Valentine's Day Wreath and more

After my multiple posts yesterday and today, I thought I would just share a simple craft with you. (In case you missed it, Virtual Book Club for Kids, Fairy Tales from Different Cultures and a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Round-Up were the multiple posts.)

First I am going to shamelessly ask you to vote for me. I need as many votes as I can get to get near the top 25. Just click on the emblem above and then click vote at Crafty Moms Share. It only takes a minute and I would really appreciate it!!

Next I am going to tell you about a really cool giveaway at Castle of Costa Mesa.  I know Hazel would LOVE those dolls!! They would go perfect with her castle blocks and play mat from Christmas!

Ok, now on to our simple Valentine's Day wreath. I was inspired by a wreath somewhere, but I don't remember where. Anyway, I cut many hearts out of scrapbook paper in different sizes. (I happen to have heart templates from my quilting days.) Then we took this Fourth of July wreath and removed the garland.

Then I traced it on paper and cut a layer around it so we could glue onto the paper and not ruin the wreath. I attached the paper ring with crepe paper leftover from Hazel's birthday and tape. Then we just glued the hearts on. I am happy with how it turned out. I do wish I had added the ribbon before gluing the hearts, but oh, well.

Now we have a bit of Valentine's Day on our front door!! More decorations to come I'm sure.

Virtual Book Club for Kids--Waddles by David McPhail

If you are looking for my Fairy Tales in Different Cultures for this week it is here!

I join many other wonderful bloggers to bring you the Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month we have picked David McPhail as our author. So each of us has chosen a David McPhail book to feature and do an activity with and will share it in a blog hop. If you have an activity to go with a David McPhail book please join us in the hop this month!

The host blogs are:

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids - 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo - The Educators' Spin On It - Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom - Mommy and Me Book Club - Crafty Moms Share - No Twiddle Twaddle - The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls - Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles - Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn

Now I must admit I had not checked out David McPhail previously. After looking at some of his books we fell in love. I also am happy to find he was born and grew up on the North Shore of Boston in Newburyport and is still a New Englander. That makes it all the more special for us!

Our Waddles

This month we choose Waddles as our feature book. After all I have a daughter who loves ducks so it only seemed fitting. Waddles is an adorable book about the life of a raccoon who waddles due to his size and therefore is called Waddles. He lives in a park near a pond where his best friend, Emily lives. Emily is a duck. (Did I mention that Hazel's latest new doll is named Emily? She got her shortly after we read this book a few times.) Waddles and Emily spend each day together until one spring Waddles finds Emily sitting on a nest. She has laid her eggs. Since Emily cannot leave the nest, Waddles brings her food each day. Then when Emily is yearning to swim, Waddles sits on the nest for her. That is the point a red fox decides to come and get an egg. After Waddles scares the fox away the eggs hatch. Waddles now has six best friends--Emily and her five ducklings. Life is wonderful until autumn arrives. The ducks need to fly south for the winter. Waddles is heartbroken throughout winter. Of course spring does return and so do his best friends.

For an activity we decided to make some finger puppets. I had seen this duck finger puppet at About.com. I thought it would be perfect to make finger puppets and use up some old pill bottles. We found different size bottles for the different animals and used some felt. Now I am going to say that I let Hazel decorate them for the most part and let her choose colors. She cannot wait to play with them. For the heads of the bigger ones we cut felt and used a bit of stuffing. We tried to make the fox and raccoon noses as well, but they are not perfect. She loves them just the same.

Our Emily

Our Ducklings

Apparently all the ducks had to have red feathers. Now I will admit we are a bit low on feathers, but she for some reason really liked the red ones.

I had a bit of difficulty with the fox's head and didn't get it glued or stuck as well as I had hoped. I'll try some more later. Hazel is very excited to act out the story now.

Now it is your turn to share any David McPhail book activities you have done. Or if you haven't, visit the ones shared here so you can learn about some more of his books!

Fairy Tales from Around the World--The Gift of the Crocodile

Travel with me if you will to the Spice Islands or the Maluku Islands.Today we are going to discuss the book, The Gift of the Crocodile by Judy Sierra. This story takes place in the Spice Islands where nutmeg and cloves grow on the trees. This story was collected and retold around 1900 by G.J. Ellen, a missionary,  and was published in 1916 in Woordenlijist van het Pugoe op Noord-Halmahera. (Source: The Gift of the Crocodile by Judy Sierra, Folklore Note.)

