Sharing Saturday 13-30

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! If you have not had a chance to check them all out, you really should. I will share here a few of my favorites and the most clicked to help inspire you!! I hope you will take the time to check them out as well as visit some of the new shared posts this week.

Flamingo Friday--Flamingos' Coloring

Welcome to our second Flamingo Friday!! We have been enjoying learning more about flamingos and hope you are too! Today we are sharing a non-fiction book with you and something we learned from it.

We have been reading several flamingo books. We will share each one with you eventually. If you missed the first one which was the wordless Flora and the Flamingo, you can check it out here. Today we are going to share Wild Flamingos by Bruce McMillan.

Now before I begin with what we did with this book, I would like to point out the wonderful picture on the cover. I love it because you can see the black flying feathers of the flamingo. Did you know they had black feathers?

Source

This book focuses on flamingos on the Caribbean island of Bonaire. The species of flamingo are the Greater Flamingos which are the largest of the flamingos. Their average height is five to five and a half feet tall. Their average weight is eight pounds for the males (who are taller) and six and a half for the females. Their populations is estimated to be half of the number there was before Europeans first came to the Americas. Bonaire protects the flamingos and their breeding ground. There is concern about the development of their feeding area in Venezuela though. The book goes through the lives of a flamingo from birth until adulthood and returning to nest again.

Now many people know that flamingos get their color from the food they eat. They eat small shellfish and immature brine flies at both the free-swimming larvae and intermediate chrysalid stages. All of these animals eat aquatic plants and bacteria that contain the same chemicals that make carrots orange. So for a simple craft we decided to paint with carrots. We experimented with a few different methods. First we took a carrot and tried to use it as a paintbrush. I gave Hazel pictures to color that I printed out. The first one came from Lucy Learns.

This method worked all right, but was not great. Here is our end result:

Our other method involved grating the carrot and then placing the pieces on the picture and hammering them into the picture.

We put a piece of paper on the bottom and top. I think we actually flipped it so the picture was on top. Immediately afterward the picture looked like this:

This coloring page came from The Color. Then after it dried a bit, I picked off some of the carrot flakes and we got this:

We also bought a can of carrots to try to paint with, but we haven't had time yet. 

The other interesting thing I learned about flamingos is how they eat. The flamingos always eat with their heads upside down. Their top jaw is hinged and moves like our lower jaws. They filter-feed and are able to separate the food from water and mud. Their bills are lined with hair like teeth that filter the food. Sometimes you will see a flamingo move its feet and bill around before eating. This is to stir up the mud a bit and get the food in the water since it is easier to filter water than mud. 

So that is our lesson flamingos this Flamingo Friday!! I hope you enjoyed it!! And definitely check out Wild Flamingos by Bruce McMillan for more about the Greater Flamingos in Bonaire!

August Schedule

Now August is always a special month for me. I mean it has my birthday (and yes I have been known to celebrate all month long) and my anniversary.  Here at Crafty Moms Share we have some exciting things happening in August as well. But first did you know August is:

• Admit You Are Happy Month
• Family Fun Month
• Romance Awareness Month
• National Catfish Month
• Peach Month
• National Picnic Month? (Source)

Then there are the special days in August like:

• 1st is National Raspberry Ice Cream Pie Day (hmmm....need to find a recipe I think)
• 2nd is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day (hmmm...noticing the theme of ice cream)
• 3rd is National Watermelon Day (we will celebrate this one, but not on the 3rd since it is a Sharing Saturday)
• 4th is International Friendship Day
• 6th is Wiggle Your Toes Day (I think they need to add in the sand to this one)
• 7th is National Lighthouse Day (mentioning this one for Steve)
• 8th is Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day 
• 10th is National S'Mores Day (Campfire anyone?)
• 14th is National Creamsicle Day
• 15th is Relaxation Day (Spa visit?)
• 22nd is Be an Angel Day
• 26th is Women's Equality Day
• 27th is Global Forgiveness Day (Does this mean there will be world peace that day?)
• 30th is Toasted Marshmallow Day (Source)

Now really, where do they come up with these? 

