a solstice gift

Happy Solstice!  This year our family made some hanging bird feeders as gifts for family and friends.  It was a messy and fun project that winter birds in your area will appreciate.  There are lots of tutorials all over the internet on different methods to use.  We could not find lots of large pine cones so we recycled toilet paper rolls and they worked just fine.

We started by making holes in the top of the toilet paper roll and tying a ribbon or yarn through them.

Slathering on the peanut butter.

and then rolling them in a birdseed mix.

wrap in cellophane and tie with a ribbon.

A lovely gift for the birds and probably a few squirrels depending on where you hang it.
Wishing you a happy solstice and a wonderful festive season.
See you in 2012.

A Wonderful Autumn Project

Just a fun link to share of a fall wreath project to display the bounty of the season!

Nature Collage Frame at Rhythm of the Home

Learning about time with collage

Hello all!
I wanted to share a little project that my 3 year old and I did recently.  He has developed an interest in time: "When will I be 4?"
"When will it snow?"
"When does soccer class start?"

So in the interest of helping him understand time passing, seasons, months and weeks we made a simple collage with calendars and activities recorded.  Granted he can't read yet but we can look at it together and learn from the images and words.

This can be as elaborate or simple as you want and we created this from what we had on hand.  I found the calendar template here, we used old magazines for images, coloured paper, a pressed maple leaf and crayons.  You could also incorporate stickers, family photos or other artwork. Bristol board, a long roll of paper (what we used) or even fabric could be used for the background.

Things can be added throughout the season, you can make them reusable for next year or recycle them and start fresh.  I plan to do this project each season this year so I'm keeping a look out for any materials we can use in the future.

This is also a great way for kids to learn to use scissors, glue or other mediums like paint or pastels.  The beauty of this is that we did it in a day sporadically.  If you have more than one child you can make one for each of them so that the dates or holidays that they consider special can be highlighted.  Right now ours is in the family room but I think we'll move it into Kyan's room in a few weeks.

 
What I love about collage is that there is no "right" way to do it.  Any child at any age can participate and make this project their own.  As an added bonus I found this book at the library this week.  It delves into the concept of time from seconds to seasons and has deepened the conversation.  

Waldorf, homeschooling, and painting

I just wanted to pass on this website... it's awesome. There's a lot of great stuff about homeschooling if you browse around.

Anyway, here's the article at Simple Homeschool about wet-on-wet painting... and I just bought my paints at Bella Luna Toys. I can't wait to sit down and paint with the kids. I think it's a great way to use nature as inspiration with color, do something fun with them, and teach them something all at once!

Easy sew projects...

I found some neat fabrics at Spoonflower.com


I think I love these because they're a pattern plus the fabric all rolled into one! My six-year-old wants to sew the gnome doll... and for a first project, I think this is something she can do almost completely by herself!


Here's one that is a doll AND clothes all in one! Can't really ask for more than that!


I also liked these hand puppets... quick and easy... and the kids can spend hours enjoying them!

They have tons of other fabulous fabrics too... it's worth a look if you are in the market for new projects right now! Good cold weather project maybe?

Wonderful Resource

For those of you that have children, I have stumbled across a wonderful resource.  Go check out Rayne Storm.  She has created a site that is overflowing with magickal goodness for you and your family.

The Magickal Cauldron

Another wonderful resource is a yahoo group called The Pagan Village.  It was created by the author of Pagan Dad as a way of sharing ideas online.

Patrick McCleary has also created a new blog called The Pagan Household for all families following the pagan path... older couples who now have an empty nest, new couples just starting out, families with children, etc.

These are 3 resources I think you can use again and again.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Tree Advent Calender Tutorial

Hi everyone.

I'm a new contributor to Pagan Parenting Resource Blog and I'm very excited to share a project with you that I've been meaning to get to for a couple of years now.  Advent calenders are lots of fun for kids since they add to the anticipation of the holidays and give the rather abstract idea of time a more concrete reminder.
My son is almost 3 and so the holidays are just becoming something that he remembers and looks forward to.

I would recommend this project for children 3 and up.  My son helped as much as he was interested which lasted until the painting was done.  The great thing about this project is that most of us with kids will already have this stuff lying around so you don't need to buy much at all.  For clarity I have compiled a supplies list but do substitute whatever you have that will work.  This took me one full day to complete.  If you have older children that can help out more it could be a half day or less depending on how elaborate you get. 

While traditional advent calenders count down the days to Christmas ours counts down to xmas eve or Santa's arrival.  Another option is to count down to the Winter Solstice which brings the sun's rebirth.  If that is more to your liking you may want to change the design to a spiral sun instead of an evergreen tree.  The sky is the limit on how you can interpret this for your family.  Have fun!

Supplies list:

• 1 package of pipe cleaners (various colours)
• 1 large and sturdy piece of cardboard or cardstock for mounting
• 2 cut up egg cartons
• green paint
• red paint
• brown paint
• white paint
• 1 package of treats for each day (I used chocolate covered almonds)
• scraps of fabric and ribbon or yarn to wrap almonds
• scissors
• hole punch
• glue
• green construction paper
• paint brushes
• buttons, cording, old holiday cards for making tree ornaments

 

To begin layout your tree to the desired size

Next cut out a strip of construction paper and punch a hole in the top

punch a hole in each of your egg carton pieces

loop a piece of pipe cleaner through the two holes and tie

be sure to leave enough extra pipe cleaner to attach your ornaments to the tree later on

Glue the strip of paper to the cardboard.  Egg piece should be able to flip up like so

Continue for each following row

Once they are all glued down proceed with painting the tree shape and each carton green

Next create your tree ornaments out of pipe cleaners, buttons, beads or ribbon.  Remember they have to be small enough to fit into the egg cartons

Next wrap your candies, chocolates or treats

Finally put each treat and ornament in its place and display.

