Post it Note Genius

Post-it notes are genius all by themselves. One of the non-technological advances of in office and home-management that I love. They are just plain handy for all those notes and reminders Moms handle everyday. They are the perfect bookmark and note-taking solution for library books. The do, after all, frown on taking the notes directly in the library book…! One of the things I love about this inexpensive little wonder is the magic it brings to little ones. When restless little ones needed an activity…and fast…whether at home, in the car, or waiting somewhere post it notes have pulled through for me many times.

Today though, I wanted to share with you a fantastic reading activity using post-it notes. It came from non-other-than good old mother’s inspiration. Something so very dear that I both treasure and depend on!

Some days the challenges of learning to read seem so great, and being able to read big books on her own seems so very far away in her little mind. For mom, (and teacher), finding ways for her to hear herself “really” read something, and not just practice word families, is a constant challenge. But oh my, have we found a great little reading nugget!

*First let me digress for a moment and share a little bit of my philosophy regarding teaching children to read. In a Waldorf purist point of view reading is not taught until around the second grade of a traditional school. Oral mastery and writing are taught first. In the Montessori philosophy children begin working with letters and sounds at a very young age. My husband and I both come from a “traditional” public school education. So with those three facets coming together, Waldorf, Montessori, and public school baggage(!), we have had to form our own philosophies regarding reading instruction in our home. (This philosophy will likely change with each child, as meeting individual needs is always top-priority.) For our family, and for our daughter we (all) have decided to begin reading instruction. She was fascinated with, and began working with letters quite young, and most definitely has oral mastery! Yikes! (Today I actually heard her use the word “obliged” naturally in a sentence while playing with her 2 year old brother!!!) We work with reading a bit everyday, keeping things very positive and paying close attention to her cues. It’s not critical to me that she is reading by a certain time. If she is struggling than we back off, and each time we get back into it it comes easier. Her brain needs time to process and compute the things she’s learning. So…my little not ended up being not so little…! In general we follow her cues, just like in all things regarding her education, but try to get in a little reading practice each day to keep those “reading muscles” going strong.

One of the things that frustrates her when we are reading together is focusing so much on each word that she doesn’t understand the sentence she just read. The other is feeling like she is not “reading”, but is only “practicing.” I had a burst of inspiration while we were working together and found a reading activity that we all love. On a stack of post it notes I wrote down a series of commands that would bring her to different places in the house.

“Hop to the bed”

Run to the nook”

“Crawl to the rug”

“Skip to the tramp”

“Jump 10 jumps”

“Tip toe to the table”

And so on. One note led her to another, the last being an activity, like “Lets read a book”, “Lets do art”, “Lets bake”, etc.

It’s worked marvelously for several reasons.

1. It keeps her moving around the house.

2. She has to register and comprehend the words she has read as a whole to know what to do.

3. She is reading productively, with an immediate (and positive) reward for what she’s read.

4. Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt!

So far this game has not gotten old. In fact the first time we did it, she immediately wanted another one. Oh yes, how I am grateful for mother’ inspiration…and post it notes!!

A Little Apron Love

Have you ever heard of a Yankee Swap?  It’s pretty much the same as a White Elephant Gift Exchange, but with a different name.  This is after all, New England, and it’s Yankee everything around here.  Except for baseball…oh my!!! 

While enjoying the friendly banter of a huge Yankee Swap during a holiday party this I season, I fell in love with an apron someone opened.  I could have “swapped” for it…but the poor woman had already had 5 gifts “swapped” and I just couldn’t do it!  It was a darling little apron, so simple, with a bib top, wide waist band and pleated skirt.  I would have loved it for myself, but it actually immediately came to mind for someone on my gift list.  It’s just so great when the perfect gift comes to mind! 

It was the simplest thing in the world to make.  Just a few measurements, a few drafts on paper, and we were good to go!  For the skirt I simply measured the length I wanted and cut a rectangle (accounting for a hem) the width of my fabric.  (So in my case 45”) Then I simply pleated it up until it was the width I wanted for the skirt.  The top I drew out on butcher paper first.  It’s a bib style with velcro on the tabs in the back.  You could easily do buttons, snaps, or ties also.  Once I had the shape and size I wanted I cut it out of my main fabric and a lining fabric adding a 1/2” seam allowance.  I stitched the two layers together right sides together leaving the bottom open.  I turned it right side out and attached it to the skirt with wrong sides together.  ( I top stitched this seam flat).  Covering up this seam is a nice wide tie, and a darling little flower.  Viola!  Who doesn’t love a little apron love for the holidays.

