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.  

Exodus story of Moses playset (felted!)

I finally got some photos of our Moses playset ready to share!

I'll start by describing what I did. 

The background is a needle-felted and wet-felted piece I made at a felting class I took a few weeks back.  Definitely not necessary for the playset, but nice to set the scene.  The same thing could be made with watercolors or even crayons/markers or completely left out. 

The river is a blue-green scarf.  I added a few stones to set the scene, as well. 

I made all of the women the same way--I cut craft felt (for the mother, sister and princess) or tshirt scraps (2 maids) in the pattern shape.  I made them different sizes depending on the character.  Remember that they'll shrink when sewn, too.  I handsewed them (right sides together) and then turned them right side out.  I stuffed them with batting (I cut open an old bedpillow) and then tied some string around the neck to define the head shape.  For the Princess I also tied a belt around her middle. 

I then needlefelted details on my characters, but this could also be done with hotglue and felt or fabric scraps. 


Here's the pattern--the oval with the flat bottom is the body piece (cut 2) and the small piece is the base (cut 1).  You can adjust the size of your body piece and to adjust your base you just need the length of the long sides to be the same as the bottom of your body piece.  You will actually round off all 4 corners of the base, I just wanted to show that they were the same size in this photo.

So cut 2 body pieces, sew (glue) together right sides together, turn right side out, stuff, tie string to make head, and then handstitch bottom onto body.  I used embroidery thread that matched the body color.  Definitely nothing fancy.

Princess and her two maids:

Moses' mother and sister: 

I felted baby Moses with white roving and a ball of dark brown roving.  You could do the same thing with felt and fabric scraps and a hot glue gun. 

I always like to give opportunities to involve my kids in setting up the scenes for the stories.  For this one I knew I wanted to make a set of reeds (river grass) they could work/play with.  I used my husband's bandsaw to cut a limb into small sections and then drilled holes in each piece.  I had some greenery I cut apart (in different lengths) to stuff into the holes.  It is removable, so the kids can choose which pieces go where and can also put the pieces in and out of the bases.  The little root piece hanging out was on one of the greenery pieces. Great fine motor practice!!

When I first thought about this project I was imagining us gathering real pieces of greenery to use, so that would totally work, too!  I just happened to find this particular greenery in my studio and wanted to put it to use. 

The wire basket was one we already had.  I had also toyed around with using a walnut shell for the basket. 

Quinn loves setting up the scene (a little differently each time).  We have a board book of the story that she can "read" while I act it out with the characters, then we switch and I read from the children's Bible and she moves the characters.  Beck just loves watching and occasionally holding the baby.  Then running off with him and being chased down to get Moses back.  :)

Q has had so many thoughful questions for me as we've explored this story for several mornings.  She's very interested in why the mother would need to nurse the baby and whose baby he would actually be.  So fun to explore the power of God's word with my little ones!

I love letting my kids get "hands on" with the manipulatives and even using them later for extended pretend play.  Such an important opportunities for toddlers and preschoolers.

This playset did take me quite a bit of time.  Several evenings I worked on the items while we watched a movie, etc.  I really consider these to be such important tools in my children's faith development (and maybe someday even my grandchildren's....) that I think they're worth the time.

I hope you aren't immediately turned off to this project if you don't know how to felt.  Or sew.  There are so many options available for making playsets--and you can pretty much do anything with a gluegun!  The Moses story lends itself to making a great playset, so I'd really encourage you to get crafty with the stuff you have around the house and make your own set. 

PS) One day I have big plans for letting my kids act this story out in our little pond!  We'll have to find something that will really float for Baby Moses.  They are going to LOVE IT!

On organizing--my monthly files.

I have several little spots for organizing my teaching things.  Of course I consider the atmosphere of our home one of my learning tools!  I have many files saved on my computer in folders named by month--ideas for January, February, etc.  A lot of people do this on Pinterest.  For me it works well on my personal hard drive. 

I also keep a file of real paper in our file cabinet.  There is a folder for each month.  I file photos from that month--ie: or Valentime card, Christmas photos, etc. and I love to get them out every year during that month.  In our August file I have pictures of Beck as a newborn as well as his first bday photos.  Next August we'll find a good place to put these in our home.  I also file magazine ideas, printouts, recipes, etc. that correspond to certain months or seasons.  I often also store artwork I might want to repost next year at the same time--Valentines the kids made, a winter picture Q painted, etc.  Usually my very favorite pieces of artwork that I want to save and display yearly. 

Each month at the beginning-ish of the month I get out my file and see what's inside and if I'll be using any of it that month.  This is a low-maintnance strategy and it works really well for me!  As you can see it's nothing fancy--my folders don't even match and are repurposed from my public school teaching days. 
 

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! 

Backyard Birds of Winter

We've been reading about winter backyard birds.  We've been watching them out our window, as well!
We learned from our book that birds like suet in the winter to give them protein since they aren't eating as many birds.  So we had a project this week of "winterizing" our bird feeding area!

We made a pole in the ground with a branch and hung our suet on it.  We tied another branch on to make a perch for birds to sit while they eat. 

We bought a new bag of seed and put some out!

We rinsed and refilled the birdbath.

And now we've been watching to see what types of birds come to our yard! 

Such a fun way to incorporate practical life, motor skills, science concepts, and literacy skills as we take care of our feathered friends!