Weaving

As a sewer I love the idea of Hazel learning to weave and to see where cloth comes from. I bought her an inexpensive potholder loom when I saw them on sale. (I think I bought it for $5 or maybe it was $2--I can't remember.)

When I showed it to her, she decided she wanted to weave a pillow for her doll, Sarah. She decided to make it yellow and green (until we ran out of the yellow and green loops). In the beginning I really helped/did it for her. You can tell where I stopped helping every step of the way. I decided today when she wanted to finish it to let her do it her way. Every once in awhile I took a turn to make sure it would stay together for her. I have to say she seemed to get the over and under concept better today than when we first started, but still did not get it every other one. Oh, well. She is happy with it. I convinced her that maybe it should be a blanket for Sarah instead of a pillow so we would have to try to sew the lopsided thing. She agreed since she didn't want to hand sew today. here is how it turned out.

Not the prettiest potholder/doll blanket, but she likes it and you can see why making sure you are over and under the right spaces matter. When she is a little older we will try again.

Don't forget to join us tomorrow (Thursday, 7/25/13) for our clue in the Multicultural Kids Blog Pinterest Scavenger Hunt!

Metamorphosis: Caterpillar - Chysalis - Butterfly Cycle & some crafts and activities

Congratulations to Tracey over at We Made That for winning our Sewing School 2 giveaway!

For awhile I have been eying the butterfly nurseries at Lakeshore Learning. I have seen so many wonderful posts about people watching the amazing metamorphosis of the butterfly with their children and really wanted to do it with Hazel. Then they went on sale and I couldn't resist. I bought one in May, but I told Hazel we could not send away for the caterpillars until after our trip to Florida so we would be home to watch everything and take care of them. She was so excited and could not wait to do it. When we returned home
we sent the coupon in to get the caterpillars. 

The caterpillars arrived on June 19th. They come in a jar with food in it. The instructions were not to open

the jar until all the caterpillars were in chrysalis. The caterpillars traveled to Cape Cod with us that weekend so Hazel would not have to miss a thing. We watched them grow, but apparently I did not bother to take pictures of them growing. One did not grow and we realized it had not made it so we were down to four. On June 29th all the caterpillars were in chrysalis, so we opened the jar after preparing the butterfly nursery and hung them on the hook. Then we watched. 

On July 5th, the first butterfly came out of its chrysalis. We were so excited! Soon two more came out. The fourth did not make it. Hazel had knocked over the nursery by mistake and one had fallen. Although we gently made sure it was on the bottom of the nursery (and not under the paper), it did not recover from the fall. So we had three beautiful monarch butterflies. We prepared by reading Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons. We fed them sugar water as the instructions said, and then on July 13th, we let them go. Hazel was very sad to let them go, but she understood why we did. I told her every time she sees a butterfly she can pretend it is one of ours.

It was truly amazing to watch!! I think I may have been more excited about it all than Hazel. I definitely checked the chrysalises more often than she did.

We also did some butterfly crafts and activities. I made Hazel a butterfly barrette, using this pattern from Bugs and Fishes. I love the mobile she had the pattern for, but we did not get around to making one.

Next we took some ideas from Making Learning Fun. First a butterfly life cycle bracelet. Each bead or group of beads represents one of the four phases of metamorphosis. The white bead represents the egg. The red and green represent the caterpillar (we used more green ones than suggested since we used flat green ones) and then the clear bead is the chrysalis and finally a butterfly shaped bead. I made it the perfect size for Hazel to wear and I think we will make some of these at Hazel's butterfly party for which we still need to pick a date. (This summer is flying by!!)

Then the next activities also came from Making Learning Fun. I happened to be looking for some Roll-a- activities because Hazel loved it when she tried it at the new school she will be attending this fall. The day we took a tour the Pre-K class was doing a Roll-a-Frog activity and the teachers had Hazel try it. I bought her some dice today and put them in the little containers I had bought ages ago for it. Then I went looking for some pages. I changed it a bit in I did not have her draw them like the directions from Making Learning Fun said. I knew she was not ready for this with her drawing ability. Also the school one was putting pictures together from paper, so I cut them out of construction paper. While searching for the activities I found Roll-a-Caterpillar and Roll-a-Butterfly.

I printed off and made several other ones as well, but I won't share those right now. So that is one thing I really wanted to do with Hazel that we got done this summer! And we loved it! For more butterfly activities and crafts, check out my Pinterest Butterfly Board!

