Beginning Origami--making a heart

 Yesterday I introduced 5 year old Quinn to origami.  We looked at simple instructions for making a heart on the tablet then used some origami paper I had on hand to fold our own.  I helped her through the first few--teaching her the essentials like how to line up corners before creasing and how to make crisp folds.  Then after a few with me she was off and folding on her own.  I sat beside her and folded my own hearts and offered help whenever she needed it.  

She LOVED this artform and folded up a dozen hearts to make for people she loves!  She caught on very quickly.  The origami heart (just google instructions--we prefer non-video as it seems easier to follow than youtube videos, but that's just us) is an easy beginning project, and with Valentine's Day approaching it's good timing for heart-folding!

 Obviously there are so many benefits of origami--fine motor, geometry concepts, spatial awareness, sensory awareness, and then just the enjoyment of the artform.  I am excited to think of the world opened to us---Origami wise--that girl and I (and her Daddy, too!) are gonna have lots of fun with the paper-folding.

 Q made this garland for her kindergarten teacher, Ms. Kelsey.  I made my own strand for the mantle in less pastel-ey colors.  :)

 By the way, I would recommend using actual origami paper with beginners.  It folds so much more easily than scrapbook, magazine, or even regular paper.  Plus it's already cut into small squares typically, so that makes it easy to work with.

You should totally get your Origami on!!  Fold away, friends!

Finishing up our Winter/Hibernating unit....

Q and I took down and put away most of our winter items last week.  We started our spring studies today.  Rabbits!

Groundhog Day flashback

Candlemas and Groundhog day are on the same day.  This year they were on a Saturday, so we didn't actually celebrate either on the correct day.  But the following week I decided to teach Q a little bit about the tradition of Groundhog day.  I needlefelted a little groundhog.  Sorta.  I am still not happy with it looking "groundhoggy" enough, but I fussed with it for several days and finally decided it would have to do.  We kept it on our table for the week and the kids enjoyed holding and playing with it.  It went into our box of Valentine decorations to re-emmerge next year!

We read these two books this year:

 

Note--this book has a Halloween Witch and Santa in the story, so if you are not fans of these two you may want to forego this book.  Though it is a fun read!

We didn't get any more involved than just reading the books and talking a little bit about shadows.  I saved the titles of several more "shadow" and "groundhog" books to my "February" teaching folder on my computer, so next year we may choose to delve deeper!

Candlemas

Our first year to celebrate Candlemas!  First I had to do a bit of research and found this website helpful.  Here's a quote and a link to Parenting Passageways, one of my favorite educational websites:

 “All Year Round” says in regards to Candlemas ...(Authors Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling write: ) “At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting that we should celebrate a candle Festival to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new.”

February 2nd is Candlemas, and this is traditionally the day that celebrates the ritual cleansing of Mary after the birth of Jesus and also when Mary presented the infant Jesus in the temple as according to Jewish tradition.   Simeon called Jesus a light, thus tying Him to this day.

http://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/02/02/the-quiet-beauty-of-candlemas/ 

Candlemas is a traditional holiday that is celebrated many different ways.  Some of the most common ways involve making candles (in rememberance of Jesus, our Light) and also planting bulbs, as the season of winter is gently moving toward spring.

Candlemas is traditionally celebrated on February 2nd.  That happened to be a Saturday and a day we were chalk-ful of other events, so I postponed our celebrations to Monday.  Works for us!

I had this lovely presentation on the table for the kids when it was time to begin Kitchen School.  

We lit a lantern and began our Bible reading.  And in case you want to know what REALLY goes on in kitchen school, here is Little Man eating the lighter.  :)  And these bulbs...I went to my favorite plant store--Plants for All Seasons.  I asked one of the workers to help me find bulbs.  He was very concerned that it was way too late for me to try and force bulbs.  I told him it was fine, I wouldn't be upset if they didn't work our perfectly, my kids would just enjoy giving it a try.  Ends up he wouldn't even let me pay for the bulbs because he was so convinced it was too late in the year.  He gave me some great information on different bulbs and when to buy/refrigerate/plant them and he sent us home with these 4 paperwhite bulbs for free.  Don't ya just love people like that? 

