A few shots from our 18th Annual Pumpkin Carving party. Have a fun and safe Halloween everyone!
Our weekend: Family in from out of town, Halloween party at the farm, trip to the cider mill for donuts and pumpkins this time, Annual Pumpkin Carving party, a birthday party, a wagon ride, a bonfire, several costumes, hot spiced cider and pumpkin pie. Oh what a perfect pumpkin weekend!
Week Nine (Oct 27-31)
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever
Halloween Is
I is for Iris
We will be coloring the Iris page from our Flower Fairies Alphabet Coloring Book and reading the accompanying story in the Flower Fairies Alphabet Book.
Once a month, we will be decorating a 12 inch quilt square to reflect something we are currently learning about. At the end of the school year, I will turn all of our squares into a keepsake quilt.
After last week’s craziness we could use a quiet week.
Pumpkin Pie
INGREDIENTS
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 1/2 c. solid packed pumpkin
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. cloves
1 2/3 c. (13 oz.) evaporated milk or light cream
1 9 inch pie shell
DIRECTIONS
Mix filling ingredients in order given. Pour into pie shell. Bake in preheated 425 oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temp. to 350 and continue baking for 45 minutes or until knife inserted into center of pie filling comes out clean. Cool. Garnish with whipped cream, if desired.
Harvest
Now all the farmers from far and wide
Have gathered their bounty of countryside:
Corn and barley from field and wold,
Honey from beehive and wool from the fold,
Fruit from the orchard all ripe, red and gold,
Log for the fire to keep out the cold.
by Dorothy Hancock
Kindergarten/Preschool Term One Overview: Harvest Time
We didn’t get a chance to paint on pumpkins this week… instead we made these pretty cool jack-o-lantern paintings to set on the mantle.
First we outlined our pumpkins, their faces and a few other spooky things like bats with a black crayon. Then we painted over the entire page with water color paints.
The kids were pretty excited with how they turned out.
This might be a quiet week for me in terms of posting. We have a lot on our calendar and quite a bit of family coming in from out of town. Fun, Fun, Fun.
Week Eight (Oct 20-25)
Pumpkin Pumpkin
Pumpkin Circle
There is a lovely DVD that goes with the Pumpkin Circle book if you can find it at your library. It is a bit too pricey for me to recommend buying it but Scholastic does carry it if you are interested.
H is for Herb Twopence
We will be coloring the Herb Twopence page from our Flower Fairies Alphabet Coloring Book and reading the accompanying story in the Flower Fairies Alphabet Book.
I think we will paint a couple of the little ‘baby pumpkins’ and gourds for some fun decorations.
A trip to the pumpkin patch of course!
Pumpkin Muffins
INGREDIENTS
Nonstick spray coating
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar plus 2 packets heat-stable sugar substitute, or 1/3 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup fat-free milk
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1/4 cup orange juice
DIRECTIONS
1. Spray twelve 2-1/2-inch muffin cups with nonstick coating; set pan aside. In a medium bowl combine the all-purpose flour, buckwheat flour, sugar plus sugar substitute or the sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture; set aside.
2. In another bowl combine the eggs, pumpkin, milk, oil, orange peel, and orange juice. Add the egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).
3. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly. Bake in a 400 degree F oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until the muffins are light brown. Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from muffin cups; serve warm. Makes 12 muffins.
Harvest
Now all the farmers from far and wide
Have gathered their bounty of countryside:
Corn and barley from field and wold,
Honey from beehive and wool from the fold,
Fruit from the orchard all ripe, red and gold,
Log for the fire to keep out the cold.
by Dorothy Hancock
Kindergarten/Preschool Term One Overview: Harvest Time
One of my favorite things about holiday traditions, is the fact that I can watch my children grow into the holidays. Each year they experience those “same things” at a different level. Halloween is a favorite around here. We aren’t into anything really spooky but enjoy dressing up, bonfires, spiced cider and jack-o-lanterns all in good fun! We always Trick-or-Treat at a local Historic Village that puts on a Sleepy Hollow like theme in the village. They have jack-o-lantern lined streets, eerie music, and little stage plays going on through out. This year Fairy has discovered spooky things that didn’t phase her in the past… and she is getting a bit of a thrill from it all. I remember when Bug made that cross over a couple Halloweens ago – from it all just seeming like lots of commotion and silly costumes to a little bit spooky.
Crossing the covered bridge (still makes me cringe a bit) that is filled with smoke, in the dark, with flashing lights from underneath, while clip, clop horse hoof sound effects played was indeed thrilling for her. She refused to step on any cracks in the bridge floor and finally made it across wide eyed. She told me that she was very brave and I of course agreed. I was a little afraid it might have been too much for her this year but she wants to go back and do it again next weekend. LOL… not until next year sweetie. That’s the thing about traditions… it will be there next year. Maybe she will be a princess again. Maybe she will have moved onto something else. Maybe it will be a little bit spooky. Maybe not so much. Or maybe she will clutch my hand white knuckled like Bug did this year (that boy’s imagination would give Ichabod a run for his money).
This week’s Unplugged Challenge theme was white. I’m sure I’m not the only one who took the theme white and combined it with upcoming Halloween and thought… hmmm ghosts. We did a stiff fabric technique to make our ghosts. I have seen this done before with gauze but thought that might be too difficult for the kids to handle so we used light weight muslin.
First we built a base to drape our fabric ghosts over. I cut the tops off pop bottles, blew up a balloon, taped the balloon over the opening and slide a skewer though to give some arm definition.
We ripped the fabric (wanted a torn, frayed edge) into squares big enough to cover our forms. Then we filled a large bowl with equal parts Elmer’s Glue and water. We soaked the fabric in the glue mixture, wrung it out and then draped it over the form. There was lots of “ewws and yucks”… it was very sticky! They spread out the fabric over the form (I had to help hold the form up – it was top heavy, maybe a can or a rock in the bottom of the pop bottle would have helped). After the fabric was spread out nicely, we left it to dry over night.
A couple days later we added googly eyes with tacky glue, removed the ghosts from the frames, and threaded string in the center of the head for hanging (fishing line would have been nice but I just had white thread on hand).
I was afraid they might not hold their form since we used such a large piece of fabric but they really did. One was a little bit limp, but it was the last one in the glue bath and just didn’t get enough coverage. I made a little more of the glue mixture and brushed it on the following morning, let it set up and all was well. I think they make great, spooky ghost decorations on the front porch. I hope they stay dry enough!
LOL – Just after the outdoor photo was taken and I typed the above post, it started to rain. The kids were really worried about their ghosts getting wet so we decided to move them indoors. They are currently haunting the pass through from our dining room to living room.
