Crafts -- helping kids with the Rosary

OK, I rarely link to another's posts on this blog, but I DON'T want to forget this spectacular idea from Kimberlee over at pondered in my heart ... wow, so easy and yet so perfect for helping little ones with keeping track of the prayer and the mystery of the Rosary!

And those girls ... don't you just want to pull them onto your lap and cuddle them?????

Feast Day: St. Joseph ... otherwise known as ...

... the saint I forgot but have now found!

It's funny: I'm a cradle-Catholic from a fairly Catholic family; we celebrated feasts and the liturgical calendar; we lit candles at Advent and avoided desserts during Lent. But somehow, we never really did much for St. Joseph. Our grammar school was run by Sisters of St. Joseph, so we did have our school/parish festival on St. Joseph's Day ... but honestly, that's all I can remember!

But this year is different. Worrying about the house not selling in Colorado (yep, it's still available if you want it!), worrying about dh worrying about the house, discerning what we should do .... and on and on ... has been a blessing in many ways: I'm praying much more and have really discovered a strong devotion to St. Joseph, the patron of everything and anything.

Often, when you have trouble selling a house,folks will suggest burying a St. Joseph in the front yard. This is not the St. Joseph to whom I've found a devotion, the St. Joseph of superstition and magic.

The St. Joseph to whom I have a new-found devotion is the one that is described by St. Bernard of Clairvaux:

"There are some saints who have the power of protecting in certain specific circumstances; but St. Joseph has been granted the power to help us in every
kind of need, and to defend all who have recourse to him with pious
dispositions."

St. Teresa of Avila is even more specific: "to other saints our Lord has given power to help in one sort of need, but this glorious saint helps us in EVERY need."

How cool is that ... a saint who is second only to our Blessed Mother in closeness to Jesus and thus, God; a saint who wants to help us and only needs to be petitioned!

We've been praying the St. Joseph Novena to petition the good saint for help with our house in Colorado and discerning God's will. One part of the prayers is particularly apropos for us now: obtain for me a pure, humble, charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine will. Wonderful stuff!

I particularly like this image of St. Joseph ... the father working hard while his son sits and chats and learns. When I see this, I think of my own dh gardening or working on the car and the boys sitting and talking with him, learning from him. And learning more than just a skill ... learning how to be an adult and how to love. Georges de La Tour (1593 - 1652) painted this painting titled, St. Joseph the Carpenter.
Here's the St. Joseph Litany we prayed at the end of Mass:

V/ Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
V/ Christ, have mercy. R/ Christ, have mercy.
V/ Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
V/ Jesus, hear us. R/ Jesus, graciously hear us.
V/ God, the Father of Heaven, R/ have mercy on us.
V/ God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, R/ have mercy on us.
V/ God, the Holy Spirit, R/ have mercy on us.
V/ Holy Trinity, One God, R/ have mercy on us.

R/for ff: pray for us.
Holy Mary,

St. Joseph,

Renowned offspring of David,

Light of Patriarchs,

Spouse of the Mother of God,

Chaste guardian of the Virgin,

Foster father of the Son of God,

Diligent protector of Christ,

Head of the Holy Family,

Joseph most just,

Joseph most chaste,

Joseph most prudent,

Joseph most strong,

Joseph most obedient,

Joseph most faithful,

Mirror of patience,

Lover of poverty,

Model of artisans,

Glory of home life,

Guardian of virgins,

Pillar of families,

Solace of the wretched,

Hope of the sick,

Patron of the dying,

Terror of demons,

Protector of Holy Church,

Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, R/ spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, R/ graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world. R/ have mercy on us.
He made him the lord of his household. R/ And prince over all his possessions.

Let us pray. O God, in your ineffable providence you were pleased to choose Blessed Joseph to be the spouse of your most holy Mother; grant, we beg you, that we may be worthy to have him for our intercessor in heaven whom on earth we venerate as our Protector: You who live and reign forever and ever. R/ Amen.

Can you see why I'm enthralled with this quiet saint about whom little is known? As Fr. Z. said at Mass today, Joseph was silent only when he needed to listen; he talked when it was necessary. A distinction I need to practice more!

So what did we do today to celebrate this wonderful feast in the Liturgical Calendar? Had a great time learning about St. Joseph through reading and discussing the wonderful meditations in this month's Magnificat. After, we each did a different craft ... String Bean did a "virtual St. Joseph altar" by coloring, cutting-out and pasting the pieces to cardstock; Bam-Bam colored a glorious picture of Joseph holding the infant Jesus; Lego-Maniac wood-burned a picture of St. Joseph while I did a shrinky dink plaque (see the beginning of this post).

