Thanksgiving Crafts & Games Past and Present

We did this fun and easy craft this year so far. We got the idea from Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross.

 We changed the craft a bit because I wanted to put the corn on something stiffer than felt. I had these natural wood pieces and thought they would look nice and work well. Hazel had so much fun gluing on the Indian corn.

The Little Pim Giveaway!

 

Sponsored by Little Pim

   

Hosted by:

The Squishable Baby

   

There are many benefits to early acquisition of a second language.

• Young learners can acquire native-like fluency.
• Young learners learn naturally, like they learn their mother tongue.
• Young learners can hear critical differences in sounds.
• The brain is flexible in the young learner. It's made to learn new languages.
• Young learners acquire cognitive advantages - such as critical thinking skills, creativity and flexibility in thought.
• Learning a new language gives children a better understanding of their native language.
• Learning a new language opens up the child's sphere of friends and acquaintances
• Having a second language Increases marketability for colleges and beyond.
• And much more!

    Read what some of our Co-hosts have to say about the importance of learning a second language.

• The Squishable Baby Little Pim Review
• Brittnei of Homemaking With Style
• Carrie of Crafty Mom Share

   

1 lucky winner will receive The Discovery

set of DVDs in the language of choice

ARV $59.99 US and Canada (Canadian residents will receive downloadable copies)

 

Enter below for your chance to win!

   

Entry-Form

 

A huge thanks to all the blogs that are participating in this event!

 

Wife, Mummy, Nurse	Mommy's Favorite Things	Unschooling Momma
Kids Yoga Stories	Homemaking With Style	Momma Lew's Blog
P is for Preschooler	Mrs. Tee Love, Life and Laughter	Crafty Mom Share
Mommynificent

 

Teaching Spanish at Home

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Now if you have been following along for the past couple of weeks, you know I am involved in helping with the Little Pim Giveaway being run by Squishable Baby.  Part of my involvement is to also include a little about how I am going about teaching Spanish to Hazel.

Last spring we made the decision to switch schools for Hazel since we were having some issues with the discipline at her school. We moved her to a private Christian school that has a traditional curriculum. As part of a traditional curriculum she will be learning Latin. Now I do think knowing Latin can be helpful. I took a year of it in high school myself, but I also want her to have some experience with other languages (besides saying ciao to her Italian grandmother). I took Spanish from fifth grade until my junior year in high school and was in honors classes most of the time. However I have not spoken much Spanish since, so I need to relearn some. 

I know based on all the research out there, that now is the time to begin to teach her, so I am starting. I found some resources and have won some that we have been enjoying.

The first resource is a CD with book. It has songs that sings sayings in English and in Spanish. We often listen to this in the car. Hazel really enjoys it and is repeating some of the words. The next is a board book of Spanish numbers. It goes from 1 to 12 and then has 20, 50 and 100. Then it has adding and subtracting sentences in Spanish and English. We read this often at bedtime. She has started counting in Spanish, so it is working. The last two we have not spent much time with yet, but will be expanding our words with the dictionary and eventually she will not freak out that she does not understand the Spanish when I put on the DVD. Our only time watching it, she asked me to turn it off since she did not understand anything.

I also found some good resources at our local library. We are still exploring them and some are a bit ahead of Hazel's level, but we are working to it.

It is amazing what resources are out there. There are also some great ideas on many of the blogs I like to check out. 

• Spanish Playground
• Toddling in the Fastlane
• All Done Monkey

Needless to say I know I would find the Little Pim DVD series a huge aid in our lesson!! I hope you will come and enter the giveaway!!

Virtual Book Club for Kids: Mortimer's Christmas Manger

Yes, I still have Christmas on my brain--way too early! This month's author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Karma Wilson. Now Karma Wilson has some amazing books. I think the most famous ones are the Bear series. Lately Hazel has been scared of books with bears, so I stayed away from them. We however fell in love with Mortimer. We read the two Mortimer books and since Christmas is coming sooner than when I'll plant a garden again, we went with Mortimer's Christmas Manger. We however also loved the Little Pip series too!

