A Month of Gratitude

 The mind is everything. What you think, you become. ~Buddha

With this in mind, I hope to catch a month of gratitude, a little one each day.

We are trying this experiment in the Dragonfly class. I asked them what they appreciate in the world and I chose a theme to write as a sentence on a large piece of paper. I drew a border with a block crayon and a student helped me illustrate.

As with everything, sustaining the effort is the hard part. So I hope I can keep the momentum going!

Today they were grateful for birthdays!

I want to honor their childhood vision. Even though I wanted to steer them towards lovely, poetic appreciation, I also want to catch their world today. I love the beautiful, the quirky, and the silliness of the world through their eyes.

I built a foundation for this activity with our weekly Gratitude Circles. Every Friday we turn off the lights and turn on a battery-operated candle. We sit in a circle. We pass the candle around. Each student shares at least one thing in the week that she or he appreciates. At first, the circle is a stretch for some children. These days, the ideas are easier. Mom, Dad, my school, my friends. We have so much to be grateful for! I cannot wait to see what the month discovers!

I will try for a short daily post, but we may have summaries depending how the week goes :). Happy season of thanks! For me, I am thankful for my children's school (where I teach). Spending time with my boy yesterday, watching the littles with their Big Buddy Class (seventh grade) was a huge inspiration. So much sweetness!

My boy is Batman playing tag. The big kids were so fun and happy with the littles. Makes a Mama's heart happy and a teacher's heart proud :)

Also as a side note, I had to share this project from Ian's class. His teacher is amazing. She made these laterns with the students. The day before, they taped the jars with masking tape and painted them orange. On Halloween, the children drew Jack-O-Lantern faces. The teachers used an exacto knife to cut the shapes. So pretty! I am going to keep ours out for another few weeks :)

I suppose you could use the same technique with leaf shapes. A pretty celebration of light.

Wishing you many things deserving of gratitude! :)

Spooky Fairies and Gnomes

Happy spooky season! I love sewing fairies and gnomes with children. I also love sewing them all by myself! This season, especially, I get to have fun with make-believe! This is one of my favorite fairies to craft- the zombie fairy! Although she also reminds me of witch. In our fairy forest, zombies watch over the night-animals. They love tea parties under skeletal trees. They are playful and fun to sew.

We don't have tutorials for these fairies, yet, but the fairies are currently for sale in our Etsy shop. Tutorials will be available one day (stay tuned). And this week, we have a sale in the forest- 20% off with the code SPOOKY12. I know it's too late for this Halloween, but these little fairies are keepsakes that will stay with your family for years.

I also give these fairies as tree ornaments for my friends! ...just an idea for you :)

So, without further delay, here's my witch this year!

She makes me smile! I was distracted when I glued her hair, which happens in a house with young children :). So, when I tried to braid, I counted way too many strands of yarn. I could cut them, or... fishtail braids! I hadn't tried them before, but they are perfect for her. I especially love the purple and green together.  She also chose the purple shirt. I orginally had black felt cut, but got my pieces mixed up with the zombie girl. This witch wanted to be sweet this year!

I also made a few witch gnomes.  

They were so fun! We will get to share their hat-tutorial with you in the coming months because I do have a little trick for them :). One has found her forever-home, but the other two are still available.

So the spooky corners of the forest are getting ready for their favorite time of year! We wish you a happy, fun, safe holiday! 

Fairies and gnomes are waiting for you here.

Oh, and we have a Pumpkin Fairy Craft Kit. You can leave the face pieces off for a harvest-season fairy. Or save it for next year. Fun stuff!

Happy Halloween!

Pirate Week Adventures

This year I focus on a mini-theme each week in the Dragonfly Class. We are a kindergarten/first grade class. Our activities become a rotation during Groups or a whole class writing adventure. Activities need to be very flexible for many different skills. And my goal is high interest opportunities for learning. I want them to take these activities home and add to their ideas.

My hope is to have photos to share, but that didn't happen for Pirate Week. Too busy :) ... Wait, I have their ship drawings to assemble the Pirate Fleet Book. I took two photos to add, hurrah.

I still want to write our activities to capture them for the future, because I know I will sit down next year and think, "Now, what did I do last year?"

Pirate Maps: I cut brown paper bigger than usual so they could roll their maps. These turned into spyglasses very quickly. We marked the treasure and drew a path to find the treasure along with landmarks. Children loved these outside at recess.

Pirate Fleet: I drew a pencil sketch of a pirate boat very simply and made a copy for each child. We discussed how pirates lived on boats and had to bring everything along with them. Each child then got to design their own fantasy ship. I drew with a cut-away design so they could show me the Captain's Quarters and add a hot tub if they liked. Some chose to color the outside of the ship, which was fine too. We had Kitten Ships and Ninja Ships and Mermaid Ships. Children became very creative and excited about the adventures these ships would find. Which led to....