Ok, now onto what we are doing this month. We have our normal monthly things like the Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month's author is Donald Crews. 

Now I really had not read any of his books before, but they are growing on me. He definitely has his own style and you will know when you are reading one of his books. They are often simple and of few words and about action. If you have a child who is into transportation (planes, trains, trucks, etc.) than this is an author for you. he also has some books for older children. I hope you will join us on the 19th to check out what we do with his books.

Then of course we have Around the World in 12 Dishes. This month we are "traveling" to Egpyt.

Pictures from http://commons.wikimedia.org/

With our journey through food we will be including some stories, music and crafts as well. I hope you will join us on the 20th to see what Egyptian food we have been cooking. Also there will be an Egyptian fairy tale. Since we have already discussed the Egyptian Cinderella, we will expand to another story!

Then of course we will see where Flat Stanley is visiting. If you would like to host Flat Stanley one of these upcoming months, check out the information here. It is easy and fun!!

Plus with that wonderful list of special August holidays we will focus a bit on watermelon and we will continue our fun with Flamingo Fridays, Fairy Tales in Different Cultures and Sharing Saturday! Plus with schools beginning for so many this month (ours doesn't start until September here) I am thinking I may do a bit of a math focus for all of you. It is always good for me to keep my mind thinking mathematically. So those are some of the great things I have planned for Crafty Moms Share this month. I hope you will join us all month long!

Sand Art--Perfect for a Sick Day

Today Hazel was suppose to go to my mother-in-law's for the day, but when she gave me a hug this morning I realized she had a fever. Plans changed. After running a couple quick necessary errands we got ready for a sick day of rest. So much for my to do list which included getting outside on the most beautiful day in a long while for a walk and visiting Sharing Saturday posts. Oh, well somehow I will find time to do everything that was on the list. Unlike a normal sick day, Hazel did not want to watch to much television. She wanted to do some crafts and things with Mommy. It was a long day for me. However I pulled out some of the craft kits I buy when they are on sale or clearance and we did a couple of them. One of them was a sand art kit (well actually two). Hazel has loved doing sand art at the holiday stroll and other fair kind of things, so when I saw some on sale, I bought them. She had the best time. I did two and she did the rest.

Now they are decorating our living room and family room. But the truth is the best part of them is making them. Do you have things stashed away for days like this?

Book Inspired Painting

Today I want to share a wonderful library find! We have renewed this book, because we have been enjoying it so much. The book is Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust by April Pulley Sayre. Now I have to admit I learned a lot from reading this book, so I do consider it educational as well as interesting.

The story begins with sunrise and discussing the colors in the sky. The story than discusses dust and what it is and where it comes from. It goes through the day explaining the different places dust comes from and how it never goes away so the dust we see could be from the dinosaurs or King Tut. Another wonderful connection is that it describes dust from various places like the African savannah (connection: Kenya), meerkats, ocean, Egypt with pyramids (next month's place on our trip Around the World in 12 Dishes) and finally space. The book ends with how the dust will scatter the light for the sunset and then create the colors of the sunrise tomorrow. At the end of the book is the explanation of what dust really is and where it comes from as well as how it makes the sunset.

Dry Paper

To go along with this book, I thought it would be fun to paint some sunset and sunrise paintings. I bought Hazel a water color set so we pulled it out and tried it. She had a blast. I made two of the papers wet so we could do wet-on-wet painting and left two dry.

Dry Paper

The best part of this activity was she had so much fun mixing colors and making new shades. I only gave her six colors to work with: yellow, brown, red, green, blue and white.

Wet Paper

I loved how the wet-on-wet came out. Hazel asked me to help her with these.

Ok, they did not come out looking like sunsets or sunrises, but we had fun.