For older children you can put in suggestions of activities that you'll do together or poems and sayings of the season.  Each year can be different for variety or you can keep the tradition as it is for sentimentality. 

I'll be back each month with a new craft project to share with your kids.  It's great to meet you all and I wish your families the happiest of holidays this year.

Reducing waste

As a follow up to One Pink Fish's link to a FANTASTIC crafting website called Wee Folk Art (OMG... right now I'm spending all my time working on projects from here, I'll show you soon)... and Melia's post about making fabric tissues, I found a tutorial at Wee Folk Art for making no-sew napkins. It's simple, but pure genius. I have been hoping to reduce our paper use around here, and today my 4-year-old and I sat down together and made these! They are going to be our "lunch napkins" as they are smaller than average cloth napkins, so they fit nicely in lunch boxes and such. And, clearly, it's a way to use scrap fabric to reduce paper use.


I'm pretty happy with these, and happy that it's something my kids and I could do together. While we were working we talked about how we could now use fewer paper towels and napkins, and why that was good.

If you want to try these, they're SUPER easy, but pulling out threads to form the fringe takes some time. Best to enlist help! I held the napkin flat on the table while my daughter pulled the threads.

finger painting

Well what do you know...a child who hates to color will LOVE to finger paint.

My son hates to color with crayons. It will hold his interest for 3 minutes, tops. This gave me a problem because one of his homework assignments (homework in pre-school?!) is making a family tree. There is NO WAY he draw one more less color it. So I decided to give finger paints a try.

First we cut out the tree trunk out of brown construction paper. (I say we because he operated the scissors while I moved the paper around.) Then we glued the trunk on to the paper. Next I set up the area for finger painting and dressed my son in an old apron. I took a glass plate and place a dab of red, oranger, yellow and green non-toxic, washable paint. I then smeared them together until it was the size of his hand print. He then placed his hands into the paint and made hand-prints all over the top of the tree trunk until it looked liked leaves. It came out better than I had hoped.

What happened next, surprised me..."Mom can I have another piece of paper?" He decorated two large pieces of butcher paper and wanted to do more. I had to stop him in order to make dinner. I was/am beyond surprised. I expect him to ask to do it again today!

I will save the butcher paper pieces to use as one of a kind wrapping paper. I'm very tickled that I have found a creative outlet for him and one that teaches him what color combinations do. As for the family part of the tree, we are waiting on pictures from grandparents.

Seasonal Scrapbook

An activity that has become one that my daughter enjoys immensely is filling in our family seasonal scrapbook.  She is very particular about what she likes to put in it and doesn't really like to listen to my suggestions but the important thing is that it really gets her thinking about and discussing the seasonal changes that can otherwise easily pass us by. Above is her first exploration of autumn.

What I think is lovely about this idea is that everyone in the family can contribute and think about it. As time passes we can look back over the pages and compare the ideas and impressions we came up with. The possibilities are endless and I have found this a really valuable tool for both developing a link for children with nature and working on their other skills of writing, communication and creativity.

Blessings of the season to all of you, I hope you all have a wonderful Mabon.

Other craft ideas for fall/winter

One of our favorite activities for fall and winter is making quick/easy/cheap/all natural bird feeders. We collect pine cones from our neighborhood and then the kids smear them with peanut butter and roll them in bird seed. We hang them in the trees where we can see the birds... the kids have learned to identify some birds, feel good about helping our wildlife endure the winter, and when the seeds are eaten, we can "refill" the pine cones (sorry I can't find any pictures)...

My kids are young (4 and 6) so quicker projects like the bird feeders are often more manageable than cooking projects, although we have made bread (big soft pretzels were SUPER fun, we made the dough in the bread machine, and then sprinkled parmesan and a little salt)... and cooking is always a great sensory activity when you can use your hands!


...and applesauce.


So, other than the structured ideas of crafts or activities, we mostly spend time outside noticing the change in seasons. We tend to collect stuff and put it on our season table. At Mabon I'll change it over from Summer to Autumn, and the kids will participate. I think I love our season table more than anything else! This is a picture of our table in Spring... I need to take pictures more often, I guess! Autumn tends to have the most found objects in it...

In my opinion, anything you can do with children that can incorporate noticing the change in the season at Mabon is in line with the honoring of the turn of the wheel of the year. For my children noticing their environment goes a long way toward keeping them present in each moment (which I think is different than "living in the moment" where people get focused on what they are doing, not who they are with an awareness of their environment). Staying present, and not being pulled into thinking of past and future constantly, will allow them to grow up more grounded and in touch with their own truth. That is completely my own opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

Blessings... and may you have a wonderful Mabon!

Mabon and Kid Activities

Who doesn't love fall?  Autumn is such a beautiful time of year.  Spending time crafting and playing with your children couldn't be better with the crisp weather and colorful scenery outdoors.

As the holiday is just around the corner, here are some activities to consider:

• Corn Husk Doll
• Homemade Wheat Bread
• Reading Little Red Hen.  Check out activities for this book on my blog, Perfectly Pagan.
• Gather items from nature: acorns, pine cones, seeds, fallen leaves, etc.
• Creating a wreath from your nature finds.
• Decorating a seasonal nature table.
• leaf rubbings
• backyard bird feeder:  Loved that this feeder is made from recycled and repurposed materials.  Yeah!
• another bird feeder from my blog, oNe PiNK FiSH
• Take a trip to the Farmers' Market.
• Gratitude Jar from my blog: Buggie Bungalow
• Mabon Cleansing Wash.

There are so many activities out there.  It is hard to choose the most appropriate for this particular holiday.  Anything related to thanksgiving or fall would be a wonderful addition to any traditions you may already have in place.