A Toddler Friendly Christmas Tree

Christmas trees are beautiful and magical when you're a kid (and even when you're a grown-up.) One day out of nowhere your mommy and daddy put this huge, shiny, lit up tower of awesome in your house and you.....aren't allowed to touch it?! I fought the don't-touch-the-tree fight with both the boys. Some years the little hands obeyed; other years it was miserable. This year with a mobile Lady Bug I'm done fighting against my baby's natural curiosity and wonderment and I made the whole bottom row toddler friendly. Or at least, that was the plan.

Halloween Post Round-Up

This October we're supposed to be moving (yes, we've been supposed to be moving for several months now. It's complicated and really annoying.) So I'm not decorating. And it's been another one of those months, so I really don't have much to add to Halloween ideas. I'm so glad I got the family's costumes made in September! I'm the kind of person that if a project doesn't get done in one go, it is usually left unfinished. So all of my projects are simple, easy, and take only a reasonable amount of time. And don't cost a lot of money. So, for your convenience, here are all my Halloween posts, organized.

Homemade Halloween Costumes (2014)

Every year since Builder Boy was one year old I have been making his Halloween costumes. For the past five Halloweens I have gone the much easier route of painting on bought t-shirts. Because that's what they are used to, thankfully the boys have never requested more elaborate (or expensive) costumes. So for as long as they're happy with it, I'm going to do it the easy way!

This year the boys decided they wanted to be Angry Birds from the App Game (and web videos based on the game.) They also thought it would be fun for all of our family to be various Angry Birds. Since it's mostly just painting on t-shirts with inexpensive acrylic paints, I agreed. My costume required an additional element, and we went a bit more elaborate with Lady Bug's, but on the whole it did not take too much work or money, and we are all pleased with the results.

9/11 with Young Kids

(Picture from last year.)

Last year as part of an attempt to teach my kids about basic American holidays, we did a lesson on 9/11. Thanks to the gentle way we worked with the subject matter, my sweet, sensitive boys did okay. I did not show them ANY photos of the sight of the attacks, or anything that was not in "cartoon" form. I'm not going to teach them about it every year at this age; so we're not mentioning it this year. I don't want to overwhelm them; we'll do this lesson again next year. But I'm re-sharing the lesson for those who are looking for a way to introduce a very difficult subject to young or sensitive kids.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Silly gear courtesy of Great Grandma

Well, I did not make any plans for St. Patrick's Day other than our family's tradition of corned beef, red potatoes, and cabbage. But they talked about it in Builder Boy's Sunday school class, so this morning he was full of ideas. He's going through a crafting kick, so he wanted to make green shamrocks. I taught them how to make one out of hearts.

It was all Builder Boy's idea to put the three parts of the Trinity on his project. We re-watched the VeggieTales St. Patrick's Day skit and Builder Boy insisted on adding that part.

Builder Boy also wanted a green lunch, so he chose a tuna fish sandwich with salad and Early Bird chose salad with spinach, tomatoes, and cheese. Not exactly your exciting, Pinterest worthy celebration. But I'm glad I went with Builder Boy's idea. They're happy.

The Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and More: Review

Oops! I found another draft that never got published! If you follow Sceleratus Classical Academy on facebook then you saw the pictures when we were doing this and were probably wondering where the post went. What happened is that we never finished the whole book, so I forgot to finish the post. Here it is now.

This thanksgiving we were actually home! So when the Scholastic Dollar Days sale was going on last time I picked up the eBook version of Easy Make & Learn Projects: The Pilgrims, the Mayflower & More: 15 Fun-to-Create Reproducible Models That Make the Time of the Pilgrims Come to Life. I usually prefer having hard copies of workbooks and things, but with the amount of scanning I would have had to do for this I am very glad I got the e-version. Also, with my scanner things get re-sized and then all the parts would not have been on the same, exact scale. I would never have paid the full Amazon price for it, but I'm delighted to have gotten this for only $1. They have sales quiet frequently, and I share the info whenever I hear about it. (If you're going to be traveling for Thanksgiving check out the Thanksgiving in the Car lesson plan I made for my holiday series at Sandbox to Socrates.)