A Native American Cinderella

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

 

This week we are exploring Native American versions of Cinderella. November is Native American History Month, so I thought in honor of this, we would share these versions. Thus far I have found four versions. All four seem very similar. I am going to share two with you today and the other two next week. This week we will discuss Little Firefly: An Algonquian Legend written and adapted by Terri Cholene and Sootface: An Ojibwa Cinderella Story retold by Robert D. San Souci. First a bit about the Algonquian and Ojibwa People.

Algonquian Lands (Source)

First there is no and never was an Algonquian tribe. Algonquian is a word used to describe the hundreds of tribes that spoke the Algonquian languages. The Ojibwa is one of the Algonquian tribes. This may be why these two stories are almost identical. The Algonquian People lived all over the United States and in Canada. (Source) Last year on the Wampanoag Tribe which is also an Algonquian group. The Wampanoag Tribe are the Native People who were at the first Thanksgiving with the pilgrims.

Wigwam Replica at Plimouth Planation

There are some similarities among most Algonquian tribes. Most Algonquian tribes had birchbark or dugout canoes. Hunters and warriors usually used bow and arrows, spears and wooden clubs. In these stories the great hunter used a bow and arrow. Most tribes had some form of a tribe council for its government with a leader or chief to preside over it. Most tribes lived in villages made of wigwams. In all four versions I have found wigwams are mentioned. The one article of clothing shared by all Algonquian tribes was moccasins. (Source)

Our Paper Mache Wigwam

The Ojibwa are also known as the Chippewa with different spellings for both. They are the largest group of Native Americans north of Mexico. They live in both the United States and Canada. In the United States they were the fourth largest tribe.

Source: By Humphrey Lloyd Hime via Library and Archives/
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada from Canada 
[Public domain or CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Most Ojibwa bands were sedentary and lived in wigwams. (Source) The Ojibwa who lived on the plains lived in tipis. Traditional dress for women were long dresses with removable sleeves and for men it was breeclothes and leggings. Everyone wore moccasins.Women carried babies on cradle boards. (Source)

Since the stories all had wigwams in them, Hazel and I made models of wigwams. We used the instructions for these in More than Moccasins by Laurie Carlson. There were two ways to make the wigwams: with a coffee filter or a brown paper bag and glue. First you need five strips of white paper each one-inch wide. Tape two together to make a long strip and then make them form a loop. Use the other three to give the roof some structure. If you are using the coffee filter paint or color it brown. Hazel used her dot marker. Once it is dry glue it on. If you are using the paper bag, rip strips and mix glue with water to paper mache the strips on. We made one of each. Once the glue is dry you cut a door. You can also glue grass, bark or other natural things to make it look more real. We however had lots of rain, so we did not do this.

Now onto the stories. 

In these stories there is a man who has three daughters. The eldest two make the youngest do all the work and purposely burn her with the fire. She has scars on her face and hands and arms and her hair is short due to being singed. In one version her name is Little Firefly, but her sisters call her Little Burnt One, and in the other version she does not have a name, but her sisters call her Sootface. In both versions there is a great hunter who has the power to make himself invisible. The only person who can see him is his sister. It is said he will marry the woman who can see him. All the young women of the village try to win his hand. One day the eldest sisters decide to try separately. His sister greeted each of them and when they said they wanted to marry her brother, she asked them some questions. The questions were what is his bow made of and what is it strung with. The sisters guessed incorrectly and were sent home.

The next day Sootface or Little Firefly decided to try. (In one version her mother's spirit tells her to go and see The Invisible One in a dream.) Since she did not have a nice buckskin dress to wear like her sisters she made a dress from birch. She softens her father's old moccasins and does her best to fit them to her feet. Her sisters make fun of her as she goes, but she gets in her canoe and paddles across the water to the Invisible One's wigwam. His sister greets her. In Little Firefly she says she is there to help with the work, but the sister asks if she can see her brother. As he approaches she can see him and is able to answer that his bow is made of a rainbow and strung with the stars of the Milky Way or the Star Bridge of Souls. Upon hearing this, the sister takes the girl and washes her and her scars disappear. Then she gives her the finest buckskin dress to wear. She has her sit in the seat closest to the door which is the spot for the wife. The Invisible One comes home and is happy to meet his new wife.

Our Coffee Filter Wigwam

I hope you will join us next week for the other two versions that are very similar. Then we will have one version that is very different from these four. Tomorrow is the day for Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month's author is Karma Wilson. I hope you will come see which of her books we are sharing!