Just a little glance at our visit from Old Befana yesterday. The boys recently got the opportunity to pet sit a couple of rats for some friends. They are quite sweet, and Befana took up the que and left a couple rats along with a pied piper and whistle for the boys in their stockings. So exploring some German folktales (Pied Piper) and Russian folktales (Befana) to do some more family heritage exploring.
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Days flew by this week in a rush of fall festival parties at school, Halloween trick or treating, rememberence during Day of the Dead and weekending family down time. Halloween is always a fun time and enjoyed again by the boys. We had a festive chicken farmer and mushroom for the school's barn themed festival. They magically transformed into a phantom and Ninja turtle at sunset for our traditional neighborhood old school trick or treating.
Day of the Dead celebrations gave us time to set up our family altar, light candles for our ancestors to find their way to us, and also time for me to finish editing pictures from my trip to Iowa this summer to visit my ancestors graves, go by the farm that was my family farm that I spent a couple weeks at each summer, and also meet my cousin's wife that you may know as Wool Food Mama- we found each other through Etsy! Now that is roots through crafting!
It was a rainy day this summer when we were there, but it was still powerful being in a place where there were 4 generations of my maternal line, including my great grandmother that I was named after- Wilhemina Freida Christina. Since my hubby really enjoyed Ragbrai, I have a feeling I will be back at the cemetery next summer!
I hope your Halloween weeks were well, this should be an exciting week too. A great time to do some teaching about presidents and government. Be well my friends.
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I am enjoying a hot cup of chai and starting to read a little bit of Taproot- thank you so much to Nova Naturals who sent me a gratis copy. Have you read it yet? Tonight probably just a little peak before it is time to sleep.
I am also enjoying the first walks in my little patch of woods- Tanglewood and finding that my elderberry survived the winter!
How about you- what are you enjoying right now?
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Last year we were in the middle of an amazing blizzard, today the boys were playing soccer after school in t-shirts! Go figure! So a little photo montage for the day, no we did not have special bread and milky cheese for today. We actually had homemade pizza and chocolate chip marble bars, but we told stories, lit candles, candles, and even more candles! Welcome February!
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Old Befana stopped to help sweep out the last bit of Christmas. The boys found their stockings filled with a couple chocolates and a fun Brementown Musician's storytelling puzzle. It was fun to see them put it together that all the pieces between the two stockings and realize that is was not a super hero donkey, our cat and dog, and lone roaster, but indeed the 4 friends on their way to Brementown.
One of the Grimm stories that we are quite fond of! Fun story and a good story to incorporate a music element into your storytelling- and maybe some fun stacking on the back attempts! Enjoy this one if you have not yet, and the story set is a Russian made set from here. Pretty fitting as a gifts from old Befana!
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good grief how I love the winter holidays, alright I love most holiday really! But . . . last night was King Laurin (aka St Nicholas in these parts) Eve. We cleared off the cobbler's bench, talked about our own shoemaker ancestors (hence my boys last name, family shoemaking lineage), added the wood shoes, enjoyed some pomegranate jewels to eat, read our book, and lit the lantern for the King and the boys were off to bed.
Of course by off the bed, I mean that eldest son was awake till 10:30 with excitement which put a damper on mama's plans for an early night to bed. But try as he might, he finally went to sleep and I filled their shoes with the usual goodies:
nuts, chocolate coins, hard candy, actual gold coin, orange, and oh yes this year the sugar mice. I have been so excited to make these and they were soooo easy and fun! I used the recipe and instructions from this much loved book. I secretly have one more for hubby that is going on his pillow tonight!
The boys were so thrilled that they want to make more- I think we just found our gift for classmates! I have been so enamored with the sugar mice (which I can't believe I had not heard of before) that I made some special mini surprise yarn balls inspired by them, catch in the shop!
Happy St. Nicholas Day!
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So to continue on our lead up to Halloween, I thought it would be some interesting learning time to go and explore a couple cemeteries in town. Halloween and Day of the Dead take on such different aspect of the dead. On one hand there is Hallween where we fear the night when it is thought the veil is thin and it is a time of fear and spook. And on the other hand there is Day of the Dead where it is festive and a time to remember our ancestors who have died.
So with this comparison and getting ready to do both celebrations shortly we went to the oldest cemetery in town, and a small historic cemetery in town. Using it as a learning tool it was fun to see how the boys approached it.