There are a lot of paper models in this book. My boys aren't up to the amount of coloring and cutting required to finish all of the projects in a week, but that is what I wanted to do so I did quite a bit of the coloring and cutting before starting the lessons. I used these models along side the books Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation and Samuel Eaton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy, but there is enough information and teaching suggestions in the book that you do not "need" anything else to use the models.

I split the models into 5 days:

Day 1

Day 1: How they got there, and why: Exchanging Worlds Trifold Diorama: (double sided new world vs old world), Moving Mayflower Map, and Peek Inside Mayflower

For the trifold, Early Bird colored the "Old World" side and Builder Boy colored the "New World." That way we only had to make one and there wasn't too much coloring for them. On the moving map they each colored "their" continent. The Mayflower was left mostly uncolored except for the flag.

Day 2

Day 2: How they lived: Pilgrim Town and Wampanoag Village

I pre-colored the map parts and left the buildings and people for the boys to color. Early Bird did the Wampanoag village and Builder Boy colored the Pilgrim town. This took much longer than I expected even with the pre-colring I did.
 I thought we would also do the gardens this day but half way through the two villages I realized how unrealistic that was for us. They did have a lot of fun comparing and contrasting the two villages, so it was worth it. Mostly.

And that's all that we actually finished. The following is what I had planned.

Day 3: Food and how they cooked it: Pilgrim Vegetable Patch / Wampanoag Garden, Hunt for Food Match-Up / Trap a Fish, and What's Cooking Double Diorama (shows Pilgrims cooking and Wampanoag cooking)Same division of the vegetable patch/garden, though I did do some pre-coloring for them there as well so they wouldn't feel so overwhelmed, since they are rarely required to do anything like this.

Day 4 (Thanksgiving Day): Harvest Feast Fun-Fact Scroll

Day 5: How they dressed: Wampanoag Basket by Numbers, and Who wore what? (Pilgrim / Wampanoag wardrobes, Wampanoag pouch)

The models are all still up, three months later. The boys like to play with their fingers as people in the villages. They still remember a lot from what we talked about. Next Thanksgiving we will finish the models the week before Thanksgiving. That was my biggest mistake; thinking we could get it all done the week of Thanksgiving. But it was definitely worth it, and we'll be finishing it in November.

I definitely recommend this if you can get it during the Dollar Days sales. And if you have kids who enjoy coloring.

Valentine's Day Plan

February Blahs are in full effect. Plus, I have some other personal issues making this month even harder. I almost didn't make a plan for Valentine's Day. My oldest is only seven years old; he can survive another year not knowing about about Hearts and Candy Day, right? I haven't done my research; I'm not qualified to teach about Saint Valentine. And I forgot to look for a book when we were at the library earlier this week.

I thought about making it about service and showing love to others, but to be completely honest I'm burnt out. And I really do not want to leave the house again this week. My kids resist much coloring or writing; I'm not going to force this. So what am I supposed to do?

I decided (last minute) that this Friday, February the 14, 2014 is going to be "Love Your Family Day." My kids already love their family, but we're going to practice different ways of showing it. I'll have the boys make just one card/picture. We'll take the day off of school and just enjoy time with each other. We'll think of something that will make Daddy happy and then do it. We might bake something, but probably not. We'll talk about what makes them feel loved, and do it. We'll go out to dinner as a family so I don't have to cook (which makes ME feel loved.) And we'll take a break from being busy and just take time to express love.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Lady Bug is sick again, but we still managed to get a little bit of school done today, including what I had planned for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Here's the link to my lesson plan on Sandbox to Socrates.)

