Elves at work

So many of the projects we have been working on are going to be gifts, so I haven't been posting pictures of them in progress. I promise you will be amazed at the hard work students have been putting into these projects.
Yesterday I introduced a type of knitting with a loom to the students. I won't tell what they are making, but it's going to be warm, colorful and great! It's been fun to combine the act of making something to give as a gift, creativity and fine motor skills in a bunch of projects.

Gingerbread!!!!

We have been busy, busy, busy this week planning and building a special gingerbread creation with our buddies to enter into the Gingerbread Contest!  First, the students went to the computer lab to search for images and gather ideas for their part of the creation. They also created a list for the candy they would need.

After that, we spent two sessions over two days building and decorating our train cars. 

Many huge thanks to Ashley Woods for all of her gingerbread expertise and time she gave our project! Please go and view all the gingerbread creations at the East Warren Community Market this weekend, Saturday and Sunday 10-4. The money benefits our awesome After School Program!

Turkeys

We have been learning about turkeys! We read a book about turkeys in the wild and labeled a turkey (what is a caruncle? A wattle?) Then we recorded new facts we learned about this bird. 

After, we read Turkey Trouble, a sily story where the turkey has many disguises to try and trick the farmer so he won't get eaten! We created our own turkeys and fun disguises!

4 Winds- Snags and Logs

This 4 Winds might have been the best yet! Ellen and Meredith came in with some amazing materials and we even spent some lovely time outside in the sunshine looking for snags and logs.

They brought a time machine! We got to see what would happen to logs after, 4, 9 and 12 years!

What made these scratches on the logs?

Book Binding

Last week, Ellen Kucera came and taught us about book binding. She read us an incredible book about being creative and making art and then she showed us how to bind books with stitches. Then we got to try it ourselves. Stay tuned to see what we make these incredible books into!

Ellen shows us how to use the jig.

And how to use the awl.

Folding the pages was the first step.

Venah uses the awl to poke holes in her pages.

Arie smoothes his edges with a special tool made from antler.

Then, using needles and thread, we sewed the pages together making sure to do it in the right order!