Source

First a bit on the Maluku Islands. The Maluku Islands are part of Indonesia which is in South East Asia. Historically they are known as the Spice Islands by the Chinese and Europeans, however other islands outside of Indonesia have been called that as well. They are a group of small narrow islands that have rainforests and grow rice, sago and spices. Most famous for their spices such as nutmeg, cloves and mace. (Source) These are the islands Christopher Columbus was looking for. (Source: The Gift of the Crocodile by Judy Sierra, Folklore Note.)

Dried Cloves (Source)

Malukus population is about two million which is less than 1% of Indonesia's population.  Due to religious wars, many people have been killed or displaced recently.

Maluku Province Source

Northern Maluku Source

A long history of trade and seafaring has caused mix blood ancestry here.  The natives traded with other Asian countries like China since the Roman Empire. The spice trade was a very lucrative trade. Venice had a monopoly on the spice trade so other countries tried to find a faster way to the islands to bring back the spices. The Portuguese were the first to try to find new routes including around the tip of Africa and discovering/founding Brazil. They took control of the islands, but were challenged by other European countries. First Spanish, then the English and Dutch joined in the conflict. In 1950 the islands finally gained independence. Then from 1999 to 2003 the Muslims and Christians fought and caused a separation between the Maluku Islands. There are now two provinces Maluku and Northern Maluku.

Nutmeg Source

Nutmeg and cloves are still cultivated today as well as cocoa, coffee and fruit. Fishing and producing pearls are also big industries on some of the islands as well as logging, producing ironwood, teak and ebony on different islands. (Source)

Now onto our story.  The story starts with a the image and scents of the nutmeg and clove trees.  Living under them is Damura and her parents. Her mother teaches her to kindle the fire, cook, tend and harvest rice plants, and dance the dance of their ancestors. Unfortunately, her mother becomes ill and realizes she does not have long to live. She calls Damura to her side and tells her to remember to always be kind and respectful of all animals so they will help her throughout her life.

Clove Tree Source

She remembers these words as she mourns her mother. She talks to the green parrot and the lorikeet and finds comfort sharing her sadness each day with them. A woman in the village makes a beautiful doll for her and says Damura can have it if she tells her father to marry the woman. Damura takes the doll and convinces her father to marry the woman even though he thought they were happy just the two of them. The woman has a daughter of her own. At first they are nice to Damura but pretty quickly they turn Damura into their servant. She has to kindle the fire, cook, clean and weed the rice fields.

Nutmeg on tree Source

One day Damura is by the river washing the family's laundry and a sarong washes away in the current. Damura begins to cry. A large crocodile appears and asks why she is crying. Damura remembers her mother's advice and calls the crocodile "Grandmother". The crocodile says if Damura will watch her baby she will go fetch the sarong. Damura agrees and as the baby tries to bite her, she finds a soft stick for it to chew on and sings it a lullaby. Grandmother Crocodile comes back with a sarong far nicer and more beautiful than the rags that Damura lost. Grandmother Crocodile tells her it is what she should wear. Of course when she gets home the stepmother and stepsister take the sarong. The stepsister goes the next day to the river and pretends to lose a sarong and pretends to cry. The crocodile appears again and the stepsister follows what Damura tells her however is very disrespectful to the baby and then just grabs the sarong. She puts the sarong on at once and it becomes a rag filled with leeches.

At some point word is put out for all the maidens to come to dance for the prince so he can select a wife. The stepmother takes the stepsister in the beautiful sarong that the crocodile gave Damura. Damura goes and cries to Grandmother Crocodile. Grandmother Crocodile gives her an entire outfit in gold and tells her to bring all of the clothes back to her at sunrise. And then Damura goes to dance for the prince with the dances she learned from her mother. The prince of course falls in love with her. As the sun rises she runs away--losing a shoe. She apologizes to Grandmother Crocodile for not having both shoes. The prince looks for the woman whose foot will fit the shoe and of course finds Damura and he takes her to the palace and marries her.

Now the stepmother and stepsister are very jealous and go to Damura saying they want to be friends again and suggest taking a boat ride. When they are out in the middle of the river they push her overboard and she is eaten by a crocodile. Then they rush back to the palace yelling that Damura has been eaten by a crocodile.

The prince goes to the river and calls for Grandmother Crocodile and tells her what has happened. Grandmother Crocodile finds the crocodile who ate her and uses magic to bring her back to life and then tells all of the crocodiles that if they see Damura's stepmother or stepsister they must eat them at once. They overheard this and ran off never to be seen again. Meanwhile Damura and the prince live happily everafter raising their children by the river under the nutmeg and clove trees.

Here is my basic worksheet filled out for this book. The blank worksheet can be found here.