I admit, I hate teaching about sad things to my happy children. This is the first time we've ever really talked about discrimination and intolerance. My kids have learned to love everybody, so it's hard for them to understand why anyone would be mean to other people just because of how they look. Early Bird shared with us that at Sunday school some girls told him he could not play with them because he was a boy, and how sad that made him feel. I hadn't known that had happened! It make my heart hurt for him, but it certainly helped him relate to what we talked about today.

God Gave Us the World is a sweet beginner book for young children that answers questions as to why God created us differently.  God Makes Us Different by Helen Caswell is the next step to take it from bears (from God Gave Us the World) to people. We talked a bit about how boring it would be if everyone looked the same, and how on the inside we're all the same. There was also a brief rabbit trail about DNA and inherited traits.

Grandpa made a short video about what he remembers about the times, keeping it vague and not being specific until they are older. We also watched the Horrible Histories Rosa Parks Equality song.


The boys were surprised and happy to discover how many of their crayons could be used as skin colors, besides the usual "peach." They used their new discovery on a coloring page while listening to Reverend King's Dream Speech.

Lesson Plan for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday will be celebrated this Monday. Our lesson plan is available at Sandbox to Socrates if you're interested in ideas for your own children.

Know a great resource for teaching about MLK that I missed? Please share in a comment below!

Thanksgiving Lesson Plan

Traveling for several hours or more to Thanksgiving this year? Then do I have the lesson plan for you! Check it out at my latest addition to my holiday lesson plan series at Sandbox to Socrates!

I forgot to mention on the post that one great way to teach in the car is with audio books. I've never used them before, but if you like them and they work well for you, Jen Bardsley over at Teaching My Baby to Read blog has a bunch of good ideas for what she has termed "car-schooling."

Veteran's Day Plan

Have you been enjoying what we've been doing learning about holidays? Would you like to do it along with us? The plan for Veteran's Day is now up at Sandbox to Socrates! Check it out so you can prepare ahead of time! What we do with it will be posted here the day of or the day after. I would love to hear from others who do it, too! You can comment on the post when I publish it, or you can send me info to include at theyoungermrswarde@yahoo.com.

Candy Chart 2013

Builder Boy's first chart, Early Bird's first chart

Last year I realized that Halloween is pretty much the only time my kids eat candy. It's been interesting this past week reading online about different families' Halloween candy strategies. (Some people just throw it away?!) Ours strategy is one piece after lunch and one after dinner if they finish everything on their plate. Last year the candy lasted until almost Christmas. I had a homeschooling parent point out to me that not everything has to be educational; but my kids like doing the candy chart! And this year we are going to not just chart the textures and flavors. We are going to compile and analyze the information to see what things they liked in candy, what things they didn't, and decide what their favorite candy actually was.

Here's the link to the original post from last year with a blank chart free to copy and use.

I've got a guest post at Sandbox to Socrates! I'm going to be giving the plan for the our "celebrations" from The Big Book of Holidays Around the Year a few days ahead of every holiday for anyone who is interested in doing it, too.

I dropped the ball on it for October, but for November we're doing Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving. Here's 9/11, Citizenship Day, and Constitution Week from September.

Daily Thankfulness Garland

This year they boys will be participating in the daily thankfulness challenge that you often see on facebook every November. Only instead of just putting it on facebook (which I'll be doing on the Sceleratus Classical Academy page) we will also be making a fall leaf garland with our answers.

I searched our local dollar store trying to find die cut fall leaves that I could have sworn I'd seen there before. But they did not have any, so we went on a Leaf Treasure Hunt around our neighborhood to find as many different shapes, sizes, and colors of leaves we could find. We'll be using these for various activities this week.

Once we got back home we each chose a color. Daddy is orange, Builder Boy is green, Early Bird is red, and I am yellow. I chose various leaves and traced them onto colored construction paper. After I traced the leaf I folded the paper as many times as I could make fit to make multiple copies of the leaf shape. This was the only way to accomplish cutting out 120 leaves in one hour or less.

Step 1: Trace

Step 2: Fold

 

Step 3: Cut

Or fold, then fit, then cut.