How to Make Marbled Paper

Another lifetime ago, when I was a single starving artist at college one of my roommates made marbled paper with shaving cream and food coloring. For the life of me I cannot remember why she was making it. I’m pretty sure she was a business major…! Anyway…the project has stayed tucked away in my “I have to try that someday” folder in my brain…and this holiday season it happened. I was a bit nervous about trying it out, after all it was a long time since I had seen it made, but I found a few tips online and just jumped in. The kids were a bit confused at first when I tried to explain what we were doing, but once they saw shaving cream and food coloring, big sheets of paper and cookie trays they were all in!!!

Here’s how it’s done!

How to Make Marbled Paper

Materials

Shaving cream (not the gel kind, just the regular old super cheap white stuff!)

Food coloring (some people use inks, but food coloring was on hand…! Oh, and the drop kind, not the awesome paste kind.)

At Least 2 Large Cooke Trays

Paper (we used white cardstock. The paper picks up some moisture so needs some substance…but you can definitely experiment with lighter weight paper!)

Squeegee …of some sort (I don’t actually own a squeegee…so we used a stiff sheet of cardboard…I went through two in the course of the project because it got soggy…but it did the job)

Stir stick (Any sort of thin dowel, paintbrush handle, etc to “marble” the paper.

Process

1. Make sure you have a large clear work surface.

2. Squirt a nice squishy mountain of shaving cream onto one of the cookie sheets and spread it evenly with your squeegee. Your shaving cream base only needs to be a little bit bigger than the paper you are marbling, and about 1” thick. So for our project…a little bigger than 8 1/2” x 11”.

3. Squirt a few drops of food coloring randomly onto the shaving cream. We used this as a color lesson and discussed complimentary, primary, secondary colors, etc. But really any way you want to choose your colors is fine!

4. Using your stir stick (for us, the end of a paintbrush) to marble your colors. With the tip of your stir stick on the bottom of the tray, and with it standing straight up travel through the shaving cream dragging the colors from your food coloring drops all over in a twisty turny fashion. There is really no better way to learn how to do this but to experiment, so jump right in. I will admit that some of the batches done completely by the kids I thought were way to over mixed and were going to turn out poorly ended up being some of our favorites. Go figure!

5. Once you have marbled to your hearts content lay your paper down gently and evenly onto the shaving cream and lightly press it to make sure you don’t have any air bubbles. Air bubbles leave blank spots in the marbling and are very disappointing!

6. Holding two adjacent corners of the paper carefully peel it up from the shaving cream. A significant amount of cream will come with it.

7. Lay the paper onto a second cookie sheet and scrape the shaving cream off with your squeegee. Scrape the shaving cream right back onto the firs cookie sheet and use for a second run by stirring it right back into the original cream.

8. Flatten out the shaving cream to prepare for another batch. This batch will retain some colors from the previous batch making the background beneath the marbling a different color than the white of the paper. We really liked this.

9. Repeat steps 3-8 again and again and again, starting fresh with clean cream once and a while. I’m telling you…this is super easy, and oh so rewarding for any age that it will be quite difficult to stop.

When my husband came home from work the whole house smelled of barbasol, there wasn’t a thought of dinner, and we were still happily working away. It’s a good thing we love pancakes!!!

This marbled paper became cards, ornaments, and a delightful swag…with grand plans for more batches and more projects.

All is Calm All is Bright

This year, for the first year ever, our family spent the holiday together, just us, quietly in our own home.  With my husband and I both coming from large families the holiday usually means being surrounded by loved ones in the homes we grew up in.  We have treasured the years spent celebrating with so many dear ones.  This year, however, we celebrated with just our very own very dear ones.  Though I will admit that in the anticipation of the season I was worried from time to time that we would all miss the gathering together we had always participated in.  Oh, how wrong I was.  This holiday was truly magical.  It was calm and simple and oh so bright, with just our own dear family gathered in our own dear home.  With a move happening so close to the holidays the usual production of the studio was drastically simplified.  It turns out that the frenzy of last minute elving in the studio is something the holidays can definitely do without!  It was holiday celebration filled with time honored traditions, warm and cozy moments, and wonderful memories.  Simple, calm (mostly!!), moments together as a family.  It truly was the most beautiful of holidays. 

