Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Preschool Thanksgiving Costumes: Indian Vest

11:23 AM 8 Comments
When I was a kid we had a Thanksgiving feast at preschool. We all dressed up like Pilgrims and Indians, sat cross-legged on the floor, and ate popcorn and creamed corn. It was so fun! This time I get to dress up my own preschooler. Here's the first tutorial of Thanksgiving costumes. We will tackle the Pilgrim next time.

To make your Indian vest you will need a brown paper grocery bag.


I turned this brown paper bag inside out because I wanted my vest ALL brown, even on the back. I then crinkled the bag up to give it a leather look. If you really want to get fancy and you have some time, spray the paper bag with some water and then crinkle. It looks really nice and it's a LOT easier to crinkle. I rushed through this "vest" so it's not going to be pretty or fancy.


Open your bag up again.


Take a warm iron to flatten the vest out again.


Cut holes for the arms and neck, and one straight cut up the front for the vest opening. Here's a rough diagram of how to cut the bag.


It should look something like this.


Cut some "fringe" along the bottom of the bag, and decorate! Markers aren't the best for decorating. I prefer tempera paints or crayons. You could also use ribbons, rickrack or colored paper to add some flair.


We just might have to make these for dinner one of these nights and make up Indian names for each other.

Count Your Blessings

11:21 AM 0 Comments
Thanksgiving is in a couple weeks which means that it's time to be grateful. Take some time to count your blessings.

In our house we put up this tree (made for a bulletin board). We are adding one leaf for every blessing we can name. No repeats!


We have a lot of laminated paper leaves (that we are actually going to write on with a wipe-off marker so we can use it next year) and we also have some pretty silk leaves to add to our tree. I think we got a pack of 75 silk leaves from Michael's craft store for a buck or two. MJ loves decorating this tree!


Since we hold preschool at our home the kids will be able to add to the tree when they come. This tree has an extra insert to make it taller but I kept it out so that the kids could reach the branches without any problems.

I would have preferred to make my own tree out of brown butcher paper as shown on THIS site (scroll to the bottom to see the picture) because it is SO much cuter, but I already had the tree and we needed to get this thing started ASAP.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Don't Underestimate Used Bookstores

6:36 AM 1 Comments
Used bookstores are great! Since we LOVE books, we take a trip to the used bookstore quite frequently. We have found some fun treasures. They are cheap and they are in really good shape. I think these books were $1.29 each.


I found some fun Halloween and fall books for $1.99 each. These are so nice to have for our little rotating preschool.


I'm collecting books for Christmas. Instead of an advent calendar, we are wrapping up 24 books and putting them under the tree. Each night MJ gets to open one book for her bedtime story. I was super happy to find these to add to our collection.

I found an animated scripture story DVD of "The King Is Born" for $4.00 so that will be a fun treat to mix up the books.


These two books were hardback books. I paid $2.99 instead of $1.99 for them. The one on the left is one of my FAVORITE books. I was so happy to find it!


Check out your local listings to see if you have a used bookstore by you! You might be surprised by what you find. As a former high school teacher and now a mom/homeschool preschool teacher, I wish I knew about this earlier. What a great resource!

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