Then we ran errands, including stopping at the Lego store to purchase more bricks so the kids could be "carpenters" while we watched another couple of episodes of The Adams Chronicles. Dinner was a veritable feast of St. Joseph inspired items:

• boneless-skinless chicken breasts marinated in italian dressing
• garlic-butter breadsticks (that looked like Joseph's staff) -- see recipe below
• salad with Italian dressing
• shell-pasta with butter and garlic
• Fritelle di San Guiseppe -- see recipe below

After dinner, we sat and watched the classic The Dog of Flanders, a great movie with a strong parental character, a "not sure he wants to be a father" paternal figure and a few grumpy men who should NEVER be fathers!

St. Joseph, Protector of the Holy Family, pray for us!

Recipes:

St. Joseph's Staffs (garlic butter breadsticks)

1 tbs yeast
1 1/3 c. Warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
3 tbs Vegetable oil
1 tsp. Salt
2 cups All-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. honey

Dissolve yeast in warm water in 2 1/2 quart bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the flour, the oil, honey and 1 teaspoon salt. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour, scraping dough from side of bowl, until soft dough forms. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, about 45 minutes. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Stir down dough by beating about 25 strokes. Turn dough onto generously floured surface; roll around lightly to coat with flour. Divide into 18 equal parts. Roll and shape each part dough into a rope, about 9 inches long, sprinkling with flour if dough is too sticky. Place on greased cookie sheet. When baking, bake until crust is deep golden brown and crisp, about 15 minutes. Immediately remove from cookie sheet. Store loosely covered.
Garlic-butter: while sticks are still hot, brush with mixture of 1/4cup melted butter, a minced clove of garlic, and 1 tsp dried parsley.

Frittele di San Guiseppe (from Evelyn Birge Vitz’s A Continual Feast) -- St. Joseph Fritters

2-1/4 cups milk
1 cup rice (I used brown)
Pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tbls flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbs fruit brandy (optional – I didn’t use)
Grated rind of 1 large orange
1/2 cup golden raisins (original called for just 3 tbls)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (called for pine nuts, but I used chopped pecans; original called for just 3 tbls)

Oil for frying; powdered sugar for dusting fritters

The night before or very early on St. Joseph’s day: bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan. Add the rice, salt, vanilla and sugar. Cover the pan and simmer gently until rice is cooked and the milk absorbed – about 30-45 minutes. Let the rice cool overnight or for several hours.

Mix the cooled rice with the eggs, flour, baking powder, orange rind, raisins and nuts.

Heat oil to 375 for deep-fat frying. Drop the frittellle mixture 1 tbls at a time into the oil. Cook a few at a time, keeping the frittelle separate. Fry till golden.

Drain on a paper towel. Serve hot, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Both of these recipes are definite keepers -- good thing St. Joseph has another feast in the calendar -- St. Joseph the Worker on May 1st!

Advent: early Advent saints' feasts

I had a discussion this morning (0-dark-30!) with dh about celebrating Advent with all the feasts or celebrating Advent by fasting and repentance in preparation for Christmas. I weigh in definitely on the "teach the kids the joyful with the sorrowful" so since I'm the main teacher, we celebrate as many feasts as we can throughout Advent in our home education journey.

-----*-----*-----

Yesterday, Decemember 3rd, was the feast of St. Francis Xavier. This is one great guy: not only is he Basque (even tho he's from the Spanish side rather than the French side of the Basque region, we'll happily claim him!), he was a Jesuit when Jesuits were "the good, the true and the beautiful", and he evangelized India, Japan, Phillipines and died on his way to China. He was born to wealth and gave it all up to be missionary to Asia. Ya gotta love this guy!

We had gone to Mass at dh's high school in the morning, so we'd heard from Father all about FX's exploits in the Far East, but when we got home we learned even more. 12 years AFTER he was in Japan, his converts still had the neophyte's zeal for his/her faith. This is an amazing achievement as so many other missionaries failed to convert the Far East native populations.

So, in honor of this Basque nobleman who had such an impact on Japan, we (thanks to MaryM's suggestion) did Japanese Origami ornaments for our craft-time (and thus created Christmas decorations at the same time). It was great fun to experiment and play with the origami paper -- I wish we had foil or other fancy patterned paper for this craft, but I could only find the tradtional colored/white paper. For the green one, I glue-sticked the red to the green and altho it was a little heavier than should have been, I really like the way it turned out!

For our Christmas reading we read: Strega Nona: Her Story (where we hear about her early life) and Merry Christmas, Strega Nona (where we find out just how much Big Anthony loves Strega Nona).

