For years I tried  different Christmas countdowns - Santa's beard cotton balls, daily cutting off a slice of Santa's beard, paper chains  - but none of them seemed to work for me.  A few years ago, I hybridized (is that a word) a couple of seasonal crafts - a decorated cone tree and a painted paper plate tree.  Add in some numbers and stickers - and I had a December project that I not only could manage - but the kids and I both enjoyed. First step is to paint paper plate green. I find that the best ones, are the super cheap, will barely hold potato chip ..read more

How many pumpkins tall are you? Today we measured in pumpkins. Yup, orange, round things, grow on a vine, used to make jack-o-lanterns. one of our prized pumpkins from the school garden What are we learning? numeral recognition numeral printing counting counting by 5s counting on non-standard measurement  (a first step in learning measurement before using standard measurement tools) First the kidlets measured themselves on the pumpkin measuring chart.   Our very tall principal even got in on the measuring fun! Each child recorded their pumpkin height.   ..read more

As we were investigating snails, the children were surprised to learn that a famous artist was intrigued by the same garden snails that caught our imagination.  Matisse's daughter said that her father made many drawings of snails, and that his work The Snail (1953) came out of these drawings.  Before we we ready to paint with scissors like Matisse, we did some reading. author and illustrator - Jeanette Winterpublisher - Beach Lane Books (2013)Goodreads summary and reviews We learned that Matisse became a lawyer when he grew up, just like Kandinsky. When he was 30, Matisse was ill, and his ..read more