Snow Day Lego Hide and Seek

We got hit full force by the "polar vortex" sweeping across the country, today.   Really, that just means we had a good snow, but it was too cold to go outside and play (which is saying something in Montana). 

The view from our window.

It was okay though, because I was ready for the cabin fever with a recycled, and slightly rebooted activity from the summer (another way I'm keeping fall simple this year) - a snow themed, Lego set, hide and seek.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted some inexpensive little, Lego, snowmen sets, and snatched up three - one for each of the younger children.  They've been riding around under the front seat of the van since them, just waiting for a day like today.

So, all I had to do was sort through the children's Lego box for as many white blocks as I could find, mix them together with the pieces from the set, and dump them all out on the table, together with the snowman instructions...

 ...for the children to dig through to find the pieces they needed...

...to build the snowmen...

 ...leaving all the extra white pieces for building a snow fort, or snow car, or snow village, or whatever else the blustery weather outside inspired, for their snowmen - inside where it was warm.

It was nice to have a snow day that didn't end with a trail of wet boots and mittens, or a spilled mug of hot chocolate - just happy Lego building at the table, and time left to snuggle up for a polar vortex viewing of The Day After Tomorrow with the teens.

Thanksgiving Crafts Made Easy - Recycling Thankfulness

Usually, we spend the last couple of days of October, or the first few days of November, making 20-some hand print turkeys - one for each day, from the 1st of November through to Thanksgiving.

Then, each day from November 1st on, we take turns picking a turkey, writing something we're thankful for, and sticking it to our fall leaf-list tree...

...transforming it into a Peanuts inspired turkey tree - you know...like from a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving...



I have to admit that this year, with the move, and dealing with teenage jobs, driving, and college prep, I was feeling a lot like Sally, when I realized hand print turkey time had rolled around again, already.

But, then it dawned on me - one of the nice things about a tradition, like our hand print turkeys - is that you don't have to do all the work fresh each year, because you already did most of it last year, or the year before, or even the year before that.  We have photo albums full of hand print turkeys, carefully removed from their trees, all preserved, and ready to be used again.

So this year, instead of spending hours crafting new turkeys, we're dipping into our piles from the past.

Instead of writing something new each day that we are thankful for, we're reading what we were thankful for last year, and discussing, and discovering old and new ways we're thankful for the same things again this year, as life and circumstances are changing around us.

Remembering what we have been thankful for in the past, reminds us of what we really, and truly are thankful for in the present.  I'm thankful for traditions...

I'm thankful for memories...

...and I'm thankful for recycling.

  It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fall Themed Half-Square Quilt Puzzle Blocks

We had a cold rainy weekend, perfect for staying inside, and working on puzzles.  I pulled out the card-stock, half square, quilt puzzle set, I made for the children over the summer, and copied off a few fall themed, quilt blocks for the children to try to piece together, this time.

Just in case you can't tell from my beautiful sketches above, they are supposed to be leaves, pumpkins, sunflowers, candy corn, and bats (inspired or copied from actual quilt patterns).

Sadly, our puzzle set doesn't include any orange triangles, and we didn't have a scrap of orange card-stock on hand, so we had to get creative when it came to the pumpkin quilt block (and the candy corn, but that's a problem for another day).  As for the pumpkin...

...come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you what we came up with - most likely.  Or, you can just look at the picture, and give it your best guess, and then come back tomorrow anyway, to find out why it's special.

Fall Crayon Color Matching - Sunflowers

After coloring our crayon transfer sheets with fall colored crayons, we got to wondering if the the colors we chose - red, brown, yellow, and orange were really the best colors to represent fall, at all.

To find out, we grabbed our largest box of crayons (one with multiple shades of each color), and headed outside to see if any of our crayons actually matched up to the natural colors of fall.

Right away, E (age 9) spotted a bunch of tiny, wild sunflowers growing in a nearby vacant lot.

She picked a few, and we pulled out the crayons that we thought might match the color of the petals.  As we held the crayons up to the flower, we were surprised to find the petals were not nearly as orange, or even gold, as we had thought at first glance.  Plain old yellow ended up being the closest match.

Then, we went on to match the crayons to the color of the stem, and center of the flower too. 

I had planned to continue - matching leaves at the park, or to pumpkins, or apples from the store. But, with the flowers picked, and on the table, and the correct crayons selected, the girls were ready to draw them.

And, of course, the sight of the girls drawing sunflowers in living color, brought to mind a picture book to share with them (click here to hear it being read on Vimoe)...

...and a math related video (even if I couldn't convince the girls to try counting the flowers' spirals)...



...and a page from the Montana field guide to check to make sure...

...our flowers were even sunflowers at all.

Just in case you're keeping track, that's art, history, literature, math (barely, but still), and science - not too bad for a wildflower growing as a weed in the autumn soil.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fall Crayon Transfers

We gave a fall twist to the crayon "copy paper" concept, by coloring the back of fall-themed coloring sheets with stripes of red, orange, yellow, and brown crayon colors...

...then turning the sheet over, so the colored side was on top of a blank sheet of paper, and the coloring sheet design was facing up, ready to be traced with a pencil...

