Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autumn. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thanksgiving

Today we were inspired by thanksgiving.  
We began our day by making a pilgrim bonnet 
(we had already made one with our daisy scout troop and loved it!) 
 We got the idea from the Martha Stewart website (here).


The instructions are on the link above but here is how we did ours.
You need a 11x17 sheet of paper, a hole puncher and hole reinforcers.


Here are the measurements...


We reinforced our holes so they would not rip with the ribbons.


Cut upwards on the 3" line.


Fold over the top.  This will be on the brim.


Tape the outer edges together.




Tape the top flap down.


Add ribbons.



Very cute!  :)





We were inspired by this next project idea over at the blog "Little page turners".   
It's a thanksgiving bracelet to remember the first thanksgiving story.  Each bead you add to the bracelet tells a part of the thanksgiving story.  We used a bit more beads to make our story longer.  


Red, white and blue beads to represent the pilgrims leaving england.
Flower bead= traveling on the ship the Mayflower.
Green = to seek new land
6 blue beads = they sailed at sea for 66 days
Green = they found land
Black=stepped on Plymouth Rock.
white= it was winter and very cold when they landed
red= people got very sick.  Some died.


"W" bead= Pilgrims were greeted by the Wampanoag tribe.
2 "S" beads = they met 2 American indians that helped them, "Samoset" and "Squanto".
orange = pilgrims planted pumpkins
yellow = corn 
fish= the Wampanoag taught the pilgrims to plant herrings with the corn for a better crop.
red= cranberries were plentiful in this new land.
black = pilgrims learned to hunt wild turkeys.  They had never seen turkeys before.



Heart = the wanpanoag tribe and the pilgrims became friends.  The pilgrim were thankful for their help and the wanpanoag were thankful that the pilgrims were friendly, peaceful people.
star= they shared the first thanksgiving feast together.





We also read 2 great thanksgiving books.  The "Pilgrim cat" by Carol Antoinette Peacock and "Thanksgiving Day" by Anne Rockwell.  
















Happiest thanksgiving everyone.

We are so thankful for the love of family and true friends.

~_~

PS... here are some pilgrim fun facts (here)



Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Making use of our halloween candy...

Ok. I'll confess. I buy loads of "snickers" bags of candy to give out on Halloween, with the hope that no one will knock on our door and I get to eat them all .
I know... Selfish. Junky even. I'm not an advocate of crap candy. If we are to eat sweets here, I rather organic lollipops for my kid and real chocolate. But there is something amazing, personally, about the high fructose corn syrup poison in those junky morsels that I indulge in once a year. I'm not going to die of regret ... Today . :)

Luckily, honeypie doesn't care too much for the non-chocolate, pure sugar junk either. So I thought ... Why not put our Halloween candy to good use by working on science and math with them.

First on our agenda was a science experiment to test for secret ingredients inside the candy. Oil, citric acid and dyes.
Here we are testing for "citric acid" by adding a bit of baking soda to the dissolved pez, nerds, and bottlecaps.





Melting the candy in warm water .





We check for bubbles.





Here we are feeling the waxy film on the water to test for oil and feeling the flexibility in the laffy taffy and starburst candy.





The waxy film that formed after the oil puddles cooled.





Here we are testing the M and M's. We see if there are food dyes on the paper towels after wetting the candy.





(on a side note... Scary!)





Next? On to some math.
Making a candy bar graph.
We got the most Hershey kisses and only one tootsie roll. Thank god!! Tootsie rolls stink. It's a poor excuse for chocolate . :)













A great fun and full of learning kind of day.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!

Of course we needed to be a unicorn this Halloween! :)
Mama had it easy this year making the costume. I found a fluffy vest with a hood and just embellished it with ears, mane, tail and a golden horn.
Super cute!














We made a couple more crafts and even got around to making a delicious carrot / red lentil dip with toasted ghostly corn tortillas!












Oh boy !




Hope you had a ghoulishly yummy Halloween !

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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