Though the studio was indeed much more still than in previous years, a few treasured gifts made it out of there that I am excited to share with you.  Indulge me in a few extra days of Christmas here on this space. 

Joy

Here’s wishing you days and hours and moments of treasured joy at this beautiful season.  Here’s to rosy cheeks, secrets, packages, and goodies.  Here’s to family, little ones, and dear friends.  And here’s to you, my friends, for sharing this space with me.  It’s been a bit quiet around here lately, and for that I am sorry.  I’ll be back.  Oh yes, I’ll be back on Monday with the handmade childhood goodness that’s been missing around here!  But for now, I’m going to savor (and pinch) the cute little cheeks running around here bursting with holiday excitement. 

Happy Holidays to you and yours…may it be full of joy. 

Love, The Robinson Family

Matthew, Hannah, Rebecca, and Spencer

The Power of the Sharpie…and All Things Beaver

A new friend, who was an instant favorite of my oh-so-cautious-of-new-faces son, recently gave us a positively delicious stack of DK publisher books. If you are unfamiliar with DK books you must must must check them out. They are fabulous non-fiction books geared for children of all ages (they’re fabulous for moms and dads too!), full of gorgeous detailed images, tons of information, flaps to lift, etc. They are amazing. They were instantaneous launching points for my little ones. We have spent hours on the very first page of one of the books showing detailed cross-cut illustrations of a beaver lodge. We were completely inspired. It is amazing to be a parent and witness a little mind latch onto and take flight with a concept or subject. There is no telling what they will be interested in. But you are sure to learn a whole lot on the journey with them!

This brings me to the power of the sharpie. I didn’t take long for my little girl to realize that the sharpie markers, kept safely out of reach of the littlest fingers, and used for careful and important work (or labeling one thousand moving boxes!), held a power and magic all their own. To her, anything important should be done in sharpie. It’s actually quite incredible how many things are very important to a 5 year old!!! With the power of the sharpie in her hands she created one of our favorite homeschool projects. A cross-subject report.

On a huge piece of paper she drew and colored her own beaver lodge, beavers, and habitat. She dictated to me what each aspect of the drawing was, and in essence gave a (detailed, yikes!) oral report on beavers and their homes. On one side of the paper she dictated, and I wrote, a short imaginary story on beavers. This cross-disciplinary project is just the sort of thing that I love about our homeschool program. It works for us, and we love it. In the works right now….an enormous drawing of, and a similar report on a massive termite mound. Found on page two of the book. Oh we love a good book.

(The project is hanging on the hallway wall outside her room, proving very difficult to get a good shot of…)

And just for fun, here is the story she wrote.

The Beaver Who Found His Mother

Once there was a beaver that had no family. And one day he went off with his food and his friends. And they went off to find his family. He knew that they were not dead but they had gone off somewhere, so he went to find them.

Then they stopped at a big beaver lodge. He saw many beavers working and working. He leapt into the water and everyone leapt to him. He swam to the beaver lodge and he found his mother. And he went out again and began to chew down lots of trees and swam and put them right in the beaver food storage. He was busy for many days. And he lived happily ever after. The end.

Still

There is really not very much about our home that is still these days.  The hours are filled with busy preparations and celebrations everywhere we turn.  These weeks and days and moments of preparation are indeed one of the most precious parts of the holiday season.  Yet at the nativity scene there is always  stillness.  Created in part by the strict mama rules of how to handle, but mostly (I hope!) by the natural childlike reverence for the miracle at very center of this wonderful season.   While my dreams and plans for a nativity set that is child-friendly are still just dreams and plans, this all white set, placed within stools reach of little hands is shown a great deal of love.  In fact every time I turn around it has been rearranged…different yet always the same.  For without prompt or instruction the little and even the littlest of little hands always arrange each figure in a tight circle with a perfect view of the manger and the Christ child.  They know just where they would want to be had they been there centuries ago, and they ensure each beloved figure a spot to gaze at the miracle.  This practice of moving around the nativity scene (constantly)  is one of the still beauties of this season.  And while the commercial aspects of the season are nearly impossible to escape, they know, and regularly show that they know, what is in fact right at the center of this special season. 

So we joyously count down the days until Christmas and enjoy each still moment along the way. 

