Making name bracelets and necklaces for cousins and friends

This year for Ayyam-i-ha the boys made handmade name necklaces and bracelets for their cousins and friends. Although mom (that would be me) forgot to take pictures of their completed jewelry before I wrapped them. I did take pictures of the ones they made with their own names the next day.

We used alphabet beads and a pack of wooden and shell beads (I guess we still have the Hawaiian beaches in our hearts, we tend to do things with beachy themes…). It was a fun exercise in fine motor skills (beading on string), pattern/sequencing, and in spelling with the alphabet letters. Rylan did the spelling of the names (spelling practice) and called out the letters he needed to Damian, so that he could find them in the bowl of letter beads (letter recognition).

I had not made any conscious goal for this activity to be anything more than a fun craft, however, observing how it evolved into a joyful learning experience, made me stop and think about how naturally and seamlessly learning has become woven into the daily rhythm of our family life. Learning is a natural, enjoyable, and continuous part of my boy’s life, there is no underlying feeling that learning occurs only during “school”. I have never been anything but a homeschooling mom, so I don’t know if this is unique to the homeschooling experience, but it is something I am truly grateful for.

A homemade book

For Ayyam-i-ha Rylan made a beautiful book for his Dad. Complete with a hardcover, copyright information, and signed by the author! ;)

Ayyam-i-ha and some of our handmade gifts

We had a wonderfully fun Ayyam-i-ha weekend, filled with lots of family and friends. I am amazed my kids kept up with all the parties we were invited to (one every morning and afternoon), although I must admit we were all kind of tired the first half of this week (but it was definitely worth it!). We have also had Grandma and Pa staying with us since Thursday last week, so it has been a very special time.

As we have done in the past, one of our days of Ayyam-i-ha was themed as a handmade gifts only day. Here are a few picture frames the boys made for Grandparents and Daddy: {the top one is made of foam, decorated with foam stickers and glitter glue; the bottom two are wooden frames decorate with permanent markers and wooden animals/beach theme added on with the help of glue dots (can I just say that I recently found and now love glue dots!)}

Over the next few days I will be sharing other handmade gifts that we made, in between the posts I promised for this week, including our European study, our human body unit, and the layout of our new classroom…with the late start I am getting on the week, however, these posts may carry us into next week as well!

Right now the adult members of this family, along with all the Baha’is over the age of 15 around the world are beginning on a month (a Baha’i month, which is 19 days long) of fasting. No food or drink from sunrise to sunset. The Fast is a period of spiritual focus and renewal. Since pregnant and/or breastfeeding women are exempt from fasting (for obvious medical reasons), this will be the first time I am fasting in 7 years! My husband is most happy to have company again! :)

Wishing all my Baha’i friends a truly blessed and inspired Fast!

Ayyam-i-ha and all our spring time crafts

To all the items we made last year, we added a few more this year. It was not so difficult to achieve a spring feeling living in Hawaii, because it was pretty much spring and summer all year round there, but here it was a little more challenging, so we needed to add some more spring-time crafts to the mix!

Working on and putting up these decorations was all done while listening to the Ayyam-i-ha CD, and was part of our “countdown to Ayyam-i-ha activities”, among many other fun activities (which are pulled out on a daily basis from our countdown star calendar).

• We found a new place for our Ayyam-i-ha banner, which I made out of aloha fabrics last year in Hawaii.
  
  
• And a new home for our Ayyam-i-ha virtue tree, above the boy’s teddy chair in our reading room (which is right next to the play room. I think we need to add some birds and other creatures to brighten up the surrounding bare, white walls…hmmm).
  
• We created a flower garden along the floor trim in our entrance area using pre-cut flower boards. We decorated them with markers and glitter glue.
  
• We made an “Ayyam-i-ha garden” of flowers and butterflies using pre-cut craft foam flowers and then I cut out leaves, stems and grass to go with them. The butterflies were cut out of cardboard. We decorated everything using markers and glitter glue.
  
  
• We made a bouquet of tissue paper flowers to put on our dining room table.
• We strung butterflies from the hanging lights around the house.
  
• The boys made flying foam butterflies, which we attached by ribbon to doorframes and from the ceiling in the play room.
  
• We made butterfly finger puppets to play with too!
  

To all my Baha’i friends, wishing you a very happy and joyful celebration!

I will be away from this space for a few days while I spend time with family and friends, see you next week when I will be sharing the details of our European study, our science unit on the human body, and a look at the layout of our new school room.

Preschool fun: a review of our first week

So Damian had his first week of preschool last week – letter A week! Here is a round up of what we did:

• We started the week by reading the section on letter A in the Baha’i Alphabet Book.
  
• We used many of the activities listed in Letter A for Apple on Confessions of a Homeschooler. I am focusing more on the hands-on activities and less on the worksheet type activities.
  