We finished up our day with a meeting of the St. Francis (nature study) and St. Clare (needlework) clubs -- the boys cut fresh wild holly for us while the girls crafted plastic-canvas stars. We didn't do any Christmas treat making because dh and Kotch had to be at her school for a Shakespeare night (she recited Horatio's soliloquy) while LegoManiac had a mandatory altar server meeting and I stayed home with StringBean, BamBam and an adorable 4-year-old friend (and made costumes for the kids' drama production next Saturday).

Today, December 4th, is the feast day of St. John Damascene (or John of Damascus). This is the last of the Greek Fathers and a Doctor of the Catholic Church named "Doctor of Christian Art" for his unceasing and direct defense of iconography.

We followed up our learning about St. John with a reading of Gloria Whelan's beautiful book, The Miracle of St. Nicholas. The kids really liked this one: a story of a boy who changes his village forever by dreaming of opening the 60-year-closed village church in time for Christmas Mass. Just beautiful.

This book is such a wonderful tie-in both with today's feast and St. Nicholas' feast in two days. St. John Damascene is famous for his defense of iconography -- what better way to "own" this than to become an iconographer for the day? So, I had the idea to have the kiddoes drew their idea of the book's St. Nicholas icon. StringBean, who really likes the Impressionists (Monet is her favorite artist) did her impression of the icon, while LegoManiac did his almost identical to the picture -- but since he couldn't get the hands right, he just removed the hands and the Scriptures).

They drew these icons to the smell of Syrian Biscochos (basically sugar cookie bars). Since I wasn't sure how these would taste -- check out the list of ingredients: WOW! -- I only made a half batch. The recipe I've included below is half the original -- and it made about 2-1/2 dozen bars. The cookie dough had an odd flavor but a beautiful color; the baked cookie had a great flavor but an odd color. A recipe of paradoxes, huh?

Here's the Biscochos recipe from Food DownUnder's "Syrian recipes" I used (I've given the halved version):

□ 1 cup butter, softened (the original recipe called for shortening, but I just can't bring myself to have that stuff in the house!)
□ 1/4 cup granulated sugar
□ 1/2 tsp salt
□ 1/2 tbls anise
□ 1/4 tsp ground cloves
□ 2-1/2 cups flour
□ 1/2 cup red wine (the original recipe said "wine"; checking around for a more definitive ingredient description, I found the recipes all said "any kind of wine" -- I used burgundy which accounts for the beautiful pink color of the batter)
□ Cinnamon-sugar mix to roll after baked

Preheat oven to 375.
Combine butter with sugar; add salt, anise and cloves.
Slowly add flour and wine to form dough. Continue adding flour (more than given above) until dough doesn’t stick to hands.
Roll out about 1/8-inch think and cut into squares.
Bake for 10 minutes at 375.
Remove and roll in cinnamon-sugar mix while still hot. Cool and eat!

These cookies are REALLY good -- and it turns out there are other countries who "claim" these cookies: Spain, Mexico and it's even the "state cookie" of New Mexico! Who knew?

Advent: Crafting and a bit of reading ...

... was on the docket today. First, we did some activities from Holy Heroes' Advent Adventures page -- LegoManiac doing the crossword, String Bean the word search, and BamBam coloring a picture -- where today we talked about the Second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation of the Blessed Mother to her aged cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. The cool thing about the Holy Heroes' information is that the multiple choice "tests" can be used for reinforcement and then the puzzle pages tie right in also. This is going to be a great addition to our Advent days.

We're also doing something a little different this year with the Advent Blocks that we made in 2006. The past couple of years, we've done the blocks at night so the whole family can participate.

This year, we're going to use them to "plan" our day ... so the block will give us an Advent/Christmas saint to explore, who to pray for or what to pray, crafty activity to do for the day, what the treat will be, what object to add to the Nativity set and finally what symbol to discuss (and that's the one we'll leave in the box to help us count down the days). The blocks won't be pulled at random so we can celebrate a saint's feast on the appropriate day (for instance, tomorrow is St. Francis Xavier) and the Christ Child won't go in the Nativity until the 24th ... but this works for us. I like having the blocks left in the box -- less cleanup when Christmas is over AND I can direct the kids to the box when they ask the age-old question "when will it be Christmans?"

Here's what we "got" today for discussion and activities:

• saint of the day: St. John Neumann (whose feast is Jan 5th, so we often "forget" him during our Christmas break)
• who or what to pray: read today's reading, responsorial and gospel
• crafty activity: make ornaments
• treat for the day: hot chocolate (perfect as it's been cold/damp and we keep the house at a steady 65!)
• object to add to our Nativity: shepherd
• symbol to leave in the box: Chalice and Host

The kids really liked that we did this for our "school day" as it gives us lots of time to really discuss and do in preparing for the Christ Child. This helps us slow-down our Advent and revel in being Catholic while at the same time learning how to share, how to create, how to listen, how to serve ... how to live!