 

Sparkly mailboxes and Shutterfly Christmas Cards

So many simple tasks are just so much more exciting at Christmas time. Baking, grocery shopping, crafting, reading...there's a sparkle about these things these days. But one of the most transformed task is checking the mail. In any other season this simple task, more often than not, yields nothing more than a few advertisements and bills. It's a sad truth. But during this season...during this season, there are christmas cards. Oh the magic, sparkle, and delightful anticipation of holiday greeting cards. With so many styles and varieties out there, there is truly way to know just what will come out of the envelope! It is a favorite part of the season to hang and examine and thoroughly enjoy the many cards that enter our home during the holidays. While there are so many handmade and beautifully designed cards that we love, I have to say that we are always excited to get a photo card. Seeing family and friends that (sadly) make their home so very far from our own home, even if only on a card is such a special part of the season.

There are a lot of options for creating your own photo cards out there. Good design can be yours, and a simple and perfect-for-you card can be yours, with very little of that oh-so-precious holiday time. How, you ask? Well the method of choice in the little old Robinson house this holiday season is Shutterfly. They have a fantastic selection of holiday cards. Oh...and they have all sorts of calenders, gifts, and all things photos.

To be completely hones, when it comes to the cards I'm not sure what I love best, the cute and whimsical,

...or the clean and classic,

....oh, but then there is the selection of collage cards, which is great for anyone who has more than...oh let's see, one person to get a good shot of!!

Wow, that was quite the Shutterfly soapbox! Really though, from the land of homemade, this is a personalized, though not homemade option that will be making my own barely-moved-in holiday season very simple and merry.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday prep weekend to you and all your own little book lovers.

How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments

Salt dough ornaments are at the heart of creative handmade christmas tree ornaments. Its a craft that has been enjoyed by little hands for decades. For me...only two decades...but even so...it still is a wonderful holiday tradition steeped with memories and treasured times. Our salt dough ornament adventure was several days in the making. Depending on the current vibes in the house we're not always ready to bring out the paint! Everything came together this morning though, and although the little man looked like a painted salt dough ornament himself by the time we were done, it was, again, one of the many treasured moments of this holiday season.

There are countless sources for salt dough recipes available, it's no secret, but since you're already here, I'll share my recipe and process with you!

Salt Dough

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup salt

~1 cup water

1. Mix the salt and flour together in a bowl.

2. Mix in about 1/2 cup flour, then add the rest a little at a time until the dough is the desired consistency.

3. Roll out the dough to ~ 1/4-1/2" thickness and cut out with cookie cutters, or form into desired shapes as though playdough. Poke a hole in each ornament with something...! I used the head of a finishing nail that happened to be in my pocket while we were making these, but any small round pointy thing will work!

4. Place on a cooling rack and allow to dry or encourage to dry by placing the ornaments on a cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

5. When dry paint away!

6. Coat with clear coat, or varnish to seal the ornament and help it to last through the years.

Hang them on the tree, tie one to a gift, bundle a few together as a gift...and enjoy your handmade holiday season.

Christmas Adventures

This weekend we bundled up the kiddos, packed enough stuff to last an entire weekend I am sure!, and drove on route 2 for a little christmas adventure. It was wonderful. In the Berkshire Mountains in a snug little hollow that is deeply familiar is a little town that I used to call home. And there, on the first Saturday in December, is a holiday bazaar with more home-town goodness, artisan crafts, and true holiday simplicity than can be found anywhere in the world. There is truly nothing like a small town holiday bazaar. My little girl was completely inspired by the hand-made jewelry and fancy headbands...there are big plans for our own creations happening. But oh, the fun they had decorating cookies with the greatest variety of sweets they had ever seen! Oh the many many joys of Christmas.

Not too far down the road from there, oh so close to the magical historic Deerfield is Yankee Candle. Such a drastic difference from the home-town simplicity of a home town bazaar, but still a whole lot of fun. And a whole lot of people! Yikes. By far, oh, by far, our favorite spot at Yankee Candle was the candle dipping stations. Rows and rows of white tapered candles, and wax ornaments hung beside station after station of colored hot wax. Each station was set up neatly with simple instructions that made this activity so much fun and easy to figure out for novices like us (even with the buzz of crowds of people surrounding us). The littles had so much fun. The worked independently for the most part (we helped keep the second taper out of the way...and the little guys hands out of the hot wax!) and were so pleased with their creations. What started out as one turn quickly turned into candle after candle. It's kind of amusing that in the huge commercial Christmas wonderland that is Yankee Candle, our little family finds, and has the most fun with the one handmade activity available!!