Groundhog Day Unit Study

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February 1, 2019 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

February 2nd is celebrated as Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day.

We certainly want to see the end of winter!

The kids loved making crafts and playing with light and shadows.

We like to watch the groundhogs on TV, if he’ll see his shadow. We read books about groundhogs.

We have a family of groundhogs who live near a pond by our house and they really do come out of their burrows at set times every day. They are fuzzy potatoes.

Groundhog Day Activities

Groundhog Books

Groundhog Weather School: Fun Facts About Weather and Groundhogs by Joan Holub
Groundhog’s Runaway Shadow by David Biedrzycki
Substitute Groundhog by Pat Miller
Groundhog Gets a Say by Pamela Curtis Swallow
Groundhog’s Dilemma by Kristen Remenar
Groundhog’s Day Off by Robb Pearlman
Grumpy Groundhog by Maureen Wright
Groundhog Day! by Gail Gibbons

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Henna Hands Craft

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January 26, 2016 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

We learned about India in our homeschool.

We made a Henna Hands paper craft.

I found this fun henna hands arts project and we used that as inspiration.

We learned about henna art.

I gathered paper, metallic pens and Sharpies, and our art trays.

We listened to fun Bollywood music and later watched Monsoon Wedding.

First, we traced our hands with pencil on white paper.

We went over the outlines with metallic Sharpie.

We used the art pens to draw henna-like designs.

We cut out our hands and mounted them on colored paper.

Our completed Henna Hands!

Tori loved learning about India and completing this craft for the geography fair!

We love learning about other cultures.

Resources:

Multicultural Hand Cut Outs
DIY Henna Tattoos by Aroosa Shahid
Mehndi Designs: Traditional Henna Body Art by Marty Noble
Teach Yourself Henna Tattoo by Brenda Abdoyan
Alex Spa Totally Henna Deluxe Set
Metallic Gold Henna Temporary Tattoos
SHARPIE Metallic Permanent Markers
Professional Body Art Pens
BIC BodyMark Temporary Tattoo Markers for Skin

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Fall Leaf Crafts

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November 19, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

You know you’re a homeschooler when you save interesting packing material with plans for crafting later.

We’ve loved the changing leaves on our nature walks.

We decided to do some fall leaf crafts.

We got these sheets of semi-shredded paper and I thought it would be a fun textured paint craft.

I helped Alex cut out pieces for a tree.

We used little sponges to create splotches for leaves.

Kate used clips on her sponges for more delicate stamping.

The trees turned out well, kinda like Impressionist paintings. And the kids had fun!

Fall Leaf Crafts | https://www.jenniferalambert.com/

We also painted leaves against paper for neat silhouettes.

And used pencil shavings and glue on a printed tree outline.

I’ve really been making an effort to do arts and crafts with the kids and they’re enjoying the creative time!

More Fall Activities:

Preserve leaves by dipping them in melted beeswax and make a leaf wreath or garland.
Make a fall leaf crown, wings and a leaf star wand to become a forest fairy.
Collect pine-cones, nuts and acorns and transforms them into fun little critters.
Make your own eco-confetti using leaves.

Follow Jennifer’s board Autumn on Pinterest.

Linking up: Crystal and Co, The Natural Homeschool, Glimpse of Our Life, Happy Blessed Home, Crafty Moms Share, Sunny Day Family

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Halloween Crafts

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October 17, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 10 Comments

The kids loved our Halloween craft time!

Alex made a cute paper jack o’lantern.

I used a ruler to draw orange lines for Alex to cut out and then we stapled the strips at the top and bottom. He cut out the black shapes on his own to make the face.

They all made little pipe cleaner spiders.

We used up lots of empty cardboard tubes making monsters and robots.

And I remembered doing something ages ago in school and gave them white chalk and black paper and they had loads of fun!

I had happy kids.

We were together, making crafts, and enjoying ourselves.

And there wasn’t much mess.

It was about relationships.

