What Happened to Fairy Lane?

The past few weeks we have focused on creating fairies and building homes for them.  This came about because Fairy Lane has been removed by our city’s park department.  There was a complaint and the city didn't know why it was there so they collected all the doors and houses.
                   
It was devastating for many of us so we began to investigate the forest by our school as a possible new location. This time we want to use as many natural materials to build the homes so we collected sticks and more in the forest by our school. 
     
    
The first week the art area was really busy with each family making a house to take home.  These homes are for their own gardens.
             
       
                              They are amazing creations.

 
The second week was for making fairies.  Old fashioned clothespins were used
                for the bodies and all the materials on our shelves.
          

		Our Fairies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It has been an amazing two weeks of creating and learning more about fairies
and what their homes could look like.

It has also been a month of talking with our City’s park manager about Fairy Lane.  Why it was started and what it means to the many families that visit.  They have agreed that it can be rebuilt with a few guidelines.  Hopefully in the next few months we will continue to create more homes to place in Fairy Lane.

Snack–Build a Tortilla Tree

                     
Our ‘make-a-snack’ this week was to build a tree using a tortilla triangle,
              celery slices, carrot sticks and dried cranberries.
          
There was also Garden Vegetable cream cheese to spread on the tortilla
                                    to hold it together.
 
With the parents help the children followed the recipe picture by picture.
           
The children tried new skills and their grown ups stood back but were there
                                   if support was needed.
            
Another interesting thing I noticed was that most of the children ate the celery.  It was cut into small slices which made it manageable to eat in one bite compared to the large pieces we used last week for Bugs on a Log.  I’ll have to remember that for future snacks.
             
                                        The recipe we used.

Our Finished Gingerbread House

            Yesterday we painted tubes to look like candy canes.
 
Today we used the candy cane tubes to make a ball run on the side of the
                                 gingerbread house.
                      
I first used double sided tape to place the tubes then secured them with
                                        packing tape.
     
                                          It was a hit!

Sometimes they had to wiggle the tubes to make the ball continue it’s path
                                   through all the tubes.

          Today we made wreaths to hang on the doors of the house.
              
            We started by painting our hands to make two wreaths.     
                     
It didn’t take long to finish the two wreaths so I added bingo dabbers
            and as you can see we now have a lot of wreaths.
                
Our completed gingerbread house from the front.  Part way through this morning two children were playing inside and when I opened the door they told me the coffee shop was closed.  Hmmm another possible transformation idea for the new year?

Rosemary Scented

I belong to a book club and this month one of our members showed up
with a big bin of rosemary that she had pruned from her garden.
            
I have a sensitivity to fragrances, even plants, but the rosemary didn’t make
my eyes water so I brought it to school and put it in the sensory table.
                          
           It provided a great opportunity to practice snipping.

                          And holding the scissors safely.
                   
     The more we handled the rosemary the more fragrant it became. 
         The same went if we didn't handle it we couldn't smell it.

The Barn Transformation

     We have this fabulous box that we’ve been using for our barn. 
              
  It’s a perfect size and still in great shape so instead of putting it
                into the recycling bin we re-painted it.
          
       After painting we transformed it into a gingerbread house.
 
           I added lights and a fabric that looked like icicles.
   
         
               The children painted paper plates for roof shingles.
      
         Our red/green patterned gingerbread roof half done. 
It took two days to paint enough shingles to cover the one side of the roof.


            
          Today we used the salad spinners to make candy decorations. 

I also found a different set of lights that change colour.  After hanging them
I spotted children throughout the morning taking a closer look at the lights.
           

              

We still have a few more decorations to make.
          
Tomorrow we will make candy cane tubes and on Thursday we will
                 make handprint wreaths for the doors.

It’s exciting when we can continue to use materials but in different ways. 
            I wonder what the box will become next?

Wishing for Snow

         
It’s December 1st and we’re wishing for a little snow so I set up
                  our fairy teepee in a winter scene.
           
I found these white balls at IKEA, they are used to cover little lights but I thought they would make great snowballs.  Also added smaller white pom poms for variety.
             
These two girls found more fairies and added them to the snow scene.  I noticed they were trying to stick the pom poms together and asked what they were making.  She wanted to make snowmen.
               
             So a little brainstorming led us to try some tape.
               
She had to figure out how to use the tape so it would stick to both balls.  Laying it flat across one ball didn’t work.  Laying it across the other ball didn’t work.  How to have sticky tape on both?  We learned how to roll the tape around our finger to make it work.

As I type this post I see that it is snowing outside.  Hmm did the fairies help with that wish?