We also read a book suggested in Cay Gibson's Christmas Mosaic: Clyde Robert Bulla's book, The Christmas Coat about two brothers who give their mom the best Christmas gift ever. This book really hit home for us as the boys are always squabbling (BamBam trying to be 10 instead of 6 and LegoManiac demanding rights of older brother-hood!). What a fabulous story -- and so fun to read aloud!

We finished our day with getting ready the costumes for the upcoming drama performance -- LegoManiac's roles include a monkey (type-casting?) while StringBean will be an Angel telling St. Joseph: "do not fear to take Mary as your spouse ..." String Bean was so excited by her first acting role that she had her lines memorized after the first practice!

So, what did you do this third day of Advent 2008?

Christmas: only 40 days left!

Can you believe it? We're halfway through November already. Thanksgiving is late this year (Nov. 27th) so Advent will actually start Turkey-Day weekend! Whew!

This year, what with the economy being how it is and the house in Colorado still not sold, we're having to cut back a bit. But we will probably have a better Christmas because of that. We told the kids last week that ALL gifts will be hand-crafted, hand-baked, and generally non-store bought (except for the ones from St. Nick himself, of course).

Over the next 40 days -- especially after November 29th -- St. Athanasius Academy will be a veritable North Pole workshop ... with cutting, sewing, gluing, hammering, knitting (of course!), baking, painting, sculpting and wrapping. I will help the younger ones, but all will be doing their own thing too.

We will record our progress here (unless it would spoil a surprise or two) and document our Advent Preparedness. Our goal is to spend zero dollars on something store-bought while spending lots of time and effort for our loved ones. This Christmas will be quite memorable for all of us!

Any suggestions for hand-made, hand-crafted, or hand-baked gifts are most appreciated.

Let the gift-making begin!

Feast: Our Lady of the Rosary

Today is a lovely feast -- Our Lady of the Rosary commemorates the amazing victory of the European troops (led by Austrian Don Juan) against the Turks at Lepanto. This was the battle that GKChesterton immortalized in his poem, Lepanto (which we read today to give the kids the flavor of the battle).

[here's Bam-bam's version of the "ships" -- they then got out all their stuffed animals (I mean, Turks) and proceeded to fire on them!]

Here's an article from EWTN that explains the origins of the feast:

[this painting, by an unknown artist, shows the port of Lepanto during the battle]

On October 7, 1571, a great victory over the mighty Turkish fleet was won by Catholic naval forces primarily from Spain, Venice, and Genoa under thecommand of Don Juan of Austria. It was the last battle at sea between "oared" ships, which featured the most powerful navy in the world, a Moslem force with between 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers. The patchwork team of Catholic ships was powered by the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage,the holy pontiff, St. Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. We know today that the victory was decisive, prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe, and evidenced the Hand of God working through Our Lady. At the hour of victory, St. Pope Pius V, who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican, is said to have gotten up from a meeting, went over to a window, and exclaimed with supernatural radiance: "The Christian fleet is victorious!" and shed tears of thanksgiving to God.

At Lepanto, the Victory over the Moslems was won by the faithful praying the Rosary. Even though they had superior numbers, the Turks really were overmatched. St. Padre Pio,said: "The Rosary is the weapon," and how right he was!

The Battle of Lepanto was at first celebrated liturgically as "Our Lady of Victory." Later, the feast of October 7th was renamed "Our Lady of the Rosary" and extended throughout the Universal Church by Pope Clement XI in 1716 (who canonized Pope Pius V in 1712).

Here's what we did today to help remember this lovely feast:
Coloring page from our ever-resourceful Waltzing Matilda ...and "shrinky dink" plaque for the Marian feast.
We then put together a "Rosary Book". I bought "rosary cards" from Magnificat last May (but with moving, etc, never used them) and ...

we pasted those on card-stock. Here is the card for 5th Luminous mystery, the Institution of the Eucharist. Each set of mysteries is separated with a "summary" sheet so we know which mysteries on which days! All the cards are put in order in sheet protectors and the final page of our book is this quote from Servant of God, John Paul the Great:

… it becomes natural to bring to this encounter with the sacred humanity of
the Redeemer all the problems, anxieties, labors and endeavors which go to make
up our lives. “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you” (Ps 55:23).
To pray the Rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ
and his Mother. … I feel the need to say once more, as a warm invitation to
everyone to experience it personally: the Rosary does indeed “mark the rhythm of
human life”, bringing it into harmony with the “rhythm” of God's own life, in
the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny and deepest
longing. (paragraph 25, Rosarium Virginis Mariae)

And for dinner ... well, since Don John of Austria is the main man behind the Battle of Lepanto, we opted for an Austrian feast -- sausages, potatoes with apples and beer (add a salad and you got a great meal!). Since dh's birthday is tomorrow, we didn't make any sloppy-gloppy dessert as those will come over the next days (dh really likes to celebrate his birthday with food!).

