Hibernation Craft

After reading The Magic School Bus Sleeps for the Winter, the older girls were inspired to make a hibernation diorama, sort of like one pictured in the book.

It's a Scholastic Level 2 Reader, one I actually picked up to read with the younger children, but as usual, it's chocked full of informative side facts, about all kinds of animals in the winter, that makes it interesting enough for the entire family.

The girls started out by turning a mixing bowl upside down, and covering it with tinfoil.


Then, they layered on newspaper strips, dipped in watered down glue. Or, at least A (age 9) did. G, distracted by the prospect of tinfoil jewelry, lost interest in the project.


A, followed through though, and once the newspaper had dried overnight, she added a layer of white, scrap paper strips, again dipped in watered down glue.

The next day, she removed the "cave" from the mixing bowl, peeled away the tinfoil...


...cut a door, and painted the cave with brown, acrylic paint.


When the paint was dry, she glued the cave to a large piece of cardboard. Then, she went to work forming a bear out of Crayola Air-Dry Clay.


With the bear safely in place, in the cave, she covered the cardboard outside the cave with glue from a glue stick...



...and sprinkled on leaves, cut from tissue paper.


Then, she glued on "snow" - the cotton, and polymer powder, ripped from the inside of a diaper (I knew there was a reason we didn't throw away the last few left in the package, when we finished potty training). I had planned to give her cotton balls to use, but then I remembered we had destroyed all of the cotton balls, playing with our tape spider web.


For a finishing touch, she added some toothpick twigs on the ground, and taped on a couple of pipe cleaner trees.

For a simpler hibernation craft, check out our paper bag version, from last year.

Or, for more fun with science, click over to this week's Science Sunday link-up, at Adventures in Mommydom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Crazy about Candy Corn - Books, Links, and Ideas for Children

We've been having quite a bit of fun with candy corn, this week (click here, to see some of our candy corn inspired projects).

Did you know that October 31st is National Candy Corn Day? I didn't, until the Fryman Four put us onto it. They actually had an entire day of candy corn fun, last year (click here, to read about that).

After researching all the great, kid-friendly, candy corn projects, links, and goodies out there, I'm really thinking the entire month of October, should be dedicated "National Candy Corn Month".

I had a hard time finding non-Halloween themed, books about candy corn, though. Keven Henkes' Julius's Candy Corn, that we read for our stART project, came close. The party the cupcakes are for is a Halloween party, but other than that one mention of the holiday, the book could be about any fall party. It's really about Julius, and the candy corn.

My children rejected Kelly Asbury's Candy Corn, because it is a board book, and because it contains (non-scary) witches, and vampires, but if you have a toddler, who doesn't mind Halloween imagery, then this is a cute book about finding triangles, on Halloween night.



The Candy Corn Contest, by Patricia Riley Giff centers around a pre-Thanksgiving contest, in a school classroom. I didn't read it myself, but my 9 year old, read it with ease during "nap time", and seemed to really enjoy it. In the book the children get to make a guess on the number of candy corn in a jar, for each page they read in a book. The child with the closest guess, is to win the entire jar of candy. Which is fine, until the main character sneaks three, only to discover his teacher has already counted the candy, and written the answer on the bottom of the jar..in pen.

This book begs for extension exercises, and in fact, Scholastic has a link to a teacher's website, with an entire unit built around the book.

After completing The Candy Corn Contest, A (age 9) has move on to Ben M. Baglio's Kitten in the Candy Corn. It's number #41 in the Animal ARK series, which centers around a young girl, and her best friend (a boy), who like to help the animals they encounter through her parents veterinarian clinic. In this particular story, they must find a little kitten a home, after it arrives at the clinic, with a box of candy corn.

The story takes place around Halloween, but is centered on the story of the kitten, more than on the holiday.



Finally, I checked out Candy Corn Poems by James Stevenson. Sadly, it only contains one short poem about candy corn, but after reading, and watching How to Train Your Dragon, the children enjoyed the Stevenson's comparison of candy corn to dragon's teeth.



I thought the comparison was fitting too, especially after a math post, at Little Page Turners, where candy corn became dinosaur teeth.

Teach-nology, also has a candy corn, poetry lesson plan suggestion, here.