• We did “A is for Allah’u’Abha” and posted it up above our school room door.
  
• We made small framed photographs of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Damian asked to put his photograph over his bed so that ‘Abdu’l-Baha could watch over him while he slept. :)
  
• We used letter “a” from the sandpaper letters I made for the boys.
  
• Damian watched the new Leap Frog DVD The Amazing Alphabet Amusement Park.

• We put up Ayyam-i-ha decorations this week (after all “A” is for Ayyam-i-ha, why not tie it into the school week too!).
  
• We made “A” and “a” out of playdoh, and also with our bodies (e.g. for “A” I was one side, Rylan the other, and Damian the middle line). I have found with boys movement is an important part of learning.
  
• We ended the week with the ceremonial reading of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I lifted Damian up so he could stick his big “A” and little “a” onto our letter tree.

Preparing for Ayyám-i-há

Ayyám-i-há is just around the corner, so I thought it would be a good time to look back at last year and share some of the things we did in preparation for Ayyám-i-há and in celebration of it. For those who are new to my blog - as Bahá’ís we don’t celebrate Christmas, but we do celebrate Ayyám-i-há. This is the Bahá’í period of celebration with family and friends, a focus on charity and service projects, and gift giving. It is held on the last three days of February and the first day of March.

So here is a round up of some of our Ayyám-i-há projects and celebrations:

• Our Ayyam-i-ha advent calendar.
  
  
• Making cards to send to family and friends.
  
• Our Ayyám-i-há banner.
  
• Our virtue tree.
  
  
• Hanging flower ornaments that we used for decorations.
  
• Our handmade gift giving day tradition: handmade book and money box, Rylan’s nesting doll set made for Damian, my gifts for the boys – tool belts and mini dino puppets.

• We made Ayyám-i-há cookies together.
  
• The boys chose some of their own toys to give away to a family in need.
  
• One day of Ayyám-i-há is treasure hunt day, the hidden treasure are the boy’s presents for that day. For Rylan the clues are written, for Damian we use pictures.

Since we will keep our spring theme for Ayyám-i-há this year (after all we need some color to brighten up this LONG, white winter we are in!) we may revisit making our pipe-cleaner leis and paper flowers as fun crafts to do in preparation.

I have pulled my Ayyám-i-há box out of storage and am getting things ready to go up soon. But right now I am thinking about what to fill our advent calendar with….hmm…what special things are you planning for Ayyám-i-há?

My hand made goodies: tool work belt and little dinos

I promised to show some more of our handmade gifts from this weekend. These are the things I made for the boys. You will remember the dino fabric they chose while I was buying fabric for my decorations, well, I turned it into little tool work belts for them. One for each of them. I whipped these up in about 25 minutes for each belt. They were very easy to make. I roughly followed this tutorial, but since I was starting with plain fabric it was a little more involved.

With the leftover fabric I made a few dino finger puppets. I tried to sew right along the edge of the pictures, so they would be the actual shape of the dinos, but it just didn't work, oh well! They still love these little things!

Our weekend

Okay, so we did not exactly have the Ayyám-i-há celebrations we had planned! It all started Wednesday night with Rylan waking at 3:30 a.m. with a bad stomach flu that kept both him and I up the rest of the night. My poor boy was really, quite miserably ill, so of course, we cancelled all activities for the first day of Ayyám-i-há and stayed home for him to rest and recover (well, except for in the car when I had to cover him with towels and give him a tupperware (you know, just in case), so we could go pick up Dad from the airport!). So, yeah, the first day was pretty bad.

Then, as some of you would have seen on the news, we were woken at 5 a.m. Saturday morning with telephone calls and a tsunami warning siren, so again our day’s activities, including an Ayyám-i-há party were cancelled… Friends of ours in evacuation zones came to hide out at our home for the day (since we are up high on a hill), and we watched as cars slowly lined our streets and people climbed out, bringing with them their beach umbrellas, chairs, coolers, pets, and music to spend the morning out of their homes during the evacuation period. Despite the worry, the day actually had a very festive feeling to it...our neighbourhood turned into the beach for the day…and we were all much relieved when the tsunami turned out to be nothing more than a few average sized waves…

Somehow amongst all of this chaos we managed to enjoy each other’s company, have fun with presents,
Bake choc chip cookies for neighbours and for Ramtin to take to his office.

Sing Ayyám-i-há songs, study the Ayyám-i-há prayer, and decorate it.

Enjoy a beautiful sunset from our porch.

And Sunday we actually managed to have a pretty cool treasure hunt that kept the kids searching through the house, giggling with fun, followed by a family picnic, enjoying the island, playing with friends, and stopping for yummy ice-cream.