 

 We read from Luke 2--the story of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus at the temple and about Simeon calling him "the Light to the Gentiles" and Anna praying and fasting to see Jesus before she died.  I had printed off a painting from the internet for the kids to look at. 

 At this point Beck was done being at the table so he went off to play.  Quinn and I moved on to candles.  I had racked my brain to figure out what kind of candles we would do that would work for my kids at this age.  We've already rolled beeswax candles recently, and melting and dipping beeswax is still a bit of a reach for us.  I also didn't want to go with punching tin cans into lanterns because I am afraid Beck's too little to be careful holding them and might cut himself.  So...I found these little nest-shaped tealight holders my sister gave me a while back.  We got out some pretty yarn and had fun weaving it into the nests.  Then I crocheted a chain of yarn for a handle so they can be carried.  They can either hold real tealights on the table at meals or the LED kind when being played with.  They turned out so lovely!

Then we planted our bulbs--we filled the containers with rocks--great fine motor because we had to be sooo careful!  We put in the bulbs and Q poured water up to the edge of the roots.  Don't they look nice?!!  We will watch them to see what happens. 

 

We also made some wire crowns--I need to take a picture so I can show you!

And another tradition on Candlemas is making and eating crepes.  Daddy ended up being out for a birthday celebration with his guy friends, so I attempted this one by myself.  Yikes!  Q and I whipped up the batter, and then I cooked them.  It was fine, but it took a while and the kids were pretty much going crazy....mostly because I was doing dinner on my own and they smell my weakness.  :)  

But the crepes turned out delicious!  We topped them with cheese, preserves and pumpkin butter (individually...not all at once!) and the cheese ones won out in popularity.  Though Little Man liked the preserves pretty well!

We had a good time, learned some more from God's word, and tried a new food!  Candlemas #1 was a success!!

Beeswax candle rolling, a felted Snow Fairy, and our winter tablescape

Our dinner table is our spot to keep a seasonal nature round.  Ours is a piece of log with holes drilled in it for candles.  We decided this week to make some new candles and use the beeswax candle set we'd gotten for Christmas!  It's very simple to use--you cut the wick and roll up the wax sheets.  You can add embelishments if desired.  We went mostly simple this time--a few plain and a bit of decorating.  Q loved it, but I would say that it was on the edge of her ability level.  She's 4.5 and it was a little tricky for her to roll up the candle tightly and evenly, but she was able to do it with some help.  We both had so much fun making our candles!
 

Here's our table scape for winter:
-I felted the snow fairy out of a felted wool sweater, white roving, a snowflake cut from some scrap fabric, and metallic silver yarn for embelishment. 
-a small blue vase (that belonged to my Grandmommy) filled with white clovers we found in the field--because the Snow Fairy loves all things white.
-some clear "jewels"
-pipecleaner snowflakes
-"snow" (cotton)
-pinecones

 

-a little snowshoe hare I made from some playdough we were working with

-some leaf skeletons we found in the field where a pond had begun to dry up
-some moss and lichens on a piece of bark

 

 

We really enjoy having a space to keep and look at some seasonal treasures.  Q also found a couple tiny white stones and tiny snail shells that were white that she put on the table, as well!  We enjoy lighting the candles at dinnertime and looking at all our treasures anytime we're gathered around the table.  My kids love contributing to the collection and changing stuff out over the course of the seasons.  

