This past week, we have been getting into the Christmas spirit with Christmas books by Jan Brett.  Jan Brett is at the very top of our all-time favorite author and illustrator list.  On the first day, we read The Wild Christmas Reindeer.  After reading, we made Reindeer Grain (oats and glitter) to sprinkle on Christmas Eve.  We then played some reindeer games.  We played "Pass Rudolph's Red Nose".  We held "Reindeer Races".  And we played "Pin the Nose on Rudolph".

Our Thanksgiving was a wonderful celebration of family and gratitude!  

Today we began our Thanksgiving Day Dinner preparations.  We also took some time to read, of course!  We read my favorite Thanksgiving story, Cranberry Thanksgiving, by Wende and Harry Devlin.  This story will put you in the Thanksgiving spirit, for sure!  Then we made cranberry chutney for our Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow and Cranberry Orange Muffins for today.  These muffins turned out to be the very best cranberry muffins we have ever made.  We are getting really excited for Thanksgiving!

We finished up our celebration of squirrels and nuts last week with the story of Woody, Hazel, and Little Pip by Elsa Beskow.  In it, two acorn children adventure into the woods, and Mr. Squirrel goes out searching for them.  After reading this story, we made little acorn children just like the ones in the story.  We painted simple wooden peg dolls with watercolor paints.  Then, we gave them eyes and cute little acorn caps.  Much time has been spent playing with our new acorn children.  I love how handmade and child-made they look!

"This is a tale about a tail--a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin."

We read Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter.  She is one of our favorite authors and illustrators.  And Nutkin is one of our favorite characters.  We love how this impertinent little squirrel "bobbed up and down like a red cherry".  We love how he "danced up and down like a sunbeam".  We love how he gets himself into a lot of trouble.

After reading Squirrel Nutkin, we went outside for our "Nutting Party".  Just like the squirrels in the story, my little "squirrels" ran around collecting and filling their little sacks with the nuts they found.  At the end of the day, we cracked open some of the nuts and enjoyed them on top of ice cream with chocolate syrup.

We hold this "Nutting Party" every fall.  It is a simple family tradition that is much anticipated.  Since we do not have any nut trees close by, I just sprinkle some nuts around the trees before the kids are called out.  Maybe someday, we will have our own real nut trees, but for now, this is just as fun!
​(Sorry, the pictures are a little blurry!)

We read The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri.  This is an adorable story of a squirrel that is busily collecting and storing up many kinds of food for the winter, including acorns.  So we made wet felted wool acorns.  We love working and playing with wool!  It is such a beautiful thing.  It was so simple, and they turned out so cute too!  After we wet felted little balls and let them dry, we glued them to acorn caps.  They look like magical acorns!  Now they are big part of the imaginative playing going on at our house.

"See that squirrel 
in our tree?
I think he'd rather 
live with me."

We love watching the squirrels climb and scamper all around, in the trees and on the ground.  There is one squirrel we love watching in particular.  He climbs up the poles of our bird feeders, just at the edge of our patio, every day.  He jumps from one feeder to the other, and he sometimes hangs upside down for a little while.  He cracks us up!  It seems he will do just about anything to get something to eat.  That is what the book, Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert is all about.  We can definitely appreciate this story.  The squirrel will stop at nothing to get those peanuts.

After reading Nuts to You!, we baked peanut butter kiss cookies.  Before we take our first bite, we shout out "Nuts to You!"  And of course, we set out some peanuts for our favorite squirrel.  When we see him begin to eat those nuts, we shout "Nuts to You!"   

This week we are celebrating squirrels and nuts!  We will be reading these books along with some squirrel and nut inspired art, play, baking in the kitchen, and of course, singing, poetry, and movement games during our Circle Time.  We will top it all off with our annual "Nutting Party".   Here is what our Circle Time includes this week...

Invitation
 
Come to the circle where dreams are found,
Take my hand let’s dance around,
Halla, halla, halla, hello,
Round and round the circle we go.
 
 
Opening
 
Winter is white.
Springtime is green.
Summer is golden.
Autumn aflame.
Four lovely seasons to have in a year. 
Sing them by color.  Sing them by name.
 
