Gnomes

It is gnome time again! We read "Sylvia's Turnip-Lantern" from The Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book.



Now I am setting that book aside until the winter months, when we will do the next group of chapters. At the Sunbridge bookstore this weekend, I got The Little Gnome Tenderroot by Jakob Streit, which we will read next.



We have finished our felt tapestries and are ready to move to a slightly more challenging sewing project: the Simple felt gnome from The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year's Cycle with a Seasonal Tableau.



Today we will card the wool in our basket and we will trace and cut our patterns and choose our felt colors. This pattern is slightly more difficult because it is 3 dimensional instead of flat. You have to envision this when you are making it. You also have to manage the gathering line, and you have to fold the tracing paper in half and place the fold line at the correct spot on the pattern before tracing the gnome template.

By the way, there are actual directions in The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year's Cycle with a Seasonal Tableaufor turnip lanterns (also pumpkin, beetroot, or swede). I think the children would enjoy making turnip lanterns this week if I can find enough big turnips. Our recipe is pumpkin, though: Gluten Free and Dairy Free Pumpkin Pudding. I had also considered mashed potato ghosts with black sesame seeds for eyes, but I couldn't find a dairy-free and soy-free mashed potato recipe that I liked.

In Watercolor Painting this week we did the "Mincemeat" poem by Elizabeth Gould (adapted by Kristie Burns). She adds the phrases "golden ladle" and "indigo dish." We painted red fruits all over our paper, then swirled them together with the yellow streak, and then put blue all over. The end result is a lovely brown. As Kristie points out, the children are always dying to see what happens if they mix all the colors together!


Mincemeat
(original version by Elizabeth Gould)


Sing a song of mincemeat,

Currants, raisins, spice,

Apples, sugar, nutmeg,

Everything that's nice,

Stir it with a ladle,

Wish a lovely wish,

Drop it in the middle

Of your well-filled dish,

Stir again for good luck,

Pack it all away,

Tied in little jars and pots,

Until Christmas Day.