Linking up: 123Homeschool4Me, Homeschool Creations, Crafty Moms Share, No Time for Flashcards, The Resourceful Mama, Life of Faith, Written Reality, Kiddy Charts, The Educators Spin On It, ABC Creative Learning, Living Montessori Now, Simple Life of a Fire Wife, Los Gringos Locos, Growing Hands on Kids, Hip Homeschool Moms, Wondermom Wannabe, The Natural Homeschool, Adventures of Mel, Teaching Mama, Home Stories A to Z, Your Homebased Mom, Snapcreativity, Homemade for Elle, Life with Lorelai, Happy and Blessed Home, Expedition Homeschool, Sunny Day Family

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Celebrating Chinese New Year

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January 29, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally end after 15 days, starting on Chinese New Year’s Eve and continuing till the Lantern Festival.

This new year usually coincides with the spring equinox.

We usually try to celebrate the first evening with crafts and yummy food – either takeout or homemade.

Each Chinese year is associated with an animal sign according to the Chinese zodiac cycle, which features 12 animal signs in the order Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.

Chinese New Year traditions include: putting up decorations, offering sacrifices to ancestors, eating reunion dinner with family on New Year’s Eve, giving red money envelopes and other gifts, firecrackers and fireworks, and watching lion and dragon dances.

Lucky food is served during the 16-day festival season, especially on the New Year’s Eve family reunion dinner. Fish is a must as it sounds like “surplus” in Chinese and symbolizes abundance. Dumplings shaped like Chinese silver ingots are shared as a sign of the family unit and prosperity. People eat Niángāo (glutinous rice cake) to symbolize a higher income or position as it sounds like “year high.”

Don’t lose the luck!

Don’t sweep up on New Year’s Day, otherwise you’ll ‘sweep all your luck away’.
Don’t eat porridge for breakfast, otherwise you’ll ‘become poor in the upcoming year’.
Don’t wash your clothes and hair (on New Year’s Day), otherwise you’ll ‘wash fortune away’.

So thrilled about how these Dragon Puppets turned out for Chinese New Year!

Dragon Puppets:

Paper bag
Construction paper for head
Construction paper for eyes and nostrils
Streamers for the tail
Glitter and Sequins (optional)

What to do:

Fold sheet of construction paper in half and glue to top of paper bag (where it folds up) to make the head of the puppet
Attach streamers under the back of construction paper head for the tail
Cut out eyes and nostrils in desired shapes – semi-circles for eyes and teardrops for nostrils
Draw lines for mouth and nose with dark marker
Glue eyes and nostrils
Draw on eyeballs in dragon shape
Draw on eyebrows and facial expression (optional)
Glue on glitter and/or sequins to make pretty patterns (optional)

(I think it would be fun to attach an accordion tongue with a strip of red construction paper so it pops out of the fold…)

Kate preferred to make hers look like a lizard.

Tori asked me to draw cool eyebrows on her dragon.

Alex used TONS of glue stick. Then he asked me draw his dragon face and I really like how it turned out and his compliments made my day. Then he pretended to fly around with it.

We’re preparing to celebrate Chinese New Year with lots of red and gold, horse pictures and crafts, yummy food…and I searched my files and found pictures of the Chinese New Year celebration we attended when we lived in Hawaii.

And I get a clean house out of it after I told the kids that tradition. Score!

We cleaned out the library of all the Chinese New Year storybooks. Liz really likes having Big Sister Storytime. Karen Katz is a favorite author. Love her illustrations!

Resources:

Mask crafts from Better than Mummy
Learn more of the Chinese language with Mango Homeschool
As my kids get older, we watch movies in Chinese and about Chinese culture and history
Eat Chinese Food: We’ll explore flavors, colors, shapes, and the aesthetic beauty of Cantonese cooking. My kids love Chinese food and we like to try new recipes and techniques. Our Asian turkey wraps are always a hit! I need to break out my bamboo steamer and try to make some steamed dumplings…Also easy recipes are lo mein and fried rice. Slow cooker Asian ribs are a crowd pleaser.
The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop
Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes by Nina Simonds
Lunar New Year by Hannah Eliot
Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas by Natasha Yim
How to Catch a Dragon by Adam Wallace
Lanterns and Firecrackers by Jonny Zucker
Hiss! Pop! Boom!: Celebrating Chinese New Year by Tricia Morrissey
My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz
Bringing In the New Year by Grace Lin
Dragon Dance: A Chinese New Year Lift-the-Flap Book by Joan Holub