Crestwood Day School

Happy St. Nicolas Day!

Since we include the Christian calendar as an important part of our school year, today we read about St. Nicolas.  St. Nicolas would secretly leave gold or presents for the poor and needy, sometimes in their shoes or stockings.  I knew I wanted to leave a little something for the kids.  So while I was reading the story, Dawn (the other teacher at our school) left these little treats in their baskets to find! 

I've seen these Candy Cane Mice on Martha for a long time and thought this was the perfect opportunity to finally make them.  They were simple to make and the kids loved them!  

Next Monday is St. Lucia Day - we'll be making these for the kids to wear.  I'll be sure to share some pictures of them!

Celebrating Epiphany

I love weaving in our Christian traditions into our ordinary school day.  Today we celebrated Epiphany with our very own special Epiphany cake.  Basically, epiphany is a time to celebrate and reflect on the three Wise men following the star to the new king, Jesus. 

So to celebrate,  I made a pound cake in a tube pan before they got to school and hid three jelly beans (for the three Wise men) inside the cake after it came out of the oven.  Then the girls and I smeared on some icing and adorned it with different kinds of "jewels," all edible of course.  We even put chocolate covered gold coins in the hole in the center of the cake. So fun!  The final touch was a gold crown, celebrating Christ the King!

For more information and ideas to do with your family and friends, check out this article my friend Rebekah shared with me.  Also, this book has been extremely helpful to me in learning about these traditions - I highly recommend it!

Easy Ornament

Each school year, I've wanted to do an ornament with our class picture.  This year's ornament couldn't be easier, so I thought I'd share it with you, in case you need an ornament to mark the year for your child or family.  I got the idea from Martha, who's got tons and tons of ideas for homemade ornaments.  I've tried to add a homemade ornament to our tree every year (like these two years ago), especially since I don't have a lot of ornaments to begin with.  I think I'm going to make some of these bird ornaments for the tree as well (since birds and trees are my thing).  Need to get on that... 

Anyway, to make this one, all you need is a cookie cutter, some ribbon, and a picture. I tied the ribbon on the top of the cookie cutter, with a knot to keep it tight and then another knot at the top to hang it.   I printed the photo on some matte photo paper (but any heavy weight paper will do). I then centered the cookie cutter on top of it and traced around it.  Next, I cut it out and then used craft glue to glue it to the cookie cutter.  It's as easy as that!  So easy and simple.  Which is my kind of project these days!

Quilt Frames

This school year, I wanted the kids to give their families something handmade, and I decided to take the idea from the quilt frame I made (using Posie's instructions from her new book).  Instead of using a photograph, I had the kids draw a portrait of their family.  I put it on fabric using iron-on transfer paper.  Then they added some detail with embroidery (they've been learning some basic stitches at school- straight stitch, backstitch, split stitch, and satin stitch).  After that, I framed it with fabric and added two loops on the back to hang it.  And voila!  Many hours of sewing later, here's what we ended up with:

 


 (apparantly they taste good)





 

I'm so happy with how they came out!