Feast: Guardian Angels

"From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (the angels) watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life. Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united to God."
- from the Catechism of the Catholic Church; 336.

I'm so thankful for God's gift a protector, shepherd, helper for each one of us. This was a gift I never thought much about until I had children.

And boy, do my kids keep their angels hopping ... especially Bam-Bam. I know his particular GA is ever aware of just exactly what he has gotten up to. The fact that we've yet to need a run to the ER or the orthopedic surgeon or even an unscheduled doc visit is proof of the pudding!

Today we used the Guardian Angel prayer for copywork and while I read St. Patrick's Summer, the kiddoes worked on their very own GA's ... I figure I will post the hand-written prayers and angels near the kids' beds.

Crafts -- "go" bags for each

One thing I'm trying this year is giving the littles weekly assignments on Monday that they have to have done my Friday morning ... spelling words, copywork, memory work, math pages, etc. I decided it would be best to have a place to put these so the littles could find them easily and so could I when it came time to check work.

So we headed to Jo-Ann's with coupons in hand (btw, Jo-Ann's is one of the BEST stores for giving home-educators "education discounts", which is 10% on top of it all -- so if you have coupons you get the coupon price and then another 10% off! Definitely patronize them whenever you can). We bought 3 blank canvas tote bags and Crayola Fabric markers then headed home to decorate.

Here's what the youngsters created (btw, the reverse has their names so each bag can quickly be found, even when others aren't able to match "theme" to the artist):

Can you tell Bam-bam likes college football? I started to write the team names for him (and I'm responsible for the 'gator that looks like a blue newt!) but then he took over --- now that's copywork with style!

String Bean chose to decorate her personal bag with all things "Kit" -- whose name she has adopted as her own! Notice the typewriter (including typed paper!), baseball, tree house, etc. That self-portrait (a mix of Kit and String Bean) sure is happy!Then, of course, here's Lego Maniac's -- the orcs vs the knights. He's quite into military history and warfare, so could you expect anything less? I like how the stick figures don't seem like stick figures somehow.

BTW, those markers are great for the kids and fabric "painting" -- they can really control the color and the "paint" is easily heat-set with an iron or in the dryer. The colors stay pretty vibrant too!

Our first day ... it worked!

Here the gang is before we headed to morning Mass -- don'tthey look happy to start a year of school? Of course, the promise of donuts after Mass always helps!Here's right before we went to morning Mass -- don't they look happy to start their school year?

Here are the aprons they created -- Lego Maniac made a leprechaun, String Bean did stars, hearts and a typewriter (signing her name, "Kit") and Bam-bam put dots (or "olives" as they look to me) all over his apron. I think they came out wonderfully -- I hope they think so as they'll be using these for YEARS!

Creativity and Crafting -- resource list

Here's a bibliography I compiled of creativity and craft books for nurturing creativity in the home.

Bibliography of Resources on Creativity

1. Creativity defined and developed

Butterworth, Eric – The Creative Life: Seven Keys to Your Inner Genius – Jeremy R. Tarcher/Putnam (New York). 2001
Gregory, Danny – The Creative License: Giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are – Hyperion (New York). 2006
Henri, Robert – The Art Spirit – Westview Press (Boulder, CO) 1984.
Kenison, Katrina – Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry – Warner Books (New York). 2000
Leuzzi, Linda – A Creative Life: The Young Person’s Guide – Franklin Watts (Danbury, Connecticut). 1999
Murphy, Bernadette – Zen and the Art of Knitting: Exploring the Links Between Knitting, Spirituality, and Creativity – Adams Media Corporation 2002
Soule, Amanda Blake – The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections – Trumpeter Books (Boston, Massachusetts). 2008
Tharp, Twyla – The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life – Simon and Schuster (New York). 2003
Wakefield, Dan – Creating from the Spirit: Living Each Day as a Creative Act – Ballantine Books (New York) 1996.
misc authors – The Crafter’s Companion: Tips, Tales and Patterns from a Community of Creative Minds – Snowbooks Ltd (London, England). 2006

