November: Watch something fun
Well, finally, the end of our November week: a lazy post for a lazy activity. Sometimes it's time to curl up somewhere warm and watch something fun: Barbapapa.
November: Winter birds (Birdseed part 2)
November is the time when birds' nests begin to show themselves, as the trees lose their leaves. You can read all about our homemade birdhouse and our birdseed here. We also bought a birdhouse that would attach to the outside of a window (as we don't have an easy way to attach a hanging birdhouse). It's become popular with many little birds in our neighbourhood and we have a steady stream of visitors outside our window.
November: Leaves
From Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins. All the leaves are printed at life size in this great book we found at the library after trying to identify a leaf on our way home.
This doesn't deserve its own post, but we've had a lot of fun making chestnut hedgehogs this week, too.
November: Butter in the Buttercups
Today, as part of our November week, a poem from from Butter in the Buttercups, 1980, by Stella Browning.
Winter-Green Palette
(Mix Buttercup Yellow with Winter-green...)
We will mix the colours of our paintbox
Like Woodland days of Summer's rainbow hue,
Just as BUTTERCUP the yellow toadflax
Dies the mellow field with scabious blue
Violets — harebells, yellow St. John's wort
Lie between the seeds of couchgrass green
Where cow parsley's skeleton: her tall foot
Mixes palette to Winter's colour scheme!
These spangled leaves rest now in moss and seam
The yarrow leaf. Deep wood anenome —
The quiet sorrell seed; pink mallow leaf,
In speedwell dwarfed without her bloom and gnome
Of ale-hoof, ground-ivy locks in sheaf
Whispered rise in Spring mix yellow with leaf....
The winter leaves and skeletons were picked by the children for those which remain green throughout the winter
November
It's November. The days are shorter, the mornings are darker. Hallowe'en's over. Christmas isn't quite yet here (and we have an advent calendar craft coming up soon). But there is still fun to be had.
Instead of one Saturday post, let's do 7 short ones, one for each day this week to celebrate this most serious of months.
(Drawing by Tove Jansson).
Instead of one Saturday post, let's do 7 short ones, one for each day this week to celebrate this most serious of months.
(Drawing by Tove Jansson).
Sewing for kids
This looks fun: hand sewing workshop for the 5 and ups at collage collage.
Six weeks of classes, beginning November 17. Find out more here. Photo from collage collage.
Birdseed
A few weeks ago we discovered birdhouses in some of the large trees around our neighbourhood. As the leaves fall from the trees, they have begun to show themselves. This has really captured the imagination of one of our junior members, and birdhouses are now on the charts (just behind trucks, snow and slightly ahead of fish).
So this week, we visited our local Wildbirds Unlimited shop to find out more about feeding wild birds in our neighbourhood. We got an enormous tub of birdseed and a bird feeder (more on that another time). The tub was the smallest amount available, but at $5, it's been giving us a lot of entertainment. This week, we make a simple 5-minute birdfeeder and hang it on some trees).
One thing we've done is to make little bird feeders out of peanut butter, empty paper towel rolls — cut into pieces — and our birdseed. We found the idea through our pinterest (originally from The Moffatt Girls) and set to work. We used a butter knife to spread peanut butter around the roll, then we rolled it in a plateful of birdseed.
It took us about 15 minutes, and we had a lot of fun vacuuming afterwards (we actually did really have fun with that bit, but that may be just us).
Then we set out to place our feeders on some low branches. We slipped them over some branches near the birdhouses. We used a path we cross at least once a day, so we can keep an eye on them and throw them away when they're empty.
Lastly, we scattered big handfuls of birdseed under the trees on our way home. Probably that was the most fun part of all.
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