Autumn Lantern Making

As promised to my Facebook and IG community, here is the tutorial for these very pretty Autumn Lanterns that we made at our home for Martinmas. These are very fun to make and come out so beautiful. We also did these in our New England Lifeways training and each and every student's lantern came out so unique.

Supplies Needed:

Different Colored Tissue Paper

Balloons

Old Paint Brushes

Glue

Jar

Water

Leaves (optional)

Blow up balloon and tie. 

Place balloon in a bowl or on top of a wide mug, jar or cup to work. 

Mix glue with 1 part water in a separate container. 

Working carefully, paint glue mixture onto individual strips and pieces of tissue paper. You will be covering only half of your balloon, leaving the top half with knot open to make a bowl shaped lantern.  Be sure to glue the underside of each strip of tissue as well as the top and keep layering and layering until you have a nice design that will be thick enough to stand firm after drying.

Experiment with different designs, transparency ideas or even consider gluing autumn leaves to your lantern.  

 When completed, place your wet balloon lantern on top of the same cup or bowl to dry overnight.  In the  morning pop your balloon and carefully pull out and away from your lantern.

We stapled star string for a handle. You can also punch holes on either side and tie with string or make a handle out of wire. If you decide to use real candles, please be very careful as the tissue paper can catch on fire. We chose to use battery operated votives and it was just perfect.

Please share your photos with us on our Facebook Page! 

If you like this activity, be sure to check out our other publications for more inspiration.

Enjoy!  

xoxo

Tree of Thanks and Gratitude Caregiver Meditation

Tree of Thanks

Supplies Needed: 

Vase

Branches

Construction Paper

Scissors

String

Hole Punch

Crayon or Marker

This is a favorite tradition among so many of our "Little Acorn Learners"! 

Place branches that you find with the children outdoors into a vase.  The branches should be large enough and have smaller branches to hang your Leaves of Gratitude on.  When you have completed, place your tree in your nature place.  You may wish to label your vase ‘Tree of Thanks’.

Next, cut leaf shapes out of various colored construction paper.  Punch a hole in each leaf and have children help you tie string to each one for hanging.  Make enough leaves to use until it is time to put Autumn behind and prepare your Winter nature place.

Each day, beginning with today, ask each person that enters your home to write one thing they are thankful for on a leaf and hang it on the tree.  For young children, they can draw a picture on a leaf or you can write the word for them.  Putting the person’s name and date on the back of the leaf is a good idea for future reference.  Extra leaves and a marker can be left in a basket near your tree.

When it is time to take your tree down, consider saving the leaves of this year to reflect upon years ahead.  You can even paste them into your nature notebooks or make a special scrapbook.  If you are a daycare provider, you can create a book out of each child’s leaves this season and send them home for parents to see.

Caregiver Meditation:  Gratitude

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” ― Melody Beattie

How often do you look at your life and all of the things in it with gratitude?  Often, we find ourselves focusing on how things could be better in our lives or on what we are lacking rather than the good that is surrounding us.  What an amazing purpose you have in this world!  It is no mistake that these little souls have been placed gently in your care.  They were led to you for guidance.  You are here to show them all the beauty and good the world has to offer.  You were chosen to be their guide.  Be grateful for this wonderful responsibility and remind yourself daily how special the work you do truly is.

Shrunken Apple Heads

Shrunken Apple Heads 

This is a very fun activity to do right around Halloween time or as All Souls Day approaches on November 2nd.  While they come out a bit freaky looking, the children absolutely LOVE the idea than an apple can dry out so much that it can last and be turned into a toy.

To begin you will need to peel apples leaving a bit of skin only on the top and bottom.  It is said that green apples work best.  After your apples are peeled, place them inside a container mixed with one part water and one part lemon juice.  This will prevent the apple from turning brown.  Some people want their apples to turn a bit brown for different skin tones.  This is up to you.

Using a utensil of some sort (we used a cheese spreading knife), carve out facial features.  Remember that the apple is going to dry out and shrink inward.  Plan your face accordingly.  Eyes are best done carved out and cheeks are best done left intact with the rest of the face carved out around them.  You can carve out ears and nose as well.  

The next part takes a lot of patience!  We dried our apples out very very slowly over a period of days on a cookie sheet in our oven on very low, approximately 150 degrees.  In the evening, I turned the over off and let the apples air dry and then I turned the oven back on in the morning.  Apples can also be dried out slowly outdoors but molding may occur if the temperature is not just right.

After two or three days of drying, your apple should be ready.  Apples are ready when the skin feels rubbery and without much moisture.  

You can leave your apples this way or keep creating by adding color to the face and even by turning it into an All Souls Apple Doll!  