Then our crafts for this week were coloring pages which can be found at these locations:

• Lorikeet
• Green Parrot
• Crocodile

I made a clothespin doll to look like the picture in the book when she went to dance for the prince. I used wool roving for her hair and some golden fabric for her outfit. I bought a packages ages ago of clothespins in different skin colors so I will be using these for this series.

Then we made crocodile clips. I was inspired by these clips here, but made a few changes like the eyes and our painting is not as neat. They however were fun to make. For the bumps on the back, I just cut out some green scrapbook paper, however green foam would also work. Then we used green and white acrylic paint. The pom pom eyes needed to be hot glued on since the white glue was not keeping them there. That was our only issue with them though.

I had been thinking of making oranges stuck with whole cloves or play dough scented with nutmeg and cloves, but we did not get a chance to do that yet. I thought it would be fun to bring the scents in to the experience as well. There is also a tutorial for spicy pine cones here. We might try something like that with just nutmeg and cloves and see how it works. I'll keep you posted!

I hope you will join us Monday for our David McPhail book for the Virtual Book Club for Kids and next Monday for our next installment of Cinderella in Different Cultures!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Source

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let It Snow! Winter Wonderland Tea Party

Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor

So Hazel had her well doctor visit and I wanted to make the whole day special so she would have a positive memory instead of just getting shots. We started today having a Winter Wonderland Tea Party. First we had to do some crafts to decorate and then we had to get all the dolls and animals. Then Hazel had to feed them all and get dressed herself (in costume). Then we had some tea and read lots of snow themed stories. Below are the ones I let her choose from and we have read at least 12 of them in the past two days.

I promised at yesterday's Sharing Saturday (which is still open!), that I would feature some snow-themed crafts today. I knew we did this, so I knew it would be a perfect fit here. Plus we used some of the ideas for our crafts. Here are those features:

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Colored Snowballs and More Ice and Snow Fun
2) From Making Boys Men: Frost Writing (For those without snow around but cold weather!)
3) From Gift of Curiosity: Snowman Craft for Preschoolers (see ours below)
4) From ArtClubBlog: Paper Snowflakes Tutorial (see ours below)
5) From Little Wonders' Days: Glittered Peppermint Winter Play Dough

And here are a few from past Sharing Saturdays:

1) From Gift of Curiosity: Winter Printable Pack
2) From Organic Aspirations: Sensory Play with Snow Indoors
3) From Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: Winter Themed Week in Preschool

Also check out the features from past Sharing Saturdays here and here. Some of these would have been great snacks for our tea party!

3-D Snowflake

So we decorated for our big winter wonderland.  I made a simple 3-d snowflake using some foam snowflakes I bought. I was inspired by Paper Source and just cut a slit in each and fit them together. Then punched a hole in one and put a string through it to hang.

Paper Snowflakes = Placemats

We made some paper snowflakes using the tutorial from ArtClubBlog (see feature above). We decided to use them as placemats. I also tried to make some out of felt using the same tutorial but my scissors were not quite sharp enough to make it beautiful. I am going to make them into pillows.

Felt Snowflake

We made several snow angel chains. Hazel had a go at cutting some but cut their heads off, so she used her smiley face stickers for heads and then added smiley faces to all of them. For hers we used the template at First Palette. For the ones I did I drew my own template to make them look more like snow angels. Here is my template.

I folded one of her large pieces of construction paper in half the long way and then folded into eighths in accordion style and cut this out. This is how they came out pre-smiley face.

Source

I wish we had the book The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck, but the library did not have it in, so we will have to read it another time. We loved it last year.

Hazel also made a cotton ball snowman similar to the one shared by Gift of Curiosity (see feature above). We used a pipe cleaner for a carrot nose and stick arms.

Then we laid out some fake snow that I had bought last year for my friend's Winter Onderland party but it wasn't used. And I had bought a package of snowballs post Christmas for this and we pulled out the wool ones I needle felted for her last year.

Then she gathered all of her dolls and animals. After getting them all around, she needed to feed them all. Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor on the table. (See top picture) And of course Hazel needed to dress-up. She wanted to do the tea party before she took her bath and got dressed, so we are still in our pajamas, but she added on her tutu, ballerina top, wings, and crown and was carrying her wand part of the time.

Finally we were ready for our party. We sat on the snow covered floor and read books while we drank tea and Hazel finished her raisin bread toast from breakfast. Then we had a snowball fight.

Gathering all the snowballs and making a snowball pyramid

Then she wanted to play with her white balloon, but since we only had one white balloon, she gave it to me and used a red one. 

Now it was time to take her bath and for us to get dressed so we could have a special lunch out before her appointment. We had such a fun day. We still have our winter wonderland set up, but will have to pick it up tonight or tomorrow since the cleaning people come Monday morning.