Treasure Ice sensory play

Sunday night I got out two sandwich-sized cheapo tupperwares (the thinner ones make it easier to pop out the ice when you're ready to play), filled them half way with water and dropped in some treasures (beads, flat marbles, stones, colored paperclips, snowflake sequins, buttons, poker chips, etc., with bigger items for the little guy who tries to eat everything).  I froze them for a couple hours and before I went to bed I added another layer of water and a few more items. 
Monday morning I told the kids the river fairies had brought a piece of frozen river for them!  We took them outside, along with a tub of water and some salt.
They had fun touching, holding and dropping their pieces of ice.  We poured salt on, and I was thinking we'd talk about how ice melts faster with salt, but there was really no interest in this--they just wanted to try and get the stuff out! 
After a while we dropped them into the tub of water (I pointed out that ice floats) and they poured water over them to get them to melt.  There was ice play, ice eating, and finally all the treasures came out, so there was even a bit of fighting over whose rock was whos. 
But it was a successful sensory activity--little hands explored new textures, temperatures and surfaces (and little mouths did, too!) and they also absorbed some science concepts about the properties of matter (solids and liquids). 
I think we'll do this again soon!  Easy and fun!

-could be themed (animals, holidays, etc.)
-could be done in an ice cube tray to make individual treasure ices
-could be made edible by using berries

Winter painting projects

We've been reading the book OH! by Kevin Henkes and Q and I really like the snowscapes.  We decided we wanted to try our hand at painting a snowscape. 

With blue paper and white paint we went to work!  We used the book illustrations for inspiration.

 

And sprinkled glitter on our finished projects, of course!  I just realized I need to post a photo of the finished projects!

Another painting project we did--we glued white doilies to paper and watercolored over them.  We were hoping to peel off the doily and expose the white underneath (I had read about this somewhere on the internet) but the peeling part didn't work very well.  We still like our pretty pictures, though!

 

Winter decor

Last year Q watercolor painted these wooden snowflakes (bought at Hobby Lobby) and we hung them on Beck's playgym for the little guy to enjoy.  This year they are hung from the chandelier over our kitchen table.  We're really enjoying them! 

Ikea Easel Hack pretend play hibernation den

Wow, it took longer to type that title than it did to make this whole playspace!!  :)

We are studying winter, and of course we are reading lots of books about winter animals and learning about hibernation.  I decided it'd be fun to have a den to play in!  I took the rack that holds paint off our Ikea easel and draped an old brown duvet cover over it.  I rounded up a white fuzzy blanket to put underneath (snow!).  Ta-da!  It's a den!
 

The kids can crawl in and out.  We collected all the "wintery" animals we have.  It was fun sorting them into animals that hibernate and those that stay out and about during the winter. 

Our wolves, Bear and hedgehog, white winter rabbits (hiding in a hat--we've read the Jan Brett book!):

The cat loves to "hibernate" too.  I was cleaning up and threw a handful of animals inside the den this past week and heard an angry "meooooow" as I hit him with stuffed animals!

I love our Ikea easel as a basis for pretend play areas.  :)

Winter Weather Dress Up Play

To go along with our studies of winter, we've had fun getting out all of our "woolens."  We have a scarf, hat, and set of mittens for each of us in the playroom.  I moved our shelf out so the back was accessible and screwed in some little cuphooks to hold woolens.  I love having items displayed individually, as opposed to being in a basket or shelf.  It's so much more fun to select our winter wear when they're displayed so nicely!

And we have a pair of mittens for each person in a little basket.  Next year we may do something with our little clothesline, some clothespins, and the mittens.  For this year the basket is working well.  Little Man loves dumping and refilling it!  And boy does he love wearing mittens or gloves on his hands!

I have a white throw we put down on the living room carpet.  We dress in our warm woolens and go out to play in the "snow."  We practice doing snow angels!  Yup, that's what we have to resort to here in Texas.  :)

Winter book list for preschoolers and toddlers

Here are the books we're loving this season--mostly about winter, snow, and hibernation.

I starred the ones particularly good for young toddlers......a star means I am using them with my 17 month old.

