21 November 2009

Busy, busy, busy

T and I have been quite the busy bees lately. Since we got back from our short break, we've been constantly working on stuff! We are preparing for my upcoming craft fair, the Downtown Holiday Market, which is in 3 weeks. Crafting has been going at a fairly steady pace, though it will be slowed significantly when we leave for our Thanksgiving vacation on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for my upcoming Montessori weekend seminar, and T has class all day, every day this weekend. Of course, I've also been working on lessons for the classroom and have plans for little "love leaves" as Thanksgiving goodies for the children.

This week, I created 2 new lessons for the children. A corn painting lesson is on the shelves until Thanksgiving break, and I prepared a special rainy day activity for the Lunch Bunchers on Thursday.
Corn painting involves a printout of a corn image, (with individual kernels), qtips cut in half, a green coloured pencil and a yellow stamp pad. The children use the qtip to stamp little yellow circles into each of the kernels. Then they colour the leaves green. If desired, they can cut out the whole corn shape, which can then be posted on our landscape bulletin boards as though it's growing out of the ground.

For our rainy day activity, I made cinnamon clay for the children to make an aromatic garland for the classroom. I brought letter and leaf shaped cookie cutters and we spelled out "give thanks" with a few leaves for spacers. The children loved the activity (since we no longer have play dough out on the shelves) and it made the classroom smell delicious. Of course, the children took home the extra clay.

Cinnamon Clay Recipe

Ingredients:
2 bottles ground cinnamon
1 bottle white school glue
1 cup applesauce
1 cup flour

In a large bowl, mix the applesauce and as much of the glue as you can dump out of the bottle. In a separate, smaller bowl, combine one and a half bottles of cinnamon with about half the cup of flour. This will help make it easier to mix into the applesauce/glue mixture. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. The cinnamon will cause billowing dusty clouds if you add too much at once. When all the dry ingredients have been mixed in, if it is still sticky, add more flour. Flour a clean surface well and knead the dough. It should be approximately the same consistency as Crayola Model Magic, only heavier. Separate dough into balls for distribution to children and pat flat with the palm of your hand. Use cookie cutters to make shapes.

I made a test batch of letters which were slightly less than 0.25" thick. They were a little brittle, so with the children, we made our shapes 0.25" thick. They are drying over the weekend, hopefully they'll be done by Monday so we can string them up!

13 November 2009

Bethany under water


Puddles!
Originally uploaded by Gwen @ Silver Lining

T and I are spending a long weekend in Bethany thanks to Parent Teacher conferences happening at school. Being on the coast, we are getting an exciting first hand view of tropical storm Ida. Many roads are closed due to flooding, including the major highway, Route 1. Many shops are not open, but there were still quite a few people driving around taking pictures. I couldn't resist the massive lake-like puddles, so we joined in the fun. We attempted to drive to Rehoboth, but found we couldn't due to high water. We observed a man trying to fix a "road closed" sign, nearly up to his waist in water; on the highway!

11 November 2009

Aha! moments

This is my first post from my phone! Fingers crossed that it works well. My little friends and I made some breakthroughs in learning today. There really is nothing better than being part of a child's aha! moments. Well, maybe getting a spontaneous hug and kiss on the cheek from a 4 year old.

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

07 November 2009

A great day!

That's what T and I enjoyed for dinner tonight. Real Southern sweet tea, fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits and potato salad! We figured that since we're in the South, we should enjoy as much real Southern food as we can. We haven't had good, smell-it-from-a-mile-away fried chicken since we visited Charlottesville last.

We're in Raleigh because today was the Handmade Market. I have to say it was one of the most well-run fairs I've been in, which made it easy for us to do well. The Handmaidens did a wonderful job of making everything as easy as possible. Also, the fair was held indoors, at the Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh so there was a lot of traffic. They must do a fantastic job of marketing, because the people who showed up were also all prepared to buy! They were prepared with cash, too! A very nice Montessori teacher came by my booth and immediately picked up a Cording Star Kit and suggested that I try to get into a conference or catalogue. When I told her I'm currently a Montessori intern, she said she hoped to see me at the Boston conference. How extra exciting to meet a fellow Montessorian!

Raleigh itself is not a bad place to be either. It's about a 5 hour drive from home, but it didn't seem that bad. Our hotel is fantastically nice, and we were upgraded to stay on the Club Level. The area even has quite a nice number of consignment stores with men's and women's clothing! T and I are already looking forward to applying for the Spring Handmade Market. :)