"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!)
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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.
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.
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.
*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. We continued our celebration of leaves with Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall. Then, we did wet on wet watercolor painting. Wet on wet watercolor painting is done in Waldorf schools, and we love to do it every week on our painting day.
In preparation for our painting, we soak good quality watercolor paper in water for about 5 minutes. Then, we dab off any excess water with a sponge and place the paper on our painting boards. While I am setting out all the supplies we sing a little painting song. Now we are ready to paint. On this particular day, we use our red and yellow watercolor paints to color our papers. The most beautiful part of wet on wet watercolor painting is the way the colors mix and move around on the paper and the paper seems to just shine with color. I believe this is one of the most purely joyful ways for young children to experience color. My children have always absolutely delighted in watching the colors dance across the paper. The colors can be soft and light or deep and dark. When we are done and our papers are filled with color, we let them dry. Later, I cut the watercolor paper into leaf shapes to decorate our playroom. Yesterday, we read Fall Leaves by Doretta Holland. It is illustrated by Elly MacKay. This book is magical! It mixes poetry and science together perfectly as it describes and explains the changes we see and feel and smell and touch outside in autumn. As we read the words of this book and looked at its gorgeous illustrations, we felt that we were truly experiencing fall in all of its glory just as the little boy and girl do!
After reading it, we made maple leaf sugar cookies with a maple glaze on top. I only had four cookies left to take a picture of because the kids gobbled them up so fast! Later in the day, we went outside to rake up and jump in big piles of leaves. After all the jumping, we had to throw them up into the air and let them fall down all around us. This is one of our favorite fall family traditions that we do to celebrate leaves. Of all the leaves in the world, I think maple leaves are our favorites!
Today, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. It is the story of a boy and his favorite maple tree. After reading the story, we made salt dough maple leaves. We always use a very simple recipe. 4 cups flour 1 cup salt 1 1/2 cups water We mixed up all the ingredients in a big bowl. Then, we spent some time kneading the dough with our hands until it came together and was no longer lumpy, but smooth. Then we just rolled it out and used a maple leaf-shaped cookie cutter to cut the dough. We lined the leaves up on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 250 degrees for 3-4 hours. After the leaves cooled, we used acrylic paint and glitter to decorate. Sometimes the simplest and most classic stories are the best.
Sometimes the simplest and most classic crafts are the best. Today we read We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. This is a sweet variation on the classic American Folk Song, "Going on a Bear Hunt". After reading it, we went on our own leaf hunt and came back home to do one of the simplest and most classic leaf crafts around, leaf rubbings. We used our beautiful Stockmar Block Crayons to create rubbings of the leaves we found. It certainly was one of the simplest and most classic ways to celebrate leaves! |
AuthorHi, I'm Allison! Wife, mother to four sweet babies. Archives
March 2019
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