2. General Crafting with kids and adults
Beal, Susan, et al – Super Crafty: Over 75 Amazing How-To Projects – Sasquatch Books (Seattle, Washington) 2005
Berger, Petra – Feltcraft: Making Dolls, Gifts and Toys – Floris Books (Edinburgh, Scotland) 2004
Berger, Petra & Thomas – Crafts Though the Year – Floris Books (Edinburgh, Scotland) 2001
Cooper, Stephanie & Fynes-Clinton, Christine & Rowling, Marye – The Children’s Year: Crafts and Clothes for Children and Parents to Make – Hawthorn Press (Gloucestershire, UK) 2002
Desmoulins, Virginie – Girls’ Best Book of Knitting, Sewing and Embroidery – Stewart, Tabori & Chang (New York) 2007
Diehn, Gwen – Books for Kids to Make: Making Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist & Turn – Lark Books (New York) 2006
Jaffke, Freya – Toymaking with Children – Floris Books (Edinburgh, Scotland) 2003
Leeuwen, M v & Moeskops, J – The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year’s Cycle with a Seasonal Tableau – Floris Books (Edinburgh, Scotland) 1990
Mavor, Salley – Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects – C&T Publishing (Lafayette, CA) 2003
Railla, Jean – Get Crafty: Hip Home Ec – Broadway Books (New York) 2004.
Watt, Fiona – The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas: Over 400 Inspiring Ideas for Things to do with Paints, Pastels, Collage, Crayons, Inks, Paper, Pens, Found Objects, Stitches, Rubbings – EDC Publishing (Tulsa, OK) 2005
Rhatigan, Joe & Newcomb, Rain & Dean, Irean Semanchuck – Craft It! 50 Fun Stamp, Paper & Polymer Clay Projects – Sterling Publishing (New York) 2005

3. Drawing with Children
Brookes, Mona – Drawing with Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too – Putnam Books (New York) 1996
Brookes, Mona – Drawing with Older Children and Teens: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too – Putnam Books (New York) 1991
Muller, Brunhild – Painting with Children – Floris Books (Edinburgh, Scotland) 2001

4. Sewing with Children
Cantrell, Alice – Sewing with St. Anne – Little Way Press (Twain Harte, CA) 2002
Cantrell, Alice – Tea & Cake with the Saints: A Catholic Young Lady’s Introduction to Hospitality and the Home Arts – Little Way Press (Twain Harte, CA) 2007
Davis, Tina – See and Sew: A Sewing Book for Children – Stewart, Tabori & Chang (New York) 2006
Fryer, Jane Eayre – The Mary Frances Sewing Book – LACIS Books (Berkley, CA) 1997
Gagnon, JoAnn & Corrie Gagnon – Stitches & Pins: A Beginning Sewing Book for Girls – Bunkhouse Books 2002
Karol, Amy – Bend-the-Rules Sewing: The essential guide to a whole new way to sew – Potter Craft (New York) 2007
Sealey, Maricristin – Kinder Dolls: A Waldorf Doll-Making Handbook – Hawthorn Press (Gloucestershire, UK) 2001

5. Knitting with Children
Bliss, Debbie – How to Knit: The definitive knitting course complete with step-by-step techniques, stitch libraries and projects for your home and family – Trafalgar Square Publishing (North Pomfret, VT) 1999
Falick, Melanie – Kids Knitting: Projects for Kids of All Ages – Artisan (New York) 2003
Fryer, Jane Eayre – The Mary Frances Book of Knitting and Crochet – Hobby House Press 2002
Gildersleeve, Mary C. – Glory of America Knits! – Ecce Homo Press (LaGrange, KY) 2004
Gildersleeve, Mary C. – Great Yarns for the Close-Knit Family: Over two dozen original hand-knit designs inspired by one dozen fantastic family read-alouds – Hillside Education (Lake Ariel, PA) 2008
Gosse, Bonnie & Allerton, Jill – A First Book of Knitting for Children – Wynstones Press (Stourbridge, England) 1997
Hansen, Robin – Sunny’s Mittens: Learn to Knit Lovikka Mittens – Down East Books (Camden, ME) 1990

Simple Craft-of-the-Week: Crayon Cookies

Sarah over at Plainsong is continuing the "simple craft-a-week club" through this year. We still have lots of spots open if you'd like to volunteer.

I have this week's craft, so here goes:

Crayon Cookies

This is a really easy craft -- one many of you may have done before -- but we'd never done it and since I wanted to have the kiddoes make some posters this week anyway, I thought it was a great time to do this. Also, since we're in the second half of the year, all those new and whole crayons have been relegated to the crayon "bin" -- just one step above the trash!

You'll need old crayons, an old muffin tin, and an oven/toaster oven.

Break the crayons into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces -- we used a bin filled with old, mismatched crayons, many of which were already all broken up. Remove any paper or other labels from the crayons.

