Sonlight Garden

Storybook Activity~The Quiltmaker's Gift

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau is  a great story about a greedy king and an old quiltmaker. The greedy king has oodles and oodles of things except for a beautiful quilt from the mysterious old quiltmaker. He wants one really bad but the quiltmaker won't give him one. The king learns it is better to give than to take.

narrated by Catherine

We truly enjoyed this story. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed. I frequently find a child sitting in a chair looking at this book. I love that! It has become a family favorite. 

We did a little activity with this story. I cut squares of clear contact paper, peeled away the back and taped it to the window. The children then stuck "quilt squares" (which are basically scrapbook paper triangles and squares) onto it. I ordered mine ions ago from a montessori store but like I said, you could easily do it yourself with scrapbook paper and a paper cutting board. after they were done placing their squares and their quilts were finished, I covered them with contact paper. They each have their own little "quilt" to remind them of this precious story. Mary Jane is itching to make her own real quilt.

edited to add:  My hats off to the illustrator Gail de Marcken. The beautiful pictures in this book make this story come alive!! Just breathtaking!

Craft Kits

At the homeschool convention this spring I came across a booth called Shirley's Crafts. They were selling a box that contained directions and material to complete 12 preschool crafts a month. Each month is a different theme. The concept is pre-packaged crafts. While at the convention I bought a box for the month of April for Amelia. She LOVED it!!  I loved it! Everything I needed was right there. There was no need to hunt everything down. The fun little crafts happened.

 When thinking about this school year and my gang I wanted to add some fun, seasonal, liturgical, "crafts". I wanted them to be a little more than paper crafts, although, I did add a lot of those in here also. I wanted there to be something fun for them to look forward to each week. Something planned and prepped and ready to go. Usually I will see a neat idea on-line for a craft and think, "Oh I don't have the glitter, pipe cleaner, etc. to do this, I will get it the next time I am out" and then I forget all about it. And then the "project" never happens. I am not very good on the fly.  I also added a few baking projects like, baking a cake for the Blessed Mother's birthday. 

Years ago Jennifer at as cozy as spring (one of my favorite blogs) put together crafts bags for her school year. I thought that was such a great idea and I found her old post. She found a lot of great ideas out there and I borrowed almost all of them :0). This entire summer I worked on this list picking up items when they were on sale or when I had a coupon. Oh, and I discovered Hobby Lobby! I think it is my new favorite craft store. We didn't have those in Florida. Anyhow...

I took out my calendar and looked at the feast days and the seasons. I took into account the arrival of our new baby and I wrote everything down on the calendar. So here are our monthly crafts and activities. Everything that can be in a bag is and ready to go!

August

-Pencil Boxes- decorate pencil boxes for the first day of school. I found these blank pencil boxes at Michael's. I am going to fill them with their school supplies, new crayons, pencils, etc. and then let them decorate them with stickers and markers. This will be a nice surprise on the first day of school.

-Apple cupcakes (so many cute dessert ideas on Family Fun)

(photo from Family Fun)

-Seed/Bean mosaic pictures

-Fairy Garden

September

-Bake a cake for the Blessed Mother's Birthday

-Tissue Paper Monarch Butterflies- supplies pipe cleaner, black card stock, tissue paper. Will look like a stained glass window.

-Autumn Wreath (these are printed out ready to go in a bag with the paper plates)

-Sunflower coloring page (They have really beautiful coloring pages)

-Michaelmas Daisy coloring page

-Make Sculpey Angels (out of Sculpey clay)

October (Mary Jane's Birthday, Welcome new baby!)

-Feast of the Guardian Angels- Bake an Angel Food cake and have an Angel Hair Pasta meal.

-Feast of St. Francis of Assisi- pine cone bird feeders

-Feast of St. Margaret Mary- Miraculous Medal Craft

*round wood plaques, pictures of Blessed Mother, ribbon, little flowers. Write on plaque "Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."

-Autumn Leaf creatures

-Glitter Pumpkins -these would be a great centerpiece or mantel display. (note to self. Do these outside.)

 

-Make roasted pumpkin seeds

November (Catherine and Amelia's birthday)

-All Saints Day- Spoon Saints

-Thankful Tree- I love this idea from The Crafting Chicks (great site!). What a cute centerpiece. I have also seen thankful trees that you hang up on the wall, which would probably be more practical for us. After all, we do have a 2 year old John Paul in the house. 

-Mosaic Cornucopia

-Autumn Gnomes (down at the bottom)- I am linking to these cute craft kits. And, oh there are so many cute ones. I so badly wanted to order these. I tried a couple of times. Once, the cart was all messed up and I couldn't get more than one item in at a time. The second time I had my shopping cart ready to go and then was called away from the computer and never got back to it. I took it as a sign. I then realized I had all of the materials to make all of these little dolls downstairs in a basket. I bought this doll making craft kit years ago, similar to this I also had two books sitting on my shelf to help with the process, Feltcraft: Making Dolls, Gifts and Toys and The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year's Cycle with a Seasonal Tableau A little more work is involved but it is cheaper!!

-Pine Cone Turkeys - I found lovely cinnamon scented pine cones for these. Supplies- pine cones, pipe cleaners, wool felt for feathers

-Pomanders- with cloves and oranges

December  (Christmas)

-Paint wooden Christmas tree ornaments- found blank wooden ornaments at Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I had a coupon. This year I will be sure to pick some up after Christmas when they go on clearance.

-St. Nicholas Doll Craft

-Our Lady of Guadalupe- make tissue paper pointsietta

-St. Lucy Peg doll- so cute!

-Gingerbread houses- They sell these in kits at the craft stores. 

-Spoon Angel ornaments- Like the spoon saints but make angels! 

-Jingle bell girl ornaments- for the life of me I can not remember where I found these. I think it was Wee Wonderfuls? I am going to blame it on pregnancy brain. **** I found it! It is Wee Wonderfuls. Just did a google search!

 

-Children of light doll kit- my own version

*****************

I will have plenty of basic supplies on hand:

Glue (a lot of it)

Acrylic paint

watercolors

card stock

construction paper

sculpey clay

beeswax

crayons

markers

colored pencils 

(am I missing anything?)

So that's it.

This brings us through December. I haven't thought about January through May yet. Any ideas? 

A Fairy Garden

Deep in the back yard, beneath the big Magnolia tree (the yard isn't really deep, nor is the tree big but it sounds more poetic that way), amongst the wildflowers and herbs, and weeds lies an enchanted land where the fairies live.

Our Fairy Garden

This was an activity I had scheduled for the end of August, but the kids couldn't wait to start this right away. The whole process took us about a week to complete.

First, we painted the fairy houses, which were actually miniature birdhouses found at Michael's

Then, we painted toadstools. Because, really, what is a fairy garden without toadstools? For these I just bought plain wood drawer knobs, painted the tops red and added white dots to the top.

First phase done. Clean-up time.

The next evening we went out and cleared an area beneath the Magnolia tree. We collected rocks of all different shapes and sizes for a border and for little paths. I have seen fairy gardens in garden pots, which I think is a fabulous idea, however, with the number of little ones who will want to play out here we needed something a wee bit bigger.

The next day we glued moss on to our fairy houses. And Patrick and Mary Jane also painted their houses.

The following day was the fun part. 

We are still thinking of things to add to our little garden. The kids added moss to the ground. A big clam shell for a little pond. We will see what else shows up in our fairy garden. Perhaps some fairies!

Winter Village~by Mary Jane