Spelling & Art

This week for spelling a fun project has included a Christmas Tree - a very simple and easy project!

I cut the pieces so that Holly would have to sort them by size correctly. I wrote all of her spelling words, one on each branch for her to copy. Then she had to organize them correctly before finishing her project. She loved doing this one and it is very easy to accomplish!

Her words for this week are:

• kinder
• kindest
• longer
• longest
• faster
• fastest
• softer
• softest
• higher
• highest
• some
• more

Thanksgiving Break

We are taking a break this week for Thanksgiving and family time!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We'll be back next week!

Fall Batik

Holly got to enjoy making a gel glue batik once again with our Camp Fire group! This month we are having the kids work on an emblem for arts, fiber arts being the theme which goes in conjunction with a National Art Experience Camp Fire is hosting. The kids have had a fun time making some fiber art projects.

My co-leader set up this project for the kids to do, a gel glue batik. Holly created one of these this summer and it was so much fun with great results we thought it could be a great project for the kids. Here are the directions from her first project.

This time the project was all in fall colors that went beautifully with Holly's design. She created a nature scene - mountains, with a sunshine, clouds, birds, small water feature, tree and a deer. It is very cute! The fall paints really helped to make this a lovely batik! She had a great time creating... and already has an idea for a winter themed one with snowflakes... I might join in on the fun for that one. Can't wait!

Spelling & Art

For part of Holly's weekly word review I attempt to incorporate the words into a fun little art project. Something where she will get one more opportunity to write them and review them with me. This week Holly created a turkey from construction paper. Each feather contains one of her spelling words, which this week are:
    

•      walls
•      dolls
•      eggs
•      boxes
•      dresses
•      wishes
•      classes
•      lunches
•      beaches
•      dishes
•      very
•      people

Her project turned out pretty cute, was easy enough for her to create on her own and best of all... she had fun!

I forgot to take some photos of her creating so this is the final product, my only shot.

Nature Exchange

A blog that I really enjoy reading called The Magnifying Glass is hosting a Nature Exchange this fall season. This will be Holly's first time participating but she is rather excited about it. The gal paired us up with a family from Alabama.... a different region than us. The idea is you collect safe items from nature in your area and package them up to mail to our partners across the country. When I mean safe, I mean baking seeds so they are not able to reseed and ensuring you are not sending invasive species.

We have spent the past couple of weeks collecting little bits from our time in nature - while on walks, while at the beach, from our yard, while on a Nature Club outing and even a treasure collected earlier in the year from Holly's personal collection. This morning Holly made her final selections and packaged up the box to mail out later this afternoon. Soon we should receive her box to learn with. When it arrives I will share!

Secret Code Fall Words

Our Fall Words list has been posted on the learning wall, we have done some Read, Build & Write mats with them and of course read them a lot. However today I used this great little secret code sheet I found online here: Mrs. Gilchrist's Class - Secret Code Word Sheet We have used this for fun work or spelling words, but today Holly created a small booklet of fall words we are focusing on this month.

To do this we have a laminated version of this Secret Code Words sheet and then I created small sheets with the codes to spell out her fall words. I put blanks down to write the letters on. She had the figure them out, read them to me and then draw them. When all finished she stapled them together as a mini-booklet. It was a lot of fun!

I am amazed how adding a Secret Code element can change the whole concept of learning new words... makes learning a lot of fun!

Turkeys

Today the kids made paper turkeys for art, Holly's version and a tot version! They had a lot of fun enjoying this fall art project and it coupled great with a couple of books we had just read together.

This is a very easy turkey to create - I had no pattern, just winded it. I took two different sized circle containers and traced them, larger on the bottom. Connect the two circles with a thin neck. Using the larger circle for the body I guided the two layers of feathers... making each layer larger. You could definitely do more layers if one wanted, we were running low on time so I made only two layers. Then the little wings, beak and gobbler with some google eyes completes this little guy. Super cute and very easy!

For the tot version I made the core body and then let Hudson help glue on the face. Then he had a pile of little fall colored squares to glue on as the feathers. He picked that up very quickly and once again - loved glue work!

Such a fun little project to adorn our walls!

Mini-Weaving Loom

This week for Camp Fire we are looking at textile arts and trying our hands at a few projects that fall under this category. I hosted a small weaving project with our troop. It is a very simple project requiring very little in materials yet a great little project that is easy, colorful and as Holly has informed me - a bit addictive!

She did one yesterday at our Camp Fire meeting and then came home to make one more and this morning asked to make even another. It is artistic, requires focus, patience, hand eye coordination and good fine motor skills - all great skills to use!

To create a small loom I hot glued four popsicle sticks together to create a square. Then I tied on a solid color of yarn and wrapped the loom about five times and tied off. You now have a very simple loom! With a great assortment of yarns, scissors and little fingers - you are set to create! Tie onto the bottom corner thread and weaving in and out, back and forth. Change yarn by tying it off and keep weaving. When you are all finished you tie off on the last rows final thread. Trim and tuck all little knots you have.

A sweet, simple mini-weaving project!

Our Week In Books ~ Thanksgiving

We have a pretty good collection of Thanksgiving books in our home. We have had some of these a few years now and in years past have read them to Holly but this year she is pretty much reading this collection of books to me and then I read them to her after that. Her reading has come so far that she enjoys sitting down with a book now, she has even finished chapter books and lined up her next reads. So, it is fun this year to have her read these Thanksgiving books to us first - a whole new experience!

These are our Thanksgiving books we are using this month. With this collection we are also using a few from last month that are simply pumpkin based, fall harvest or hibernation. We also have a few from the library as well - but we'll be returning them very soon. They have been fun to read!!

Simple overview of the Thanksgiving Story but a bit more to read for Holly.

This book is beautiful book written from the perspective of the native Squanto. Well done and very thorough!!

Simple look at the basic story through a school play production. Fun!

Real photography offering a glimpse into what life may have been like!

Beautiful poetic book looking at the November all Fall season.

Cute book on the Mayflower story.

Silly book about today's Thanksgiving and family.

Another cute and silly book on Thanksgiving and family.

A look back through seek and find and simple counting.

Tot book - but a good overview of the story.

Light first chapter book - cute story.

A turkey hunt... or are they really hunting???

And, a cute twist on the Twas the Night Before....