Beware, these doll faces can be a bit scary so use your judgement on whether or not to dress them up too much depending on the age of your child.  Older children will likely LOVE the scary faces this time of year.  We used little beads and pressed them inside the eye sockets for eyes. 

 And we hot glued on some brown and black embroidery floss for hair.  Let the children design the doll however they like. 

Your apple head should stay good for years to come.  

Create Cornhusk Dolls with Your Children

 

​Create Cornhusk Dolls with Your Children 

Supplies Needed:

Cornhusks

String or Yarn

Scissors

Pail of Water

Hot Glue

These cornhusk dolls can take quite some time so be sure to prepare accordingly.

In some Native American traditions, making cornhusk dolls and doing corn dances were a way to give thanks and celebrate harvest time.

Have your child place the cornhusks in the pail of water until they are very soft and easy to bend. Separate the husks. (Each doll requires 10-15 husks to complete.)

Begin with four husks approximately the same size and lay them on top of one another. With your yarn, help your child tie the pointy ends of the husks together to close the top and bottom. This is the body of your doll.

Take two husks in each hand and fold them over the yarn so the string is inside. The fold is the top of the doll’s head. Pull a string around the husks and tie to make the head.

Take another husk and smooth it flat, cut the pointed end straight with a scissors. Roll the husk into a tight tube to make the arm. Do this again for the other arm. Tie each end of the arm tube with string. Put the tube between the body right below the head. Tie a piece of string around the body right below the arms to hold them in place.

Wrap another husk around the back of the neck and crisscross it around the chest to make shoulders. Tie it around the waist to stay on the doll. To make legs, separate the body husks into two equal parts below the waist. Tie each section at the ankle to complete.

These dolls are meant to have no face. Hair for your doll can be made with additional husks, yarn, silk, or twine and added with hot glue. Remember to make clothing for your doll today or on a day this week when you need to engage your child in an extra activity.

 

Autumn Leaf Craft

 

What a FUN activity to do with little ones this autumn. Go on a nature walk and find fallen leaves together. Please do not pick leaves off of trees. When you get back home, take out your paints and your imaginations and see what you can create! 

We'd love to see what you come up with. Be sure to share it with us! 

Celebrating November with Little Acorn Learning

November is such a beautiful month! Where we live the trees are in full color, the air is a bit cooler and the days feel longer especially after daylight savings time ended. Yesterday felt like the never-ending day in our house. At 7pm we could have sworn it was 11pm! Today is actually Bonfire Night and in the November Caregiver's Calendar we suggest enjoying an outdoor fire with your family or school tonight if possible. It's raining in our little spot in Connecticut today but this can be done anytime this month and is really fun to do during the fall. Roasting marshmallows doesn't have to be only a summer camping activity! I've been working around the clock on so many Little Acorn things... including the Caregiver Calendars for 2019 which will be here soon, a beautiful November newsletter which includes Waldorf-inspired verses, songs, stories, recipes and more (by the way we are offering 50% off ads in it for any likeminded small business owners!), a special book I've been thinking of for a long time and tons of marketing of our current products.

Doing this for so long, it is amazing how many products we have put together over the years. Here are just a few for anyone new to Little Acorn Learning: November Preschool/Kindergarten Guide - this program is wonderful for a mixed aged group of children or young children under age 6. It is non-academic and truly beautiful helping to hold a rhythm through your days. Most of our customers use this as their base and add in more academic work for the older children as needed.

For those of you who use traditional schooling methods or homeschool the older grades, we've put together a Waldorf-inspired Afterschooling Enrichment guide for fun ideas to enjoy with your school-aged children! These activities are a bit more time consuming and better for children who need less assistance.

As many of you know, Martinmas is just around the corner on November 11th. We absolutely love this festival. It is the perfect time to make beautiful lanterns and really embrace autumn. Thanksgiving is coming as well and we made a pretty autumn nature table to celebrate. Many of the ideas and activities we enjoy most are put together in our Martinmas and Thanksgiving Festival Ebook for those of you who could use some festival-specific inspiration.

Also, remember we have sweet seasonal menus for you. This season we have the Autumn Childcare Menu and also the Autumn Afterschool Menu. The first focuses on the daytime meals and the afterschool menu includes just that.. afterschool snacks as well as dinner and weekend meals.

Lastly, this is a perfect time to break out the warm yarns and crafting supplies. Please take a look at our Autumn Handwork Ebook made just for Little Acorn Learning by our friends at Syrendell.

Wishing you a very happy November and please make sure you are on our email list to receive the November Newsletter and fun updates, activities and inspiration. xoxo