Make sure you have 30!

If you can find pre-cut leaves, use them! If you have kids old enough to cut nicely, use them! But once I got into the groove, it wasn't too bad.

Once you've cut them out you can write what you are thankful for that day and add it to the garland. I used staples to attach the paper leaves to a ribbon. I am hanging the garland on the wall in our dining area. The paper color will likely fade over time, but this is a decoration I could possibly save and bring out next year.













PS. It's okay to start this project a few days late!

Added later: I had the thought that if you wanted to make a decoration with your thankfulness answers, but didn't want to do all that cutting, you could write your answers on strips of colored paper and make a paper chain instead.

Baby Ladybug Costume DIY

aka Why you shouldn't wait until Halloween to dye a costume.

She really likes grabbing the tu-tu fluff!

So for her first Halloween Lady Bug was....a ladybug! I've had the idea for this costume since the ultrasound pregnancy test over a year now.  I purchased everything I needed almost two months in advance....and didn't put it all together until a few hours before it was time to trick or treat. And it was too cold to trick or treat in her costume. Sigh. I should have made it on a black hooded jacket like I did with Builder Boy's bumble bee costume. At least she had a cute bear suit she could wear in the cold and we had a church function to show her off in in the ladybug costume.

I made the tu-tu the day before Halloween. (I put the PRO in procrastination.) I followed instructions from treasures for tots and they were wonderfully helpful. It took me less than an hour to make a wonderful looking tu-tu. I tried making tu-tu's (for a friend's daughters) before, cutting strips of tulle from the stuff you get off bolts. That was a disaster and a waste of hours. Thanks to the tulle cutting instructions, also from treasures for tots, I got a spool and with just a little help from Builder Boy had my strips cut in 10 minutes (or less.) Builder Boy loved being part of a "tu-tu making machine."

I used ribbon instead of elastic to make the waistband, so it would have a bow at the back. If you're wondering (like I was at the store) what width of ribbon to use the answer is: whatever width you want for the bow. Because the tulle is so tight on the ribbon that it makes no difference otherwise. Unless it's an extremely thin ribbon. Don't use a thin ribbon.

That day I also made the wings. I made them out of a cheap rectangle of felt I got in the craft section of Walmart for $0.24. I folded it in half, drew the shape I wanted on it, and cut. (Picture enhanced with Paint since you couldn't see the lines in the original picture.) Then I painted black dots on them, first using a q-tip and finishing with a paintbrush.

Water needed to be "steaming hot."

For the body of the costume I purchased a 0-3 month white, long-sleeved bodysuit/onsie and a packet of Tulip black dye. I followed the instructions exactly, and it came out gray, not black. Because I made it the day of Halloween I did not have time to go back to the store and get another dye packet and re-dye it. If you do this I suggest purchasing two packets and going through the dyeing process a second time. They are only $2-3 each, so it's not too expensive.

This is not the color I was looking for.

Once it was dyed and gone through the wash (as per the instructions) I quickly sewed on the top of the wings to the back of the onsie. Tie the tu-tu around the waist and you've got one adorable ladybug.

Total cost: ~$10.










(Even though I did not finish writing this post until November, I am post dating it to October for easier access in the archives.)

Knight Costume DIY

Watching Early Bird "fly" around in his beloved Super Why costume that I made him last year for Halloween I realized that what I had done for that costume would also work as a knight's costume. Early Bird has spent a lot of time pretending to be a knight lately; especially now that he has Princess Lady Bug to save. So I went to the store and got two gray shirts for $3.47 each, some fleece in blue and red for $2 each, and a $5 "Warrior Kit" from the Halloween aisle that came with two small swords.

I wanted to paint a crest on the chest of the shirts so I sat down with the boys and the American Heraldry Society's website and let them design their own crests. I only insisted that they each have their birth order insignia as part of it.

