the little travelers * travel blog

Jacaranda kids

Jacaranda trees are in bloom!  They have excellent seedpods for making little 'kiddies' out of.  We sometimes make angels out of the in which case we glue wings to the back and usually omit the beret.

The nice thing about using natural materials for crafts is that they not only make for beautiful objects, but they have children looking at nature in a different way.  All seed pods are potential treasures.  Acorn tops are hats, bark becomes boats or blocks, etc.  We usually come home with stuffed pockets from our walks.  I was once with an adult running group and I was constantly bending over picking up treasures to take home.  After a few weeks of ridicule there were quite a few in the group joining me in finding the perfect acorn cap or twig or eucalyptus pod.  Appreciation of small beautiful objects is contagious.

I small wooden ball is glued to the top of the pod, wool roving glued on as hair with the cap on top. super simple. I did this with a first grade class and then we hung them up from the ceiling. The whole room was full of floating angels. beautiful.

Blessings

Lighting of a candle for meals, story time, nighttime prayers or other special moments is a deeply meaningful act for a child to participate in. Keeping a little glass jar with matches next to the candle provides a safe place to deposit the match after lit. We cover our match boxes with beautiful paper or little paintings.

When we light our candle we sing,

Light faeries come to us,

Bring to us your golden light.

Having a candle snuffer also brings a level of reverence to the act of extinguishing. Children LOVE to snuff the candle.

When we snuff we sing, "Thank you candle for your light..."

Here are some blessings I sing with young children and we use at home at mealtimes. They are common in Waldorf kindergartens. They are usually sung with hand movements. Earth who gives to us this food, Sun who makes it ripe and good, Dear Sun, Dear Earth, Our loving thanks to you we give. For the golden corn, For the apples in the trees, For the golden butter, For the honey for our tea, For fruits and nuts and berries that grow along the way, Dear Father Sun and Mother Earth, We give our thanks this day

Blessings on the blossom,

Blessings on the fruit

Blessings on the leaves and stems,

And blessings on the root.

The nighttime verse I used with my girls when they were young was a slight variation from Shea Darian's found in her book Seven Times the Sun.

The dark comes like a blanket

hugging us at night.

The Moon shines like the heart of God

providing gentle light

The stars call forth our sparkling dreams

like waves upon the shores

To greet the nighttime pilgrim

as we journey through sleep's door.

Then we would move into all the people we loved, "I love..." and go through our list, say goodnight and snuff our candle. This followed story time.

Felted soap

Start with a bar of soap. I cut mine in half for using with small children due to size. A big bar can get very cumbersome to hang onto. 

Use any type of wool roving.  I usually buy mine at Weirdolls.  
lay the soap onto as many colors as you like of layered wool.  For young children I then wrap the whole thing into cheesecloth (or pantyhose work well) to keep it all together.  Older children and adults do not need this.

I use only one bowl and usually do this with 8 children, ages 2 to 6.  Whenever possible I try to incorporate  activities that require cooperation.  The children are used to it and work very well together.  It's always a surprise when we're with other (outsiders!- haha!!) that all want their own bowls.  While living in Japan I was stunned to see entire classes working on one mural at the same time and nobody barking at the other to scoot over or don't draw on that part.  They were literally drawing through each other's arms, pens bumping into each other and not fighting- in jr. high!!

Dip into soapy water. Again, I do not measure just a good squirt of natural dish soap. Dr. Bronner's works great- love the lavender scented one. Work up a good lather and keep rubbing and dipping back into the bowl for minimum 5 minutes. For small children it will be considerably longer and may need some adult assistance to really get it to felt. Without the cheesecloth you'll be able to feel and see it come together. If you've got cheesecloth on it you'll have to peek and check it. The cheesecloth will felt to the wool as well if you overdue it so check it and then do the final rub a dub with the cloth off.

These soaps are great exfoliaters and work really well on getting stubborn paint, temporary tattoos or henna off of skin.

The Sandbox

So many people get rid of their sandboxes way too early. Most people will at some point have a little sandbox for a toddler- it seems appropriate. But what about 'tween' girls. Shouldn't they be on to boyfriends and pop stars? ugh, I think they ought to be in the sandbox! It's not until later that they can really use their creativity in the sandbox. In the early years it provides excellent sensory stimulation and experience. But in the middle years they can bring a whole new element to the sandbox. The girls these days are all about spells and potions. They will spend hours out here concocting all sorts of wonders. A teapot and cup The wood burning stove potions I usually buy my sandbox supplies at an Asian cooking store. Their sizes are so much smaller and they have lots of stainless to choose from. This lovely silver urn was an excellent garage sale find at 50 cents! and no, silver is not too good for the sandbox.

embroidery

The girls usually do freeform embroidery. Occasionally they will draw out a picture first, but usually they just start right in with needle and thread. I recently had an excellent ebay win for a dozen linen hankies for under $10 including shipping! I know I get a little too excited about the winning aspect of ebay sometimes, but alas I've known I have a somewhat addictive personality for quite some time now. The little sister usually sews with her teeth!