Oh, and in case you are wondering…Damian LOVED his nesting dolls from Rylan. In fact, I think they may have been his favourite present from the weekend. He has carried the littlest doll around with him pretty much since he opened the present. Just the kind of thing to melt a mama’s heart!

Hand painted Russian (Babushka) Nesting Dolls

Rylan's handmade gift for his little brother was a set of hand painted Russian or Babushka nesting dolls. We found a raw wood set at our local florist, and thought it would be a great gift for Damian. Rylan decided to do each one a solid colour, since Damian is very interested in labelling colours right now, blue being his favourite, so he made the biggest one that colour. We just used washable kids paint.

After the paint had dried I gave him a black permanent marker, so he could draw people on the nesting set. He wanted to draw our family, so Daddy is the biggest, next is me, next is his big sister (umm...Rylan has wanted a big sister for the last year or so), next is Rylan, and the littlest one is Damian, of course.

When I get a chance I think I will spray on a lacquer finish.

This has been added to: Craft Schooling Sunday and Strut-Your-Stuff Thursday.

Ayyam-i-ha traditions: handmade presents day

We are working on creating family traditions around the different Holy Days and holidays throughout the year. One that we have done since Rylan was old enough to enjoy it, is have one day of Ayyám-i-há as a treasure hunt day (the treasure being their gift for that day). The first treasure hunt we did was all with photographs, since Rylan couldn't read. He loved that he could figure it all out by himself! As they get older, we plan to make the treasure hunts more challenging.

Now this year we are introducing another tradition, and that is handmade gifts day. One day of Ayyám-i-há will be for the giving of gifts we make for each other. Today's advent activity (the last one, since tomorrow is the first day of Ayyám-i-há!) was for the boys to make their gifts. Here I am sharing a couple of those projects - first Rylan wanted to make a comic book for his Dad. I put together a little booklet, with pre-cut card stock on which I glued Rylan's writing paper, so it would be easier for him to write out his story. I bound it with tiny key rings.
Before beginning the comic, Rylan dictated the story to me, I typed it onto the computer, and printed it out for him so he could refer to the typed version to help with the spelling of words. He worked on the book while I put Damian down for a nap.

A story about a boy "Super Rylan" :) who saves his Daddy from a big, mean dragon!

Damian made this little money box for Rylan. My kids have never had piggy banks, but recently Rylan was sent some gifts of money from relatives, so I felt it was time for him to have a little place to save it, and to start learning more about money. So, I bought this little box at the craft store, and let Damian colour all over it with crayon, then gave him a pot of orange paint (Rylan's favourite colour) and let him go wild. While he was painting I asked him how he thought we should decorate the box when the paint was dry and he nodded and said, "Dinosaurs"...why am I not surprised! ;)

So I helped him put the letters in the right place, and then he covered the box with dino stickers.

I will try to share one more handmade gift tonight, but the rest I will post about next week. I think I will be taking a few days off, until Monday, to enjoy celebrating with my family...and having my husband back home. Yes, tomorrow is a double present for us, first day of Ayyám-i-há and my sweet hubby comes back home after a two week long business trip on the mainland (the kids are counting down the hours, they miss Daddy so much!). I cannot tell you how much this period has really made me realize just how much I depend on him! All you single moms out there, you are AMAZING!!! I don't know how you do it!?

To my Bahá’í readers, wishing you all a VERY happy and blessed Ayyám-i-há spent with family and friends, and to the rest have a wonderful weekend filled with the same! :)

Hanging flower ornaments

In continuing to decorate for Ayyám-i-há we made these pretty hanging flower ornaments from scrap book paper which I picked up on clearance at our local craft store. Instructions for how to make these flowers can be found here.

Virtue Tree: our year of virtue learning in review

This is probably my favourite Ayyám-i-há activity we have done this year. I have been wanting to share it with you all for a while, but I wanted all the leaves to be on it before photographing it, and we have been reviewing and building up to that point. You will recall from this post that character development is one of the core reasons that we have chosen homeschooling, and this post explains some of the ways in which we are encouraging character or virtue development in our children. This tree has been a fun way to look back at our learning and add to our spring inspired decorations. It was my intention for this tree to be a yearly event leading up to Ayyám-i-há , but my boys love this tree so much that I am considering putting it up in their bedroom after our celebrations, and adding more to it to create a whole wall scene for them.
We made the tree entirely out of felt. The tree was cut out of 3 yards of brown felt. The leaves were cut out of three different shades of green. I printed the virtues out on green card stock and glued them onto the leaves. Rylan said it wouldn't be a proper tree without a bird's nest, so we added that...I haven't had time to add mama bird yet! And at the end the boys added 3D butterfly and dragonfly stickers (since I took the photo they put a couple more on the trunk as well).

To see our other Ayyám-i-há activities and decorations look here, here, and here, all of which can be used for different types of celebrations. More to come in the next few days!