1- Jasper was not inclined right away to get out of the car, prefering to view from his seat
2- The boys started to notice all these street names on the tombstones
3- They could tell the older from newer parts of the cemetery based on the style and shape of the stones
In college I was fascinated by the art motifs and designs on early American stones. I spent lots of time walking around and photographing stones. It was peaceful and grounding at the same time. In fact Silas was curious why there were benches in the cemetery and we talked about the contemplation of who we are and the folks may want to just come and sit at times.
We also found 2 governors. Supposidly there is a famous ragtime musician buried in the first cemetery we went too, but we could not find it. Maybe another trip back.
The second historic cemetery we were at was much smaller and on what use to be the family farm, now nestled in between apartments and a Waffle House- hmm too bad. They both enjoyed checking this one out and learning more about our town from this glimpse of some settlers.
So when we settled down for an evening of reading a selection from the Halloween basket, Silas remembered this favorite read with a tombstone at the end. Pretty fitting and a great combination of book from an old old poem by Mary Howitt in the 1800's that is set to some wonderful illustrations from fantastic Mr. DiTerlizzi (better known for Spiderwick). Spider and the Fly is indeed a cautionary tale, rhythmical in its reading and always a favorite for us. There is just something classic in this black and white treat!
Hope you enjoy hearing about our creepy learnin'- here are a few more pics and my old shutter bug finger got the itch again! I will be making my way back to another historic cemetery on a haunted weekend adventure with my mama and sis.
More book reviews to come . . .oh yes and they are monsters!
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It probably does not surprise you to hear that this monster loving mama loves Halloween, not the cheese that is entailed in plastic pumpkins and made in china costumes. Nope- harvest and falling leaves, hot cider and ghost stories, and stories, stories, stories, stories!
So from here until the 31st, my crew and I will be reviewing some of our favorite reads for this time of the year. Some new, some old, and some vintage. Sit back and join me with a hot cup of cider won't you?
To start things off- this is a book that is so fun because it is all halloweenie and also combines a food element which is always a fun way to integrate stories and books into you home learning.
Bone Soup is a play on the classic Stone Soup. We love Finnigan- a portly skeleton that sends the town to fright with his eating stool, his eating spoon, and oh yes his big eating mouth. I found the illustrations whimsical and ever so slightly strange, afterall how often do you find a fat skeleton? As you can imagine he is clever in getting the towns witches, monsters, zombies, and mummies to contribute the tasty eyeballs, bat wings, frog legs etc into the soup.
This has become a favorite at our house and a spur for making mock "bone" soup, though you certainly could make up a tasty soup from a good soup bone. In our case we opted for vege soup and bone bread (yes I did cheat with Pillsbury breadstick dough from the fridge section). Side note- I did have grilled marrow prepared for me this summer by my chef sis in NYC and it was amazing! Looked gross but so so tasty!
Warm tummies full of soup, bread and thoughts of Finnigan in our heads started off our week just right! Maybe just one special Finnigan in the shop with a pint size eating spoon!
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Hoping your first fall weekend was well. We enjoyed some sweet presents left by our Fairy- Tangle,(Ostheimer critters) some soup, and some apple exploration topped off with pie right before bath time last night- really can't complain with a weekend like that!
If you are looking for some apple inspired reading, from our bench:
The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven
The Apple Cake by Nienke van Hichtum
Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg
An Apple Harvest by Frank Browning and Sharon Silva
Also "on the bench" is this cutie pie Apple Sprite that is from This Cosy Life- such a sweet addition to our apple time this weekend!
Welcome fall- we are happy you came!
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Just a little treasure for my treasures- my grandfather loved Rolos- and they just so happen to make the cutest piles of gold. Just a simple little treasure hunt around our own yard showed me that my boys know their directions pretty darn well!
Since we learned the leprechauns are the shoemakers of the fairy world it was pretty fitting for my little "shoemaker" boys to start off their treasure hunt at our old Cobbler's bench.
With just a few simple clues on a fun old leprechaun image and with the help of one of my felting extraordinaire friends who made us a sweet wool leprechaun, we had fun a simple little afternoon- we even "lucked" out and got a warm almost springy day- still hunting for a 4-leaf in the new clovers popping up in the yard! Hope you had fun with your treasures today too.
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