Joyfully Weary

Jack and the Beanstalk is, by far, the fairy tale that has most intrigued our boys.  During the past month they have asked me to read it all most every day and, on their own, they started to act out the story - "fee fi fo fum" has become a common phrase in our house. I decided to focus their passion into a little crafting - no surprise there - and we created our own Jack and the Beanstalk scene. 

Since this project developed over several days I don't have a picture of all our supplies but here is a list.

boot box wrapping paper tube green and blue paint paint brushes green construction paper scissors green glitter glue hole puncher pipe cleaners 60 popsicle sticks tape white glue glue gun cotton balls easter grass
We started by using our dish-wands to paint a wrapping paper tube green.


Then we painted the inside of a boot box blue 

I drew leaf shapes onto green construction paper and then Big Buddy and I worked together to cut them all out. 

Then we used green glitter-glue to add detai…

I bought this dress in Zaragoza, Spain, May 2010. The mix of prints caught my eye but honestly, the main reason I bought it was because I adored the boutique. It was tiny, tucked inside an ally, took up multiple floors, and was staffed by gorgeous yet friendly ladies. The whole store wouldn't fit in my suitcase so I settled for the dress. On another note, I did iron it before wearing it, we just didn't have time to take pictures before church and kids and wrinkles seem to go together. 
Several months back I hit quite the jackpot on freecycle. I was probably trying to get rid of little boy clothes or asking for dinosaurs when I saw someone was offering up three vintage fur collars! They are all gorgeous but I'm having trouble figuring out how to wear them. This is my 1st attempt. I liked how the outfit turned out but I will admit that I did feel a little silly for the first hour or so. :) If you have any other ideas on how I can wear my fur collars, I would love to hear.  *…

A weekly reflection inspired in part by Bob Bennett's song "Small Graces".

This last weekend we took a trip a Target and it was glorious trip because several items in their dollar spot were 70% off - only $0.30! I like to keep to my eye open for fun painting tools and found a couple things that would work.  Of all of them, I was most excited about these dish-wands!

I had been wanting to test them out for a while, hoping they would work similar to Elmer's Sqeeuze N Brushes. I filled them up with a mixture of washable tempera paint and water and then tested them out on some old newspaper. It took awhile to get the paint to come out but they started to work like I hoped - victory!  Well not quite, because then things started to go wrong. Mini Man saw them sitting on the kitchen counter and he got excited - very excited - dish-wand-crashing-to-the-floor excited. Which left me with red paint all over kitchen and apologizing to my two-year-old for yelling raising my voice. Then, when it was time to paint, we couldn't get them to work! 

The boys were good …

A few readers have asked me about the books we are reading for our folk and fairy tale unit so I thought I'd share some of our favorites. I feel like I should note that I live in a town with an amazing library. They have a very large collection of books (and other materials) and I am allowed to check out 50 items at time! They also have a very user-friendly, online catalog that allows me to reserve materials from the comfort of my couch and then pick up them at their drive-thru window. With it being that easy, we go through a lot books, which is great since Big Buddy seems to have an insatiable appetite.
When I am planning any unit, my favorite place to start looking for books is this list of Caldecott Medal and Honor Books.  There are several folk and fairy tales on the list. Here are ones that we have picked up: 
This book is a retelling of a part fom Spenser's The Faerie Queene.  The illustrations are beautiful and the retelling does the original work justice. Trina Schar…

In addition to our mirrors, we also decided to make some of the Beast's roses. In a few of the versions we've read, the trouble starts when Belle's father "steals" a rose from the Beast's garden.





And since we had the celery we also did a little osmosis magic.