Backyard Birds of Winter  Carol Lerner
Bear Has a Story to Tell  Philip C. Stead
The Biggest Snowman Ever  Steven Kroll
The Big Snow Berta and Elmer Hader
Brigid's Cloak Bryce Milligan (Candlemas)
Chaucer's First Winter Stephen Krensky
Copy Me, Copycub Richard Edwards
Dibble and Dabble in Snowtime  Dave and Julie Saunders
Geraldine's Big Snow  Holly Keller
The Story of Snow  Mark Cassino
Gregory's Shadow Don Freeman (Groundhog Day)
Hedgie's Surprise Jan Brett
The Mitten  Jan Brett
The Night Tree  Eve Bunting
*Oh!   Kevin Henkes
Over and Under the Snow   Kate Messner
The Red Bird Astrid Lindgren
Sleep Big Bear, Sleep  Maureen Wright
*Snowball Fight!  Pauline Cartwright
*Snowballs  Lois Ehlert
Snowmen at Night  Caralyn Buehner
The Snowy Day  Ezra Jack Keats
The Story of Snow  Mark Cassino
Time to Sleep  Denise Fleming
The Tomten  Astrid Lindgren
*When Snowflakes Fall  Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick
When Winter Comes Nancy Van Laan
*Winter  Cathy Torrisi

Pipecleaner snowflakes

I set out the stuff to make pipecleaner snowflakes--pipecleaners and a pair of small wire cutters.  Quinn loves trying to use the wirecutters.  Unfortunately she usually doesn't have enough hand strength to pop through the wire, but she sure enjoys trying!  I showed her how to fold the pipecleaners in half--making sure the ends matched up (math skill!!!!) and then to cut on the fold.  Then we refolded the half to make a "v" shape.  Three v's were twisted together to make a snowflake with six pieces.  We learned from our snow book that snowflakes have six sides. 

I had planned on letting Q brush these with glue and then go glitter crazy, but the kids have had a fun time just playing with the plain ole pipecleaners this week.  All Q wanted to make was one snowflake, then she found alternate uses for all the other pipecleaners.  Not wanting to stifle her creativity I let her do her thing.  I may revisit finishing the snowflakes next week and see if she's game.  Beck enjoyed carrying them around and spreading them across the house, too.  :)

 

We've always had pipecleaners available in the studio for art projects, but I've never incorporated them into play areas.  I'd suggest it!  My kids loved them.  A small pack of pipecleaners might also make a good item to take along on a road trip or in a bag to a restaurant when there might be a long wait.....lots to be done with those fuzzy bendy little guys!

More sensory snow

I mentioned making shaving cream/cornstarch snow on Monday.  Remember my kids didn't really dig it?  Well later in the week Q asked to play with it again.  When he saw he get it down Beck started grunting for it, too, and I said he'd have to get in his highchair first.  He was so motivated he climbed up himself and was ready for his snow!  They both played and played with it (her longer than him, of course).  I had collected a little basket of items to play in the snow with--scoops, pots, lids, spoons, small pitchers, etc.  The most popular item was a metal melon baller.  He loved pounding it in the snow.  She figured out how to press snow into it and then tap it on the side of the pan to get a little half-snowball mold to pop out.  She had a blast making things from the little snowballs. 

Next week we may add winter animals or even vehicles to drive in the snow!

Snow nixed, shaving cream sensory play wins!

Monday we made pretend snow out of cornstarch and shaving cream.  You just mix them together and it makes a fun substance.  Except that Q had a cut on her finger and it stung her hand when she touched it.  Then Beck saw me spray the shaving cream out of the can and all he wanted was some shaving cream.  So no one played with the snow I'd been super excited about showing them.  Instead they had fun with plain ole shaving cream.

And fun for him lasted about 2 minutes.  But he did explore it for those two minutes.  And next time I bring it out he'll be engaged even longer.  Remember not to get discouraged about the amount of time toddlers (especially young ones!) stay engaged with a sensory or art experience.  Each time you revisit the material they'll most likely have longer interest, but tell yourself it's a process and not about the product--what is made, that they play for a sustained amount of time, etc.  You can try lengthening the time a bit by playing WITH them and modeling ways to use the material, but sometimes just a short spurt is enough!

Q and I drew a snowman in the shaving cream!!  She liked the plain cream because it only got on one finger and not all over into her boo-boo.  I used to love playing with shaving cream with my preschoolers and first graders--after we finished playing it was "desk cleaning" time and they used the cream to clean all the surfaces of their desks/tables. 

That's the poor, forlorn snow in the bowl.  I put it in a container and we'll try it again tomorrow!