Being Thankful...

Every year at Thanksgiving we make a project together that shows how very much we have to be thankful for.  This year we took a canning jar, cut out a turkey to put on the front and filled the jar with paper feathers.  Each turkey feather has something written or drawn on it that represents something we are thankful for.  Our turkey jar is bursting with feathers and we will place it in the center our Thanksgiving table tomorrow to show how extremely blessed we are!  

Grace writing the many, many things in her life that she is thankful for.

Jack writing that he is thankful for our "world" on one of his feathers.

Eve writing on one of her thankful feathers.

"Being thankful opens us up to receiving all kinds of wonderful blessings.  When in a state of gratefulness, we acknowledge our true selves and radiate this energy to others."  ~Unknown~

Pomanders

Grace and Jack made pomanders yesterday afternoon (clementines and cloves) to give to their teachers and classmates for Thanksgiving.  The warm citrus spice scent filled our house and they were such fun to make!  

 

Thanksgiving Retelling Story Bead Necklaces

Every year before Thanksgiving we make necklaces using colored beads that help tell the story of the very first Thanksgiving.  Each colored bead represents a piece of history leading up to the first Thanksgiving.  

Earlier today I gave Eve a bowl of beads and a blunt needle to use to thread the beads onto yarn.  Eve did an amazing job finding the colored beads, counting them, sequencing the events and threading the story beads onto the yarn.  As Eve was working we talked in detail about the Pilgrims, Native Americans and what it means to be thankful.      

 

Here is what each colored bead represents:

• 1 tan bead to represent the Pilgrims leaving England in the year 1620
• 1 white bead to represent the white sails on the Mayflower
• 3 blue beads to represent the 66 days it took for the Mayflower to cross the Atlantic Ocean
• 1 green bead to represent when Pilgrims spotted land, which they later named Plymouth
• 3 white beads to represent the first cold and long winter that the Pilgrims endured 
• 1 green bead to represent the arrival of spring
• 1 tan bead to represent the Native American named Squanto who greatly helped the Pilgrims plant, grow and find food
• A red, yellow, orange and tan bead to represent the foods at the first Thanksgiving (cranberries, corn, squash, pumpkins and turkey).  The first Thanksgiving was a great feast, which lasted three days!  

Here are some pictures of Eve working so hard to making her Thanksgiving necklaces...

 

Bedtime Story

Grace reading Jack and Eve a Thanksgiving story last night just before bedtime.

Reading, Writing & Arithmetic!

Every afternoon while Eve is taking her afternoon nap, Jack and I have some time together.  I treasure this special time with Jack.  We dedicate some of our time working on reading, writing and math.  Jack is doing an amazing job reading, writing words and sentences and adding numbers up to 10.  Here are some quick pictures that I took of Jack this afternoon as he was finishing math and after he wrote his name...    
 

 

Getting Ready for the Holidays...

Eve and I have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings together while Jack and Grace are in school.  This morning Eve worked on making glittery autumn leaves that we will be putting on our Thanksgiving table next week.  As an aside...I was talking to Grace, Jack and Eve on the way to school this morning about how they have two more full weeks of school and then a two day school week the week of Thanksgiving.  Grace promptly reminded me that next week was Thanksgiving...oh my, I really thought I had another week in there!!!

Earlier this month Grace, Jack and Eve made autumn leaves using a pumpkin spice salt dough recipe (2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1 cup water and 2 heaping tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice).  They rolled out the dough and cut out lots of autumn leaves.

This morning Eve painted the leaves with a water and glue mixture and sprinkled on red, orange and gold glitter.  The leaves turned out to be so pretty and sparkly.  Eve is very excited to decorate our Thanksgiving table NEXT WEEK (!) with these beautiful leaves.


After finishing the autumn leaves, Eve planted four paperwhite flower bulbs.  We are hoping they will bloom just in time for Christmas.  Eve also had fun decorating the flower pot with stickers.

Eve was quite proud of her soil covered hands!  We had quite the mix of autumn and spring smells in our art room this morning.  The pumpkin spice salt dough ornaments smelled like autumn and the soil reminded us so much of spring!

Eve did a great job planing the bulbs.  We placed them in our kitchen window, a place where we can enjoy watching them grow each day.

Our New Saturday Night Tradition: Dining by Firelight!

Grace, Jack and Eve first started eating dinner in front of our fireplace in our living room last month.  Click HERE to seen why.  Prior to that, we had been making and eating our Saturday evening dinners outside by the fire.  Click HERE to see!  We are going to make this our new Saturday evening tradition during the colder months until we are able to eat outside by the fire once again.  Grace, Jack and Eve all worked so hard together to move our coffee table and child sized chairs from our art room in front of the hearth.  During dinner, we turn off most of the lights so that Grace, Jack and Eve truly are dining by firelight.  It is so warm and cozy.....and oh the conversations that occur in this space are priceless!   

A Little Sparkle...

Jack and Eve had a great time making this stretchy dough on Friday.  It was easy to make and it provided them (and me!) with lots of fun and laughs.  Jack and Eve made this stretchy dough by combining 1 1/2 cups of liquid starch with 2 five ounce bottles of Elmer's clear glue...and that's it (for now).  After Jack and Eve mixed the ingredients together with their hands it formed into a gel-like dough, which was very slippery and quite stretchy.  A great texture for some fun sensory play!

 Eve pouring the glue.

 Jack squeezing glue.

Eve pouring the liquid starch as Jack watches.

Jack pouring in the liquid starch.

Here are some pictures of all the fun...

In order to decorate our dough we decided to add some gold glitter....some SERIOUS GOLD GLITTER (who doesn't love a little extra sparkle in their life?!).  We ended up adding about a full cup to our dough to make what looked like liquid gold.  It was so beautiful!  

We saved our gold glitter dough by putting it in a plastic bag and have played with it several times since.  This has quickly become our new favorite sensory activity.  So much fun and so easy too!

Thank You Veterans

Thank you to all veterans, past and present, for your service.  Thank you for your tremendous courage and dedication.  If there is one thing we should never forget it is the many sacrifices that our veterans have made for our freedom.  A very special thank you to my father who served in Vietnam, to my grandfathers and to Uncle Steve for his continued service.

We also wish Memere a very Happy Birthday today.  We love you!!!