Pirate Fleet Stories: I met with each child so they could tell me the story of their pirate boat. We had danger, beauty, and adventure on the high seas! 

Pirate Flash Fiction: This was an idea that I had for groups for a shared writing project. What is each student wrote (or dictated) one sentence to their parent helper at group-time. At the end, we would read the sentences for a story about the Dragonfly Pirates. We had a lot of treasure-hiding and treasure-seeking and battles with Kraken. The children loved hearing their separate pieces come together to make a whole story.

Bonus topics during our two days (yes we did this is two days since I teach part time) included discovering the world, monsters of the deep (giant squid), and pirate discipline. Pirate captains gave time-outs too! Except they tied someone to the mast for awhile. We didn't go into great detail about pirate discipline, but the children found boat-life fascinating.  I became the pirate captain and they all called, "Aye, aye, captain!" when I gave a direction like, "Wash hands for lunch."

Oh, and we talked about pirate flags and communicating on the high seas. Cell phones didn't exist in pirate-times so they needed to announce their arrival in a scary way. Children were fascinated by the idea of using images to communicate. They enjoyed designing their own flag on their pirate ship for the pirate fleet. I could make this a separate activity and even use fabric to create flags.... Another year :)

I also had the idea to develop a pirate persona with a chosen name, outfit, and companion (pet). This could connect to the pirate boats. So many ideas! And the children loved it because the idea of sailing the high seas searching for gold is always an adventure! Not to mention, sprinkling a few arghs! and avasts! into everyday sentences is great fun!

A pirates' life for us :).  I am glad I remembered to write everything down.So this was a lot longer than I expected. We packed a lot of pirate fun into our days! I hope you get to enjoy life's treasures today!

Moon Pocket

These Moon Pockets brought sunshine into my day. Students in our first grade class sewed these beauties. I am in constant awe how we can provide students with the exact same supplies and directions, yet every project reflects the crafter in colors and stitching.

Before sewing, we discussed treasures. The moon on the front is a pocket where children can keep teeth for the tooth fairy or little notes or any little keepsake. Our last step is stringing a little ribbon to hang them.

Children are careful, conscious crafters. This moon has a pattern of flower, moon, flower, moon. This meant choosing them from the bowl of mixed-up sequins. What a lot of work!

A big challenge for grown-ups helping sew is how much to help, and how much to let go. Hopefully these images might inspire Letting Go as a help-strategy. Even wild stitiching is lovely! 

At first I thought I would photograph a few to share the idea, but I couldn't choose a favorite! They are all charming.  

This next one always inspires a smile.

And simplicity is amazing, too. I like how this student used a whipstich around the moon and a running stitch to finish the pillow. I wouldn't have taught it that way, but it works. And the one simple line of sequins is beautiful.

I love when sequins break out of the felt 'boundary'. This little leaf sequin seems to be floating down to land in just that spot. Very sweet. And these tight tiny whipstitches are so careful!

Another simple line of sequins frames the moon. I can see where the crafter started to get tired and stitches got farther apart. Sewing is hard work!

Here the sequins found many lines. This crafter was careful with colors as well. I notice patterns again, flower, moon, flower, moon. What dedication.

Another line of overlapping sequins. Again, those tiny little whipstitches amaze me.  

We teach a K/1 class and our first graders stay in the afternoon. We have a much easier time sewing with the smaller group. These children are 6-7 years old. They had experience sewing with us last year so they know the basics of controlling the needles and adding decorations. This year will be fun for crafting!

Asia and I are working on directions for these Moon Pockets that will be available soon. If you would like hints about sewing with children, visit our Tips and Tricks. For now, I hope these inspire you like they inspired me! Best wishes!

Sweet Simple Reading Nook

We woke to cloudy skies. Cozy sounded perfect. So we pulled out a few goodies and created a lovely reading space. 

We used our old crib mattress and lots of pillows. The big ah-ha moment happened when I pulled out a sheer curtain. What a perfect roof! It is light and airy and easy to tuck behind cusions. The light filters though with just a little magic.

The kids were in love.

For less than ten minutes of construction, I enjoyed ages of shared reading. They laughed and read to one another.

To be truthful, after the reading, the tent became a horse-home and that game lasted quite awhile. Until the tired horses discovered books again.

Amazing what magic a curtain panel can inspire :)

I hope you get to make a nook of your own :)

P.S. I was inspired by these fancy book nooks- maybe one day :)