Mermaid Dreams

              
Mermaid Dreams by Mark Sperring is about Meriam who doesn’t
like getting ready for bed.  But as her mom brushes her hair, shells
and other ocean items fall out.  They are all hints to the end where
we learn that she is a mermaid. 
  
The illustrations in this book flow across the pages. The picture of Meriam’s tail has been created from a variety of paper, layered on top of each other.
         
                  
I was inspired to try to copy the mermaid.  I began by making a stencil
on styrofoam for the children to paint and print.
                     

Yarn was used for her hair.  Old greeting cards and scissors with
scalloped blades were used to make the scales of her tail.
They also cut crabs from a special hole punch and used those to
decorate their pictures.
       
We also used shell and star shaped sponges to paint the background.
            
            
The children’s creations turned out lovelier than I could imagine.
        


 

Fairy Update and Happenings

A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk through
Fairy Lane and was disappointed to see that someone
had removed several fairy doors as well as all the
gifts that were left for them.
      
Today is International Fairy Day and also was our
last day in session so to celebrate both we made
new doors.
      
My husband once again cut out about 30 rectangle doors
and drilled a hole in them so they can be mounted.
  
These doors may end up in Fairy Lane or in the children’s
back yards or in another special place.
      
Or as one little girl said “there is a secret, secret spot in my yard”.
 
Judging by the popularity of this craft there will many
new fairy doors around our community.
         
               Each with its own story.

  Each brightly painted to invite a fairy to move in.

Ocean Guessing Game

Do you remember the memory game we use to play as kids?  
Take one item away and lift cloth to guess which one.
It was a favourite of mine.

Here's the how-to-play.

Place several items on the table, talking about each one,

place a cloth over top,

everyone covers or closes their eyes,
 
you remove one item,

and they guess which one is missing.
It’s great for working their memory skills and paying
attention to details.

I’ll challenge them by taking two or three objects away at once.
I encourage the families to play this at home with household items;
fork, spoon, cup, etc.

Spud Celebrations 2013

This year we had two spud harvests, one at school and one with our grand friends at the senior's lodge.  Which meant we had two celebrations.
 
            
After the fun part of digging, counting (20) and sharing the harvest with
our grand friends we went to the “Spud Sundae Bar”.

Mmm choices of green onions, bacon, shredded carrots, cheese and sour cream.
 
                           Delicious!

Today at school we celebrated with the kindergarten/grade 1 class. 
Their spud tubs produced 70 potatoes.  As the potatoes and toppings
were being prepared I told the story of the Enormous Potato.
  
                         
                          Time to eat.
                              
        
Learning to serve themselves from communal bowls is a first
experience for some children.  It’s a practice we incorporate
everyday at the snack table.
       
The toppings were the same as at our grand friends except we substituted
the grated carrots for dirt (chocolate sprinkles).
    
The discussions included comparisons of the toppings each chose. 
The kindergarten teacher created a sheet for her class to do, after
we left, to further the discussion of what they preferred.
   
But if I had to guess (by the amount of empty bowls) I would say the
majority enjoyed the mashed potatoes and their toppings.

Thanks to BC Agriculture for the opportunity to participate in this great program.

Baby Shark

Have you heard the camp song Baby Shark?  It’s catchy.  There are many versions, gruesome versus non-dismemberment so I modified it slightly, took out grandma and grandpa and we are rowing a boat instead of swimming. 

We’ve been singing it for over a week so today at the craft table we made clothespin sharks.
 
Paper shark cut outs, clothespins and ric rac for the teeth was all it took.
    
Well and a bit of investigation to learn about different types of sharks
and how many teeth do they really have.
Then colour 
cut       
and glue      
Then sing the song 
 
Baby shark, do do do do do da doo baby shark! 3X
Momma shark, do do do do da doo mamma shark! 3X
Daddy shark, do do do do da doo daddy shark! 3X
Let's row our boat, do do do do da doo let's row our boat! 3X
Hungry sharks, do do do do da doo hungry sharks! 3X
Let's row faster do do do do da doo let's row faster! 3X
Safe at last, do do do da doo safe at last! 3X

Art from the Beach

 
On the weekend my daughter and I spent some time at the beach collecting rocks, shells and driftwood.  I set them out on the art table today with plastercine, markers and I plugged in the glue gun too.
 
   
The children were busy colouring the rocks and shells.  Busy attaching the shells to rocks and rocks to driftwood using the plastercine or hot glue.
         
               
    
           
  And just exploring each item for it’s feel and taste.