If it's history, you want, you might check out one these short videos on the history of candy corn, and how it's made from:

The Louisiana Farm Bureau

The Food Network,

or The History Channel

And, for even more candy corn fun, there are all kinds of printables, and craft ideas available:


Kinder Printables has a wealth of candy corn theme pages, such as candy corn alphabets, math mats, counting, and matching sheets.

Mrs. Nelson's Class has similar, but different candy corn printouts too, as well as a cut, and glue template, good for groups of children, and a number of additional fall theme ideas.

Lee Hanson Graphics has candy corn, and bat bookmarks.


DLTK-holidays has a cut, and glue together candy corn man.

Layton Music has a candy corn, musical note, match up game.

Still need more candy corn inspired ideas? Then you might want to check out Candy Corn Wonderland! an entire website dedicated to all things candy corn.

Of course, if you really don't care for candy corn, you can print out the lyrics to Nick Jr's Moose and Zee "I Don't Like Candy Corn" song.

And, then click the links below, to find out what others have been reading, at this week's What My Child is Reading blog hop, hosted by Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

Donuts on a String

So, I'll say it again...

Don't you just love fall?

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Harvest Candy Corn Cookies

If you read this blog at all, then I'm sure you knew these cookies were coming.

I've seen variations around a few places, but to make our candy corn cookies, we turned, as usual, to sugar cookie dough. Dividing a batch into thirds - one left plain vanilla, one with red, and yellow food coloring added, and one mixed with 1/4 cup of melted chocolate chips, because we were out of baker's cocoa (horror of horrors!).

We rolled them out into play dough-like ropes, and lined them up in the brown, orange, and white of harvest candy corn. I had to Google harvest candy corn to prove to my 13 year old, that there is such a thing.

Then, using a butter knife, we cut them into triangles...

...just like we do when we make actual candy corn, which we made this week too, but you can read last year's post about that - we made them just the same this year...

...only jumbo :)

But, back to the cookies - they went onto a greased cookie sheet, and baked for the usual 12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit...

...and were eaten by candy corn candlelight.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Contact and Tissue Paper Candy Corn

We read a very short, candy corn themed, story for stART (a story+ART link-up hosted by A Mommy's Adventures), today.


Julius's Candy Corn, came from our library, as part of a boxed set, entitled - A Box of Treats, Five Little Picture Books by Kevin Henkes. Each of the five books, has an appropriately sweet, candy theme, to go with various seasons, and holidays.

• Wimberly's Ice-Cream Star, for the 4th of July
  
• Julius's Candy Corn, for Halloween
  
• Sheila Rae's Peppermint Stick, for Christmas
  
• Lilly's Chocolate Heart, for Valentine's Day
  
• and Owen's Marshmallow Chick, for Easter
  

In Julius's Candy Corn, Julius is instructed not to eat any of the ten cupcakes, on the table, each with a candy corn on top. They are for the party. And, he doesn't eat...the cupcakes.

It's a very simple story, but my youngest two (ages 4 and 5) thought it was very cute. We made an equally simple, contact, and tissue paper, craft to go with it.

I traced 10 candy corn shapes, on the back side of contact paper, using a template from a First School, printable, candy corn craft.


Then, we cut them out, and peeled the paper away (E was able to cut, and peel them, herself).


I sat them sticky side up, over the template (for C), and the girls covered them with pieces of yellow, orange, and white tissue paper.


When they were done with all ten, I trimmed them, and hung them up on the window with tape.


I know I've seen this done, where a second piece of contact paper is used to seal in the tissue paper, but the girls had pretty well covered all the sticky parts, so I just hung them up, as they were.




For more story stretching, arts and crafts, click over to this week's stART link-up, at a Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Crocheted Candy Corn

What's cuter than crocheted candy corn?

Crocheted candy corn with faces.

To make these sweet fellows, I followed a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. You might have to give them an email address to view the pattern, but it is free, and it doesn't seem to generate too much junk mail.

It's a great beginner project, and very easy to add a face to...

...before stuffing, and sewing up.

I used felt scraps, and yarn for the faces...

...and also some buttons...

...and sew on googly eyes.

If you make one for a baby, or toddler, I'd suggest sticking with the felt, or using safety eyes, to minimize the choking hazard. Since, I don't think my 13 year old will try to chew off the buttons, I used up whatever I could find in my pre-Christmas crafting stock up time, closet.

As I said, the pattern is simple, and very good for beginners. Though it does require paying attention (and not trying to do six other things at once), as you can see from the variation in my candy corn.

It's great to be homeschooler.