The Legend Of The Candy Cane

I love Christmas and reading all kinds of Christmas Stories. We read my childhood copy of The Night Before Christmas, and we share fun new stories like The Auntie Clause , and many others that I hope to share in the weeks to come. But The Legend Of The Candy Cane is up at the top of my list of must read Christmas stories.I read this book to my children last night. My oldest has heard this story many times before, but always looks forward to hearing it again. My 3 year old had never heard the story before, and while there are parts of the story that are perhaps a bit old for him (but maybe not), we focused on the parts of the story that he could relate to. Like the candy cane looks like the letter J (for Jesus), but if you turn it over it looks like a shepherds staff (who were the first to see the New Born Babe).

If you don't have a copy of this book and can't find one to use, you can find a text only version at The Legend Of The Candy Cane . This is not quite the same as the book, but still is a wonderful story to share with your children. I have received candy canes as a small gift with the printed legend attached. We may give them with a poem (found at the link mentioned above).

We have also been reading This Is The Stable . What a simple but wonderful way to tell the Christmas story to very young children. It is simple enough that my Little Guy is able to remember the words and say them along with me.

The thing I find most wonderful about reading these stories is that Big Sis (in the 6th grade and 11 years old) will stop what she's doing and come snuggle with us as I read.

What's a story with out a craft?

As an extension of The Legend Of The Candy Cane. We did some simple marble painting to create fun candy canes of our own.

All you need for this activity are: paper cut outs of candy canes, marble (or other round object), red paint, and some sort of container to place candy canes and paint covered marble in. Pour paint into a small dish and roll the marble in the paint, place paper candy canes in large dish, box...now you are ready to add the paint covered marble, and roll it around. Add paint to the marble as needed.

As an extension of This Is The Stable we made a bundle of Christmas Hay. We used Raffia and red yarn to make our bundle of Christmas Hay.

Little Guy and I will do something special for Big Sis (perhaps hang Christmas Lights in her room) and leave the Christmas Hay. When she comes home from school she will find the lights and the hay. Now it is her turn to do something special for someone else in our house and pass on the Christmas Hay.

Have a delightful day!!

S is for Scarecrow and Spider

In my last post I mentioned that the Little Guy has been learning about the letter S. We've been reading all about scarecrows and spiders and we've done some fun activities that even Big Sis has taken part in ( Scarecrow and Spider Crackers). I'm finally getting around to posting a couple of other activities that we've done based on the Letter S.

Scarecrow and Straw start with S (books we're reading The Lonely Scarecrow , Barn Dance, and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything)

First up is the Straw S. This is a super simple activity, but just one more way for little ones to begin to associate the sound s with the letter s. I cut out an S and we glued straw on together. As we worked we talked about our scarecrow stories, and remember that scarecrows are made with straw.

Spider Starts With S (books we're reading How Spider Saved Halloween and, The Very Busy Spider )

Next up, we have the favorite craft by far!! Spiders!! My little guy is really into spiders lately, and he loves to decorate for Halloween. Before the day was over we had to make a family of these guys to hang from the light fixture.

As usual I went with a simple pattern. I traced a medium sized bowl for the body and cut strips about 1/2 inch in width, and as long as the short side of the construction paper, free handed round eyes and the letter S.

We love the accordion folded legs and silly eyes. The spider looks great hanging from a light fixture or such (I should have taken pictures).

Have a delightful day!!

Scarecrow Party

I can't believe how quickly the week has gone!! This time of year it seams that we get so busy, but it's a good busy. It's the kind of busy that's alive with kid fun.

No matter how busy we get, we always have time to share a great story. Last Saturday we went to the book store and bought a few new books to add to our "Fall"collection. I hope to share all about them, and the fun activities that they have inspired in the next few days.

Barn Dance is not a book that is new to our collection, but it is one of my very favorite books. The text is so musical, and the story if filled with magic as the scarecrow comes to life and the farm animals dance until the wee hour of morning.

To celebrate the season and extend the fun of this book, we invited a couple of friends over and made our very own scarecrows.


We used some of our Little Guy's old jeans and a shirt (about size 3). They were just the size for the girls to easily work with (Little Guy helped but I think he was off eating candy corn for most of the pictures). We stuffed our scarecrow with plastic grocery bags.


For the head the girls stuffed one sack with other sacks. They then shaped it into a rounded shape, inserted a ruler (you could use a yardstick if you want the scare crow to stand up), and tied off the bag.

Now for the fun stuff!! We brought our scarecrows to life by creating our own lively faces. We draped the fabric over the "plastic bag" head and tied it on with raffia. We then finished off the scarecrows by tying the wrists and ankles with raffia, and adding a little raffia for hair when needed.This guy went to live at the home of our good friends!! Isn't he fun?

This guy sits on our front porch keeping watch!! Don't you just bet he dances in the yard while we're sleeping?!?

I didn't worry about connecting these guys at the waist. We just sat the bottom portion on a chair and the top portion on top of it, but you could use a long dowel rod or yard stick to connect them for a standing scarecrow (you would also need to make a hole in the pants, so that the dowel or stick could be used to stand up the scarecrow).

Have a delightful day!!

Muffin Tin Monday / All About Shapes

It's a party...a shape party!!

Muffin Tin Monday is a first for me, but I know it won't be my last. My little guy was so excited when he saw his muffin tin full of fun, that he declared it a "Party Day"!! Our shapes were served in a rectangular muffin tin. On the menu(going across from the upper left): square cereal, round vanilla wafers, rectangular crackers, round crackers, star sprinkles, round bananas, cylinder sausages (I know these are a little gross, but my guy loves them), peanut butter for glue, triangle pineapple, diamond cheese, pyramid chocolate chips (okay I know it's a bit of a stretch), round cereal.