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Fawzia Gilani's Cinderella: An Islamic Tale

Since the Islamic holiday, Ramadan, began a few weeks ago, I thought it was the perfect time to look at the Islamic version of Cinderella. Now, I had planned to share this last week, but with all the exciting things happening last week (Virtual Book Club for Kids, Around the World in 12 Dishes and the Multicultural Kids Blog Pinterest Scavenger Hunt began), we did not get it done. First a little information about Ramadan.

Prayer Beads for the Jesus Prayer

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Ok, I know I have mentioned how active I am at church. I am a Christian and I truly believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I tend not to be one who discusses it everywhere, however I do try to keep God in my life every day. When I visit my parents I have my favorite shops to go to and one of them is the Priory Shop at the Community of Jesus. It is located right at Rock Harbor and it is always so calming to visit there. You can also get tours of the Church of the Transfiguration, their million or maybe even multimillion dollar church that opened about ten years ago. While there I always love to browse the books and often find some inspiring books. This last visit was no different. While keeping Hazel busy with samples of the homemade jam on crackers and granola, I was able to find a new book. I'm only in the second chapter, but I am very interested in it. The book is The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Knowing nothing about the Jesus Prayer, I was intrigued. The book says that learning the Jesus Prayer and praying properly will bring you closer to God and hear God speaking to you. The prayer is simple, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." is the simplest form of it. A longer form is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Now the trick is you need to say it one hundred times each day. To do this, you need some prayer beads to keep track of it. So I had Hazel help me make a prayer bead necklace and she wanted one too, but we did not put one hundred beads on hers.

I used the cross I had gotten that is made out of olive wood from Jerusalem. Then we lined out ten rows of ten beads. It was great to see Hazel figure out what one hundred looks like. I changed the first and last beads of each row so I could count by ten by the feel of the beads. I did not use a pattern to the beads beside that since I figured my prayers and my sins will be both small and large. Then while I strung my beads, Hazel laid out some for herself. She decided the round ball ones rolled around too much, so she used the flatter ones and we had a butterfly bead left from the Melissa & Doug butterfly bead collection she was given for her birthday, so we used that one.

We made hers into a necklace so she can wear it even when she is not praying. Then I taught her the Jesus Prayer. We of course did not make it through all the beads on either necklace before she got bored and I have yet to take the time to do it one hundred times let alone each day, but I'm still reading the book, so at least I am ready when I finish it. Supposedly doing this practice will get you to the point where your mind is praying continuously even when you are doing other things and thus living out the instructions Paul gives in several of his letters including 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

^"16 Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

and in Romans 12:12

^"12 Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times."

and in Ephesians 6:18

"¹⁸ Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints."

and finally in Colossians 4:2

"² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving."

The Jesus Prayer is widely taught in Eastern Orthodox Churches. The book goes through some history of it as well as some of the difference between Eastern and Western Churches. However if you want more information you can check out the book or you can read some more on Wikipedia.

So this is what I am exploring right now when I have time to read something that is not a children's book.

Sharing Saturday 13-28

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Thank you to everyone who shared at last week's Sharing Saturday. If you have not had a chance to check out all the great ideas shared, you should. It is inspiring! There was about a ten way tie for most clicked, so you are just getting my favorites tonight. I also want to say welcome to all the new partiers!! We had quite a few new bloggers joining us last week. Here are a few of my favorites!

1) From Adventures with Jude: Eastern Woodland Headdresses (Ok, I love learning about Native Americans and I love all the information provided in this post.)
2) From Domesticated Breakdown: Epsom Salt Sensory Bins (What a neat idea! I love the green she made it here and love the idea of the ocean theme having salt.)
3) From Paint On The Ceiling: Learning about Symmetry with Mirrors (A geometry lesson!! You know my love of math!)
4) From Green Owl Art: Beach Crafts (Love using things found at the beach for art and the vacation jar idea!)
5) From LalyMom: Fairy Wands and Toadstools (I loved these adorable toadstools!)

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here , please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

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From Your Hostess: On Monday the Multicultural Kids Blog Pinterest Scavenger Hunt started. I hope you are joining us in the hunt!!

This week we shared Details on the Scavenger Hunt, Our study of chimpanzees with the Virtual Book Club for Kids--we did the Bobo series by Jez Alborough, Our exploration of Kenya with Around the World in 12 Dishes, Our nature art following a trip to the beach, and Song inspired activities! Plus my giveaway is still going on!! Have you entered yet?

 

Now for This Week's Party 
 
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