Winter

Have you ever been to Art Projects for Kids? If not, run there, right now, but be prepared to stay for a long, long time. Kathy Barbro is an experienced and gifted art teacher, and she shares over 600 projects on her blog. Whenever I need inspiration for kid crafts, she's one of the first places I turn.

She shared a wonderful watercolor project for Winter Birch Trees. I'm going to let Kathy give you the actual directions, but I'll share our enjoyable experience making our own trees. Michelle and I enjoyed the experience as much as the wee ones. The kids were able to do everything themselves except I cut numerous long strips of tape for Pixie, but she decided on the placement and did the rest herself. Oh, I also taped the paper to the table, both to hold it in place and to create the matted look border. I have plans for a number of other projects using this technique.

Taping to table, cutting strips, and making tape trees on watercolor paper.

Watercoloring the whole thing.

Sprinkling with Kosher salt.

Drying. If you are the impatient type... like one little Pixie we know... you can speed the drying with a blow drier!

Removing the tape.

Adding lines on tree, shadows and snow.

Gammy's 

Mommy's

Bug's

Fairy's

Pixie's

It's your turn now :)

This is definitely a "quickie" book review, but I wanted to get something up before people considered buying this book.

The other day I mentioned that I ordered the book A Bird in Winter: A Picture Book Inspired by Pieter Bruegel The Elder, by Helene Kerillis and Stephane Girel, I'm sad to say, this isn't a book I'd recommend. Although I think children would enjoy the the rather simplistic style of the illustrations, the story was not to my liking. There is a harshness to the story that I think children would find unsettling. Also, I found the characters to be flat. I think in general I felt like they took a potentially interesting story and rushed it, making me feel unmoved in the end.

I can't remember where I originally read about it, but they gave it glowing reviews, and I had high hopes for the book. Checking on Amazon now, I noticed it was not rated and no one has written a review. I realize this isn't an in depth book review, but many people buy books we mention, and I didn't want this one included on our list :(    

The Little Robin Grieves - Nursery Rhyme
 

The little robin grieves
When the snow is on the ground,
For the trees have no leaves,
And no berries can be found.
 

The air is cold, the worms are hid;
For robin here what can be done?
Let's throw around some crumbs of bread,
And then he'll live till snow is gone.
 

The other day I came upon a stack of large flip charts. Do they even use those any more? Anyway... opening them brought on a ton of delightful memories.

I didn't homeschool my children. To be honest, at the time, I only knew of 1 family that homeschooled, and the thought never even crossed by mind. Instead, I surrounded our children with enrichment learning, and I think my family would all agree, that some of their best learning, certainly the most enjoyable and memorable, occurred within the family. One of the things I always did, was to print poems on flip charts, which were displayed in our family room, which I then surrounded with picture books and resource books on the topic. We kept a poem up until everyone had a chance to mostly memorize it... at least become intimately familiar with it... and we had enjoyed crafts and outings that corresponded with it.
 

I thought it would be fun to share some of the poems that the wee ones haven't learned yet.  The nursery rhyme, The Little Robin Grieves, has long been one of our favorites. I think I like the poem so much because it speaks of the seasons and encourages us to help these lovely creatures :)   
 

Although we haven't gotten any noteworthy snow yet, the above picture was taken last year, our feathered friends still appreciate the food and heated water we provide for them. 

Above is this year's winter picture, sans snow or sun!!!

If you've never looked at Michelle's Winter Wonderland Curriculum, you are in for a treat. Although it is geared to preschool/kindergarten, many of the activities will be enjoyable for children of all ages and it has a list of some wonderful winter books. One of the crafts we will be doing this week is to make the ever popular pinecone feeders. The tutorial is available in the Winter Wonderland Curriculum. We will doing other activities, which we will be sharing, too.
 

BTW... we have many books on winter, birds and animals in winter, but I just read a review on the book, A Bird in Winter by Hélène Kérillis and Stéphane Gire , and thought it would be perfect. It was inspired by Pieter Breugel's painting, Hunters in the Snow, and is about an eight year old peasant girl named Mayken who finds an injured bird in the snow. She nurses the bird back to health. Not only is the book's water colors suppose to be lovely, but I'm hoping it demonstrates the joy in helping all creatures, great and small :)
 

Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565)

The book is due in on Tuesday. I'll do a review on it them :) And, fingers crossed... Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!
 

Our winner of the Winter Wonderland Give Away is...

Submitted by Kristy on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 10:38.

What a nice thing to do!
I would share these books with my 3 nature loving, homeschool girls.

Congratulations, Kristy. Just send your snail mail address to weefolkart@yahoo.com and we will send it along to Sarah. Please contact us by January 24 or we will select a new winner.

Thanks to everyone that entered, and thank you so much, Sarah, for thinking about Wee Folk Art and sharing this generous give away with us all!

EDIT: The Giveaway is now closed. The winner will be announced soon. Check back soon for the winner. Good luck one and all :)

Here is an email we got a couple days ago from one of our readers:

Hello,
I have been following your home school curriculum and have bought the books for them from an online store that sells used books. Well I had bought several books (I can Let you know which ones) and they got lost in the mail. The store very kindly replaced them but a couple of days ago (and about 6 weeks late) a very batter box showed up with the original books still in fine shape. I contacted the company and they said there was no need to send them back and if I don't have any use for them I should donate them. If you would like to give them away on your blog I can send them to you (or directly to the winner). I understand if you are not interested I just thought I would ask.

Thank you for everything!
~Sarah

My response was basically OMG... how awesome! Yes, we'd love to help you donate your books to one of our readers! So, she sent the list...

How Do you know it's winter?
Hibernation
Animals in Winter
Gregory's Shadow
what Makes a shadow?
The mitten
under the snow
Grady the goose
What is Migration?
Valentine Bears
Grizzly bear family book
Snow Dogs! Racers of the north
Owl Moon
Where are the night animals?
St.Patrick's day in the Morning.

She wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that the books are used but they are still in great shape. She bought them from betterworldbooks.com

So there you have it. Sarah is donating 15 books to one lucky WFA reader. Even if you are not doing the Winter Wonderland Unit, how cool would it be to receive ALL these books, and all the better that the have been previously loved :)

For your chance to win, simply leave a comment here telling us who you would be sharing the books with.

A winner will be drawn at random on Monday, January 17 at 9:00 p.m. EST. Then Sarah will have the books off to you "toot sweet"! 

BTW... Sarah is sharing these books out of the goodness of her heart. She is also paying the shipping for the books to be sent to the winner. She never mentioned it, but I happen to know Sarah is the owner of the Etsy shop Nothing But Soap. I buy soap from her for myself and for gift giving. As a way of saying Thank You to her for her generosity, do yourself a favor and pay her shop a visit!

Thank you Sarah, and good luck to everyone!