them. Many people rest under the trees. One day a prince stops and rests there. He loves the noise of the wind blowing in them and orders his servants to dig them up and bring them back to his palace. The servants try and try and even use an elephant to try, but the trees will not be moved. The prince posts signs and asks the owner of the trees to come to his palace. Kao sees the sign and goes. The prince asks her to give him the trees. She tells him she will give him an answer the next day. She goes and asks the trees/mother what to do. They decide to make the prince happy. The mother asks Kao to bring the prince to the trees and she does. Then they get married and live happily with the trees in the courtyard of their palace.

This story reminded me a bit of the Chinese version where the lead character befriends a fish and uses the fishbones for magic after the stepmother kills the fish. Again what I really loved about this book were the pictures and the wordless pictures. If you read this book, read the story ahead of time so you can tell the story with the pictures. It is a wonderful introduction to life in Thailand.

November Events

Source

It is hard to believe it is already November!! We have so many exciting things planned for the month. My mind however seems to already be on Christmas, so expect some Christmas ideas in November as well as a couple of Christmas product reviews and at least one giveaway. But do not worry we will also have plenty on Thanksgiving!! November is National Native American Month. We will be focuses on Native American fairy tales as well as other Native American crafts. My love for the various Native American cultures will shine through out November.

This month we are exploring Thailand with Around the World in 12 Dishes. We will start our exploration on Monday with a Thai Cinderella! Our recipe post for Around the World in 12 Dishes will be shared on November 19th! However the placemat and passport pages for Thailand are available (Thanks to Valerie over at Glittering Muffins!)

The author this month for Virtual Book Club for Kids is Karma Wilson! She is best known for her Bear books, but we are loving the Mortimer ones as well. She seems to have something for everyone--holidays, lessons, young and older. Have you discovered her yet?

We will be sharing our book and activities on November 11th. I hope you will join us for these great posts and more!

Sharing Saturday 13-42

Ok, I have been a bad hostess the last few weeks. Once again I have not made it to visit many. I'm so sorry. I have to admit my life seems crazy from now until the new year. Hopefully I'll find time again soon. I am so behind on emails and social media as well. We also dealt with Hazel having a cold. She was sick enough to stay home and want mommy, but well enough to need to be entertained, so I didn't have the time I usually do the past few days. This is also why Flamingo Friday did not happen this week. Between Halloween and a sick child, I was lucky to check the computer. Anyway, I hope you had a chance to check out the great posts shared last week. They look amazing!! There was a large tie for the most clicked, so we will just feature a few that caught my eye.

1) From Doting on Deirdre: Wise Old Owl Crafting

2) From There's Just One Mommy: Preschooler Owl Craft

3) From What We Do All Day: 25 Math Activities for After School

4) From April's Homemaking: 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales #49--Lichka

5) From Juggling with Kids: The Secret to Cutting Felt

6) From Trillium Montessori: Parts of a Turkey (Free on Teachers Paying Teachers)

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.

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From Your Hostess:
This week we shared a Baby Moses craft and books we have been reading, an Islamic Snow White, craft book review to make felt animals, and our Halloween.

Now for This Week's Party
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1) Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).

4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest

Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest.

Halloween

Congratulations to Andrea F. for winning the ebook of Christmas Crafts for Kids and a belated congratulations to Brenda W. for winning The ABC's of Australian Animals yoga book!

I have never really liked the scary parts of Halloween. I don't like where Halloween has gone and how over the top it is. I do remember loving dressing up and trick-or-treating as a child, so I wanted Hazel to have that experience without all the drama and commercialism. For her first Halloween I was excited to dress her up and take her to some family and friends' houses. Now of course she is excited to dress up and go trick-or-treating. I have made her costumes except for the first year where I found an adorable one at a consignment shop.

I chose the duck and lion costumes. She wanted to be the dish and spoon with me since she use to take my hand and tell me to run so we could be the dish and spoon from Hey Diddle, Diddle. Last year she wanted to be Rapunzel and this year she wants to be Cinderella. I finally finished her dress. I still need to put the elastics in her lower sleeves/gloves, but I need her here to measure her arms to do that. Here is the dress.

I bought her a Cinderella wig to go with the costume. I will add a picture to this post once she is dressed up for trick-or-treating.

She picked the darker blue for her gown instead of the Disney light blue. I should add she has two light blue dress up dresses to be Cinderella, but will not leave either one for any length of time since the cheap fabrics bother her skin. This is why I make so many of her costumes.

Now Hazel is easily scared so Halloween is not a time we pull out the scary and gory decorations. We tend to focus on pumpkins, though we do have a large spider and web on our staircase this year and some friendly ghosts in our front entrance. I have struggled with explaining Halloween to Hazel and why so many people like to dress up scary. Last year I used the Mexican Day of the Dead to help explain it. Today I found a wonderful way to do it and to bring the religious meaning back to the holiday. Over at Catholic Icing there is a wonderful post on Explaining Halloween to Catholic Kids. I would say not being Catholic, that it could be used for any Christian children.

Then there is the issue of the candy. We try to limit Hazel's sugar input (and should really limit ours more). We have used the story of the Pumpkin Fairy to help with this. I shared our version of the story here.

This year we spent some time making the egg carton pumpkins that you have seen around on-line including some at Sharing Saturday. We took our candy corn rice krispie treats a step further and made them apple and pumpkin shape (we used cookie cutters). We decorated them this time with M&M's and Steve helped Hazel with the decorating.

The final thing I would like to share with you is a wonderful book. Now the note to parents says it is not a Halloween book, but it is about a jack-o'-lantern. The book is The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs. I bought a copy of this book for my church and then found a used copy at the used book store and picked one up for ourselves. The church used it for Hazel's class earlier this month and one of the crafts they made was a simple one. They took orange jack-o'-lantern goody bags and stuffed them and then added a special leaf on the tie.

The book goes through a farmer planting a pumpkin patch and then when harvest time comes choosing one special large pumpkin to carve a smiling face and leaving it on his porch for all to see. Throughout the book, there are Bible quotes to go with the story. It is really a nice book to take some of the scary away from Halloween and make you like jack-o'-lanterns more.

So that is a bit about our Halloween. How do you celebrate? We are really excited that this year it appears there will not be a Halloween storm so Steve will be home with us!

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A Native American Cinderella

Sharing Saturday 13-43

Flamingo Friday: Greater Flamingos

The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD Review & Giveaway

More on the Little Pim Giveaway

Oriental Trading Christmas Craft Kit Review

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: A Cinderella Tale from Thailand

November Events

Sharing Saturday 13-42

Halloween

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