 
In the Autumn garden, scarlet evening glow.
Apples ripening, brightening, ripening, brown the hazels grow.
(Autumn, Wynstones Press)

 Whisky, Frisky
Whisky, frisky, hoppity hop,
Up he goes to the treetop. 
Whirly, twirly, round and round,
Down he scampers to the ground.
Furly, curly, what a tail!
Tall as a feather, broad as a sail!
Where’s his supper?  In the shell.
Snappity, crackity, out it fell.

• Move around like squirrels for this one.   
• When the poem/chant says "up" pretend to climb up a tree.
• "Whirly, twirly" twirl around
• "down he scampers" pretend to scamper down a tree
• "Furly, curly" move your pretend tail around and around
• "Tall as a feather" stand up tall and raise arms up high
• "broad as a sail" move arms down and out
• "Where's his supper?" put hands out like you do not know
• "In the shell" cup hands around each other like a nut
  
• "Snapity, crackity..." open your hands up

 
 Gray Squirrel
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail.
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail.
Wrinkle up your little nose,
Hold a nut between your toes.
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail.

• "swish your bushy tail" pretend to swish your tail
• "wrinkle up..." wrinkle up your nose
• "Hold a nut between your toes"  I give my children a few nuts to try and hold with their toes.  They think this is so silly!

The Squirrel*
These are the brown leaves tumbling down,
And this is the tall tree bare and brown.
This is the squirrel with eyes so bright,
Hunting for nuts with all her might.
This is the hole where day by day,
Nut after nut she stores away.
When winter comes with its cold and storm,
She’ll sleep curled up all snug and warm.

• (Sing a Song of Seasons by Mary Thienes Schunemann)
• "brown leaves tumbling down" hands fall down slowly like leaves
• 'this is the tall tree..." stand up tall like a tree
• "This is the squirrel" pretend you are a squirrel
  
• "with eyes so bright" put hands in circle around eyes
• "Hunting" look around excitedly
• "This is the hole" make a hole with your arms in a big open circle
• "Nut after nut" pretend to put nuts in your hole
• "Winter comes..."  shiver and rub arms like you are cold
• "sleep curled up..."  curl up in a ball
• This is a good song to end on for Circle Time because everyone is curled up and calm, ready to hear the story.

 


*All of the *starred* segments are songs and can be sung to their proper tunes.  Most of the songs I use during Circle Time are from Sing a Song of Seasons by Mary Thienes-Schunemann.  I highly recommend purchasing this Songbook and CD (all in one nicely bound spiral book).  I got mine from Bella Luna Toys for $24.99.   
 
*All other segments are to be used as poems, finger plays, or movement games.  Most of these come from A Child's Seasonal Treasury by Betty Jones and Wynstones Press books: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spindrift, and Gateway.

​*I have tried to give simple ideas of how to move to many of them, but feel free to create your own motions.

On November 11th , our family celebrates Martinmas.  It is a very old European festival that goes back to the middle ages.  The story goes like this...

One very cold and snowy winters evening, a young soldier named Martin was riding on his horse and as he was passing through the gates of town, he noticed a poor beggar man.  Upon seeing this man, who wearing nothing but rags and shivering, Martin felt his heart fill with compassion and wanted to help.  So, he took his sword and cut his warm, red wool cloak in two.  He gave half of the cloak to the beggar.  That night Martin had a dream that inspired him to devote the rest of his life to helping others.

So, on Martinmas, we take the time to remember that God has given us all so much love in our hearts and this love is like a light that can brighten the darkness and keep us warm through the long and cold winter nights.  God gave us this love in our hearts to share with others.  We must use the love that is in us, this light, this warmth, to spread God's love.   

After I tell the story of Martin and the Beggar, we make horseshoe cookies covered in powered sugar "snow".  This is to be like the horseshoe prints left by Martin's horse in the snow as he passed through the town gates.

We also celebrate Martinmas with a lantern walk in the evening after it gets just a little dark outside.  We get bundled up in our warm coats and hats and then head outside.  

We read Fall Walk by Virginia Brimhall Snow, and in preparation for Martinmas, we made these leaf and tissue paper lanterns.  Fall Walk is a visually stunning book.  The pages are two-toned, except for one big, bold fall leaf that stands out on every page.   The words tell a story in a very poetic  way.  It was such pleasure to read aloud.  For our leaf lanterns, we used Mod Podge glue to apply cut pieces of tissue paper and leaves to the jars.  If you are not familiar with Martinmas, our next post will be about how we use these lanterns.