To paint the crests I first cut out a paper shape to trace. I used one of my favorite Pinterest tips, to put a glue bottle cap on a paint bottle to "write" with. I traced around the paper shape with the glue cap paint, then using a brush I extended the outline some. The metallic paint that I purchased specifically for this project was much less metallic than I had hoped, and was a very thin paint that soaked through. When doing this project make sure you put paper inside the shirt to prevent bleeding through to the back.




















I let that dry for half an hour and then got to work on the inside of the crest. I made the full background and then once it was dry painted the insignia on top. This was a mistake. The paint was so thin that even after several layers (letting it dry before adding another) the background pattern still showed through. If you are going to do this, make the insignia first and then make the background pattern around it.

I free-handed the pattern. The grid being so small made it difficult to paint. If I had to do it over again I would make the checks much bigger.

Once the paint was dry I hand sewed on the capes. I used fleece so that I would not have to hem any edges. I did Early Bird's cape first, sewing the cape at the shoulder seams. I didn't quite like the way it turned out so with Builder Boy's cape I folded the edge over at the ends which ended up giving the cape a flared look.

I used just a regular stitch going one way and then doubled back to reinforce it. I did the same with Early Bird's Super Why costume and it's been going through tough boy play and the washing machine for a year now and has held up.

Early Bird's cape was only half a yard. I think it would have looked better if it had been wider, like Builder Boy's.

Still, not too bad for only about $5.50 (not including paint and sword costs.) We're wearing them while learning about knights and we'll also be using them as our Halloween costumes.

The painting job took several hours just because of the need to dry in between layers and colors. The sewing took 30-45 minutes by hand I think? I consider this to be a fairly easy and quick project. My only regret is the insignia is not clear. But the boys don't care! They love their new knight costumes. And I made sure the shirts I got were big enough that they could be worn over jackets for cold weather trick-or-treating.

Pinterest Homemade Halloween Decorations

Bats and spiders and ghosts, oh my! This weekend my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law came to meet Lady Bug. They drove a long way to spend just one day, so I wanted it to be a full day. I have been saving ideas on my Halloween Pinterest board and this weekend we decorated the house with home made Halloween decorations. We made ghost that blow in the wind, bats to put in the windows, cut out jack o' lanterns, silly monsters, a spider, and we turned the door into a monster face.

Builder Boy's "Daddy Ghost"

This is what I was originally going for with the ghosts. But that was before I realized I didn't have any more white trash bags, and I could not find the balloons. So I improvised and cut a regular 8.5x11 white piece of paper and drew a face on it. Since these things turn in the wind it's better to make the face on both sides. Then I put a small, clear trash bag over them. (I did not have to gather them at the top because they were already like that. If yours is not you may want to gather it.) I taped the paper on the inside of the bag so that you could see the face better. Then I taped a string to the top of the bag and hung them outside. We will see if it holds up in the wind.

For the bat silhouettes I did one from memory and Builder Boy tried to copy me. I wish I'd looked one up online as a reminder of what they're supposed to look like. We folded a black piece of construction paper to make them, drew, cut, and then opened. Builder Boy reminded me that the bats needed big ears.

The monster door was an idea I saw on Pinterest. It was originally going to be a bunch of eyes, but it morphed into a monster face. For the eyes I folded a piece of paper in half and made a half circle with a long, skinny rectangle on the flat side of the half circle. The nose is an uneven blob with warts drawn on and the teeth are uneven triangles.

We also used dollar store googly eyes and puff balls to make silly monsters on colored construction paper.





Nana and Builder Boy together worked on this spider idea that now decorates our wall. There are also some extra monsters, jack o' lanterns, and ghosts around the house that Early Bird made.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do concerning scary things for Halloween. I don't like to encourage the idea of being scared. But the boys have had enough culture exposure that they knew ahead of time what symbols are associated with Halloween and were perfectly fine with making them. I also made sure they knew what is real and what is not. And we tried to be silly throughout the whole thing. I'd say mission accomplished!