The 3 kids and I each did 3 cups of crayons -- some did their favorite team colors (Clemson - orange and dark blue, Broncos - orange, blue and white), some did it in their favorite shades (greens or red/pink) and some just did jumbled colors. This is a great chance to discuss color theory, primaries and secondary colors, etc.

Bake in an oven set to 170 for about 20-30 minutes. Ours took awhile becuase we had to keep opening the oven (the light wasn't working) to check if they were all melted yet!

Once all the crayons are melted remove pan to cooling rack.

Let cool completely -- about 2 hours. When the "cookies" are completely cool, they will slide right out of the cupcake tin!

Have fun with the crayons -- you can use them to make posters or just fun designs ... we're putting them back in the container the "old" crayons were in so that we can find them easily whenever we want to color fun pictures!

Unit Study: Mittens

Today, as it was supposed to be kind of snowy (but was instead just bitter cold!), we did a mini unit on mittens. We read some GREAT picture books, made fleece mittens and watched the old Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while eating whole-wheat brownies we made yesterday from flour ground at the National Western Stock Show.

Here are the picture books we read about mittens:

Noah’s Mittens: The Story of Felt by Lise Lunge-Larsen (illustrated by Matthew Trueman). What all happened on the Ark anyway? This picture book (with wonderfully whimsical illustrations) explains how wool felt was “invented”, why and what uses it could be put to once the Ark rested on Mount Ararat.

The Winter Mittens written and illustrated by Tim Arnold tells the story of a little girl who finds magical mittens in a silver box (and the trouble that occurs when she uses them just a bit too long). This book is more a short-chapter book than a picture book – but definitely read-able in a short time.

The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg. Where did Annie lose her mitten (her 5th lost mitten of the season) and who might have taken it? These questions are answered in Kellogg’s classic story – with his signature illustrations throughout.

The Missing Mittens by Stuart J. Murphy (illustrated by G. Brian Karas) is a wonderfully illustrated story that explains the difference between even and odd and easy ways to remember the difference.

and some other picture books about snow and winter:

Annie and the Wild Animals written and illustrated by Jan Brett has all the charm of Brett’s books – but this one tells of Annie’s search for a pet after her cat, Taffy, goes off and Annie has no one with whom to play. The wild animals that offer to be Annie’s friends are “just not right”.

The Polar Bear Son: an Inuit Tale retold and illustrated by Lydia Dabcovich does a wonderful job of portraying/relating the life in an Inuit village, especially for a woman who has no one to help her. The illustrations are gorgeous!

Little Daughter of the Snow by Arthur Ransome (illustrated by Tom Bower) is the retelling of a Russion folk-tale about a childless couple who create a snow-daughter but don’t quite love her enough for her to stay forever.

Wild Horse Winter written and illustrated by Tetsuya Honda is a story about the Dosanko horses indigenous to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. This is a fascinating story of a breed of horse that does unusual things to combat the stormy weather on the island.

All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle (illustrated by Barbara Lavallee) is a rhyming story about “all you need” to build a snowman or two. The illustrations really add to this story – with their pastel-y rainbow palette and the white of the snowmen!

Building an Igloo text and photographs by Ulli Steltzer explains in words and black/white photographs how an igloo is built (right down to an ice block used for a window). This is a really cool book that describes clearly enough to make you own igloo (if you’re lucky enough to have that much snow).

Snowmen: Snow Creatures, Crafts and Other Winter Projects by Peter Cole, Frankie Frankeny and Leslie Jonath – this is a GREAT winter craft book with unique and creative projects to make with snow as well as a few edible and non-edible inside projects. The uniqueness of the projects makes this a really special book.

Here is a quicky tutorial on the fleece mittens. A while back we'd gotten some fleece remnants from Jo-Ann Fabrics (a wonderful fabric store that happily gives a discount to educators -- even homeschoolers!). Today, we pulled out the pieces and the littles picked out their favorite color.

Folded so there would be four layers, I then traced around their hand -- with the fingers closed but the thumb extended.

The kids then picked out embroidery floss in a coordinating color and sewed the mitten-halves together.

Once the mittens were sewed -- for Bam-Bam's, I did a blanket stitch on the right side, for String-Bean's blue mittens she over-stitched on the wrong side, for Lego Maniac's green mittens he did a running stitch on the wrong side -- we turned them out onto the right side and I did snow flakes and a snowman on Bam-Bam's with gold glitter paint while Lego Maniac used fabric paint to decorate his with mountains and a Chinese dragon. Ever-thinking String Bean decided to leave her's plain so that if she wears them on a cold day in the Spring, they don't look "out of season"!

Pretty cool -- or rather, cozy --, huh?