Did we have fun? Boy did we ever!!! We didn't just eat our shapes, we played with them, we got down right artistic with it. This is just a sample of some of what we made!!


Other activities on the menu for today...Shape scavenger hunt, building with shapes (we will find shapes around the house, i.e. cracker boxes, tape spools..., and build with them), the telling of the story Triangles Are Not Bad (with props), we will be playing with pattern blocks, and making pictures inspired by Ed Emberley's Picture Pie

Be sure to check out more of the fun at Sycamore Stirrings.

Have A delightful day!!

"Oh Lovely Mud" and Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

If you've just dropped by to see my favorite photo for the "Foto Fiesta" scroll down to the last photo of today's post. But feel free to read all about our "lovely mud" if you have the time.

"Oh Lovely Mud"

When I was teaching, Mrs. Wish Washy was always a favorite of my students, the same is true at home. My oldest daughter loved this book when she was small and my little guy loves it now. It's the perfect book for little ones, it has repetitive language patterns, fun content and, and great illustrations.
In the book, poor Mrs. Wishy Washy is trying to keep the animals clean, but they keep getting in the mud.

For today's activity we learned about the letter M, it's sound, and the fact that the word mud starts with M. We first read the book together and then we maid a "Muddy M" painting

We used brown paint and a letter M shaped cookie cutter, a sponge in the letter shape would work as well.

Once Big Sis came home, from school, we worked together to make farm animal cookies.



I love this recipe, it's easy for kids to roll and cut out themselves. The cookies taste great too!!

Rolled Sugar Cookies

3 C flour
2 t baking powder
3/4 t baking soda
1 C shortening (I used butter(
1 egg, beaten
1 1/4 C sugar
2 T milk
1 t vanilla
Combine flour, baking powder, and soda, cut in shortening (or butter) with a pastry blender until it resembles course meal. Combine egg, sugar, milk, and vanilla. Stir until well blended pour into the the dry mixture. Stir with fork until well blended. pat dough into ball and chill 2 hours (we usually can't wait that long). Role dough 1/8 in thick and cut with cookie cutter.
Bake at 375 for 6 minutes.

After the cookies had time to cool we drizzled them with "mud". We used chocolate flavored almond bark (because it is so easy to work with) but any kind of candy coating or frosting would work.

Friday Foto Fiesta

The kids had such a great time working on this cooking project!! My favorite photo this week is of them together in the kitchen.

To Join the Fiesta!! Visit Candid Carrie.

Have a Delightful Day!!

Flowers in Fall

My little guy has been noticing signs of the changing season. One thing he has noticed are all of the tall sunflowers we pass as we drive Big Sis to school. So what better book to share than The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carl. Today we read the book together. He loved reading about the tiny seeds travels as the Autumn winds blew, until finally the tiny seed grows into the biggest flower of all (even bigger than the house). Sometimes we think of flowers as being something to talk about in spring, but this book ties the cycle of the flower into all of the changing seasons, beginning and ending with Autumn.

After reading the book we painted our own Flower, and snacked on sunflower seed nuts. The first painting is the one I helped him with, the second one is the one he did all by himself!!

Today we pained with tempera paint and a sponge clipped to a clothes pin, and a sponge brush!!

Our next activity with this book will be to sprout seeds, and observe how they grow.

Have a delightful day!!
DeeLight

More Animals On The Bus

Okay I'm a little late. We've had our puppets made I just haven't had time to post.

We made a sheep and a cow, using the same idea as the pig puppet. My little guy wants to make a chicken next. If you want to continue to explore farm animals in automobiles and other unusual places you might check these great books out: Mr. Gumpy's Outing , Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car, Sheep In a Jeep, Cows In The Kitchen.

Have a delightful day!

The Wheels On The Bus

This is an old standby. Nothing too original, but always fun for little ones.

The Wheels On The Bus is a great song, but can also be found in several different book versions.

We checked Raffi's Wheels On The Bus out from the library. We sang the song, and listened to the song on CD. Now when we read the book together my little one can "read" right along with me.

This is a great opportunity to check out all of the yellow school buses. We look for buses as we drive around town, and talk about the color yellow. For fun we finger painted with yellow. I then drew a bus on the painted yellow paper, cut it out, and added wheels (complete with brads so the wheels go "around and around").



Stay tuned for more bus activities, stories, and songs.

5 Little Monkeys...

What could be more fun than 5 little monkeys? Well, 5 little monkey puppets of course.




This is a super easy project and kids love it.



Here's what you need:

• Brown construction paper
• Scrap paper (for hats...)
• Crayons or markers
• Craft sticks
• Glues stick
• 2 circle shapes to trace (one should be slightly larger than the other)

Here's what you do:

• Remember this is for fun, your little one doesn't care if your an artist.
• Trace 5 large circles, and 5 smaller circles. Cut them out.
• The smaller circle is the nose and mouth piece of the puppet. The larger circle is the actual face.
• Find where you are going to need to place the smaller circle on the larger circle, and draw an x on the larger circle (this will help your child know where to place the glue it will be covered by the smaller circle).
• Cut out ears from the left over brown paper. You can draw an x as a guiede for glueing with these as well.
• Okay be brave it's time for the glue. Show your little one how to smear the glue on the x and then place the smaller circle on top of the glue.
• Now it's time for the fun stuff draw on eyes, nose, mouth...use scrap paper to make hats or other accessories.
• Glue your little monkeys to the craft stick and have fun acting out the story!!

Have fun, and delight in the day!! DeeLight