...then removed, to reveal...

...the colorful copy on the blank page underneath.

The sheets can be used more than once.  My girls traced their pictures, and then wrote words, and drew free form pictures over the coloring sheet design, on fresh sheets of paper, until the colors wore out.

Macrame Owls and Canadian Set Fiction

For some odd reason, I can't quite explain, I decided it would be fun to make macrame owls, this weekend.  My original intent was to craft alone, but after finding a 2010 post from That Artist Woman detailing a 4th grade art extension project, to go along with Farley Mowats Owl's in the Family...

...I decided it would be fun to bring my younger four (ages 8-13) in on the project, as well.  The owl pattern That Artist Woman used with her class doesn't seem to be available online anymore.  But, our library did have a copy of Owls in the Family on the shelf, and the after a little trial and error, I settled on a simple, easy to follow pattern from Free-Macrame-Patterns.com for us to use with it.

We made our owls from yarn, because we have a pretty good selection of fall colored yarn on hand...

...and the children raided the button box, trying out different combinations of yarn, eye, and beak colors until they were happy.

Having a very limited knowledge of macrame, I needed a pattern that was simple.  Somehow, I managed to live the entire first half of my childhood through the 1970s, without ever tying a single macrame knot (or doing any of those nail and string pictures, either).  Fortunately for me, the pattern we found, only uses four different knots: a larks head knot, for fastening the yarn onto a stick, or necklace string...

...a series of square knots for forming the top of the head...

...double half hitches to outline the face, and form the wings, and a couple of standard overhand knots to attach the bottom stick (broken chopsticks, in our case).

Each of the knots are explained, and demonstrated in the instructions in a way simple enough for even my eight year old to follow, with the smallest amount of help.  We worked on our owls on top of cardboard box lids, attaching them to the cardboard with bread ties, and using small pieces of clear tape to hook the yarn to the back of the board, when it needed to be kept at a certain angle, or pulled tight.

I worked with the children one at a time, and one step at a time, throughout the weekend.  It is a small project, that could have been completed all at once, but we took our time, and really enjoyed the whole process.

Finally, taking one last bit of inspiration from That Artist Woman, we displayed our completed owls, hanging them with clear tape on either side of their top sticks...

...perched on the branches of our fall to-do tree.

While the younger children and I enjoy Farley Mowats tale of life, and wildlife in rural Saskatchewan, I've picked another owl themed, and Canadian set story to read together with my teens...

...which I haven't read since I was a teen (in Saskatchewan, strangely enough) myself.

Fall Leaf List - Things To Do Before the Leaves Fall

With fall crafts, and baking starting around our house this week, and since we've been on a leaf kick anyway, it seemed like a good time to put together our fall leaf list.

As usual, we taped up, and pieced together a paper bag tree (cut from a single grocery-sized paper bag). 

Then, we covered it with construction paper leaves, that each have one item from our fall to-do list written on them.  The leaves on our tree will  "fall" as we complete each item on our list.

A (age 13) took charge of the list, this year.  So far, this is what she's come up with for us:

• Watch Mr. Peabody and Sherman on Amazon (releases 9-23-14)
• Watch Maleficent (releases 11-4-14)
• Celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving
• Mom's birthday
• Dad's birthday
• E's birthday
• Make Owl Cookies on the first day of fall
• Make homemade candy corn
• Make apple muffins
• Gut a pumpkin
• Make pumpkin muffins
• Have pumpkin pie for breakfast
• Make homemade applesauce
• Donuts on a string
• Unpack the last box
• Spot a wild turkey
• Get driver's permits (G and T)
• Roast pumpkin seeds
• Find a new fall festival
• First snow
• Make gingerbread men
• Pumpkin science day
• Drive to the nearest Starbucks for a pumpkin latte (Mom and Dad)
• Make paper bag owls
• Re-read Beverly Cleary's Ramona series (so younger girls will understand paper bag owls)
• Watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 (releases 11-11-14)
• Spot a turning snowshoe 

At least we think the little rabbits we've been seeing all over town are snowshoes.

Time, and the first real snowfall, ought to tell.  In the meantime, I've got some serious unpacking to do, if the "unpack the last box" leaf is going to fall before Thanksgiving, when we traditionally take down our tree.

Sidewalk Chalk Leaves - Good-bye to Summer

The calendar says we still have two weeks of summer left.  As usual though, the weather disagrees.  48° and cloudy out today, didn't feel like summer.  So, we compromised.  I sent the girls outside to use up the last of the sidewalk chalk (that sounds summery, right?)...

...the fall colored chalk, anyway.  Their mission was to use up the last of the chalk by covering the large, but homely patio of our new house...

...with fall leaves.  I printed out a fall leaf identification chart for them to use as a reference, since our new yard is completely devoid of trees.  There might not be any giant leaf piles to jump in this fall (or any raking to be done for that matter), but our backyard now looks suitably prepared for the season...

...no matter what the calendar might say.  And, while watching the fat sticks of chalk disappear was entertaining enough to keep the girls coloring away for even longer than normal, by the time they were done with the patio, they were ready to pack the summery colors of chalk, left in the box, away for the season, as well.