Where We Are

Glow stick art

The kids received fun Halloween packages from their Aunt Bethany, including boxes of glow sticks. Of course, they wanted to play with them immediately. I tried to reason with them about saving some for Halloween night, but my logic fell on deaf ears. They had 90% of them spread out on the floor within minutes, all glowing. I have to say, I was rather impressed with the focus they had for them. They played with them for several hours, coming up with all sorts of designs.

Can you see the chicken foot in the photo above?!!?

The one below is one I put together.

After a lot of designs, the kids started making other things- like jewelry and fairy wings.

 I will definitely buy more of these in the future! They may not be the most sustainable art material (they are nontoxic, though, as I found out when I called Poison Control Center after Asher bit through one), but they have a very magical quality and I think they teach impermanence extremely well.

Pumpkin Jack, etc.

We took a second trip out to Hickory Nut Gap Farm, and it was even better than our first visit. This time we bought our pumpkins! We had found a set of carving tools along with some nifty jack-o-lantern images at Goodwill, so we were ready to go. Here is our first attempt of the season.

We all loved our cute little owl, but he only lasted about two days. I accidentally detached one of his ears from the background, so his body started tilting backwards. And then he molded, quickly. And that brings me to the next part of this post: a great Autumn book called Pumpkin Jack.

This wonderful book is about a little boy who has carved a pumpkin and named him Jack. Jack is magical to the little boy, but the magic ends too soon when Jack starts to mold. The little boy puts Jack in the garden, the seasons pass, a pumpkin plant starts to grow, the boy takes care of the plant and then there are many pumpkins. I love everything about the book. I love that the boy takes care of the plant, that he learns about the cycles of life, and that he shares the pumpkins with all of his friends. This will be a classic in our home.

I will try to check in more often... I've been busy painting the dining room!!

Free folded paper "toy" print-outs

I found this neat website the other day. Great for a rainy day.

Here are some of the ones that I printed out and folded, but there are a lot of them!! I don't think they will last long; maybe next time I will use watercolor paer instead of printer paper. I also thought of printing one out on printer paper, tracing it on watercolor paper to get the shape, and then letting the kids color them by themselves. This would be a way to get them involved in the project, instead of only being able to pick out which ones they wanted (the cutting is pretty intricate).

 

A leaf collecting book

Recently, I was browsing information on-line about Waldorf education and stumbled upon the idea of making a leaf collecting book. I have been very excited about this project, and here it finally is (what could have been a one-day project took me about two weeks)!! The kids did their first leaf rubbings today with leaves from our back yard. I am looking forward to a hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway with this book in our backpack. I just did a post about this 20 minutes ago and lost it. I am not rewriting everything... just adding the photos. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about how we made the book.

One thing I adore about Esme' is her ability to make a toy out of anything (just like Daddy and his brothers when they were young)! While I cut the paper for our book, she used the scraps to make this catfish!!

via whereweare.typepad.com

An apple for the teacher

I have the fortune of being able to knit some items for Esme's Waldorf school. My first project was to knit some fruit finger puppets (they can also be used in the play kitchen). I got the patterns from this book.

Here are a couple of photos. I forgot to get a shot of the puppet part, but you can imagine!

I have some yarn left over, so if anyone out there wants an apple or pear or both, just let me know!! The grapes were not very fun to make, so I don't think I'll be offering my time for that project again.