Advent: Bare Jesse Tree

As I mentioned earlier, we were involved in a Jesse Tree Ornament swap with our friends at 4real. Well, we had made a set of Jesse Tree Ornaments a few years ago, but I'm really loving the beautiful ones that we got in our swap.

But how best to display them? Here's the "tree" we used with our old ornaments -- this is a 17 x 28 piece of cloth with a tree sewn on and strings for hanging the ornaments.

I'm thinking that I'll just "whip up" another one like this for our new ornaments -- this one will go to dh's high school for their Advent celebrations (along with our "old" ornaments).

OR, I'll do a wooden plaque with a tree wood-burned on and "invisible brads" for hanging the ornaments.....

Decisions, decisions, decisions ....

Swaps: 18 down, 10 more to go

So one of the swaps we signed-up for this season is a Jesse Tree swap from the 4real forum. The Jesse Tree is an ancient symbol -- it records the Jesus' family tree through symbols. Here are the symbols normally incorporated in a Jesse Tree:

• Earth Apple & Snake
• Mary
• Ark & Rainbow
• Camel & Tent
• Lamb
• Colorful Coat
• Doorway With blood
• Tablet With 10 Numbers
• Cluster of Grapes
• Stick With bronze serpent
• Whale
• Sheaf of Wheat
• Slingshot
• Scroll
• Stump With Leaf
• Lion & Lamb together
• Dove & Crown
• Shepherd’s Staff
• Cross
• Heart With Writing
• Bethlehem
• Fiery Furnace
• Brick Wall
• Star
• Candle or Light
• Angel
• Baby in Manger

We are making the colorful coats -- the coat Jacob made for Joseph. We made 18 of the colorful coats yesterday:

We'll finish these up today and send them off to a very nice lady in Washington, D.C. who will then sort through all the symbols and create a package for each of the participants with each of the 28 symbols so we'll be able to have a complete Jesse Tree from many of our friends at 4Real!

Art: LegoManiac's entry

Here's LegoManiac's entry for a tshirt contest. We have a dad who runs a print shop and is hosting a contest for t-shirt design for our homeschooling group. This is pretty good for an 8yo isn't it?

Simple Craft-of-the-Week: Paper Cats!

With Halloween on Wednesday, I thought a "black cat craft" would be fun. We also are getting ready to do "C" week, so it seemed even more appropriate!

This is a REALLY easy craft that can be embellished as much as you'd like. I show a black cat in this tutorial, but you can do any kind of cat -- tigers, lions, your pet!
First, get out your supplie -- 9x12 construction paper (shown here folded in half to make a 9x6); pencil, colored pencils (on the black paper, white really shows up nicely!), marker and glue stick and scissors.With the fold at the top, draw the cat's tail, than the body as one piece -- legs, up and around (to leave space for head) and then the other leg up to the neck. I've shown here the head drawn between the legs (you can be persnickety and use a cup to draw a perfect circle, but I like the more natural less-than-perfect look!). I've also drawn triangles for the ears.Cut out the pieces -- here you can see that this makes a 4-legged beast as God made the cat!Glue the pieces in place ... don't worry too much about placement. Kids can tip the cat's head (even accidentally) and the cats look much more real. Here, I've shown the tail being glued to the front -- if you'd like to make the tail look "more" realistic, glue the tail in place on the back side of the cat.Draw in details -- here we used a green colored pencil to make the eyes "glow".

Now, if you want to make a lion, here's what we did .... using yellow paper we did just as above. The mane is cut from two squares of paper -- one orange, one yellow -- that are about 4" x 5" (the orange is a bit smaller) ... we then randomly cut strips going toward the center (leaving a 1.5 x 1.5 inch center). Crinkle this in your palm to get the mane separated ...and then glue the cat face onto the mane and the mane onto the body.Some tips for this project:
1. the better quality (or heavier) construction paper the better ability to stand
2. the placement of the head affects the "tippiness" of the cat -- if necessary, you can make a paper brace to hold the legs up by cutting a strip of paper, folding each end in about 1/2 an inch or so, and gluing these "tabs" to the feet (as shown above) or higher up the leg to be less obvious
3. you can really go wild with these -- using yarn for manes, pipe cleaners for whiskers, color the cat before cutting out (black stripes on orange would make a tiger), etc.

Just have fun with this one!

Here are our cats .... And the back end so you can see what that looks like, too!

Apples: Loveliness Fair

Kristie from Canada has just posted her Loveliness of Apples Fair with excellent links to apple studies throughout the blogosphere including mention of our two posts on books and apple dolls) ....

We love apples around here and love this time of year when the air is crisp, cold enough to snuggle inside at times, and just generally a family-inspired time.

THANKS so much to Kristie for doing a wonderful fair about the lowly apple!