Roads

 Roads
Rachel Field

A road might lead to anywhere-
To harbor towns and quays,
Or to a witch's pointed house
Hidden by bristly trees.
It might lead past the tailor's door,
Where he sews with needle and thread,
Or by Miss Pim the milliner's,
With her hats for every head.
It might be a road to a great, dark cave
With treasure and gold piled high,
Or a road with a mountain tied to its end,
Blue-humped against the sky.
Oh, a road might lead you anywhere-
To Mexico or Maine.
But then, it might just fool you, and-
Lead you back home again!

Barefoot Days

 Barefoot Days
Rachel Field

In the morning, very early,
That's the time I love to go
Barefoot where the fern grows curly
And grass is cool between each toe,
On a summer morning-O!
On a summer morning!

That is when the birds go by
Up the sunny slopes of air,
And each rose has a butterfly
Or a golden bee to wear;
And I am glad in every toe-
Such a summer morning' O!
Such a summer morning!

Cobwebs

Cobwebs
E. L. M. King

Between me and the rising sun,
This way and that the cobwebs run;
Their myriad wavering lines of light
Dance up the hill and out of sight.

There is no land possesses half
So many lines of telegraph
As those the spider-elves have spun
Between me and the rising sun. 

The Day Before April

The Day before April
Mary Carolyn Davies

The day before April
Alone, alone,
I walked in the woods
And sat on a stone.

I sat on a broad stone
And sang to the birds.
The tune was God's making
But I made the words.

The Juggler

 THE JUGGLER

There was a squirrel once-
An idle rogue was he,
He had no store of winter nuts
Beneath his greenwood tree.

So when the leaves began to fall
And food was getting dear -
"I must do something soon," said he,
"Or I shall starve, 'tis clear."

And so he hung this notice out -
"The Juggler is at home
Most afternoons, at half-past
four,
Bring lots of nuts and
come."

They came, his friends both great
and small,
And brought the nuts beside,
And Whiskers promptly juggled
them,
Into his own inside.

And so the whole long winter
time
In comfort he did feed.
But you had best not copy
him
In case you don't succeed

The Queen's Hearts

The Queen's Hearts silhouette in black and white.

The Queen's Hearts

 

That same Queen of Hearts, who baked all those tarts
That we've heard of in story and fable
Sent word once a year, that both peasant and peer
Should collect all the hearts they were able
And some hearts were great, and some hearts were small
And some had hardly a heart at all.

The Queen's Hearts silhouette in red and white.

Willie Wolf

Willie Wolf
by Helen Cowles LeCron

Willie Wolf will gulp
his food,
Though his mother calls him
rude,
Though his brother hides his
eyes,
And his sister almost cries.
('Course she knows that cry-
ing's silly,
But she's so ashamed of
Willie!)
Oh, the dreadful bites he
takes
When he's eating pies and
cakes!
I should hate to have to see
him,
But I'd hate far worse to be
him!

Find the fox puzzle...

Find the fox before he eats the gingerbread boy.

The Gingerbread Boy
Puzzle-Find The Fox
by Helen Hudson

The little old woman, and little old man
Follow Gingerbread Boy as fast as they can,
But he quickly eludes them as onward he hurries;
And cat, dog and pig and a hen hen then worries.

But alas, for our boastful and bold little friend!
With wiley old fox he soon meets his end!
If with your sharp eyes you search over this sheet
Old Reynard himself you will very soon meet.

The Hurricane Puppy

 

Peterkin Puppy
by Helen Cowles LeCron

Peterkin Puppy just lived in a
hurry!
Petterkin Puppy could never sit still!
He'd rush through the house in a terrible
flurry,
And, oh, all the dishes he'd break and
he'd spill!

He'd race by the vases and set them to
rocking,-
He'd rush through the kitchen and
tumble upstairs,-
He'd brush past the table (oh, wasn't it
shocking?)
And scatter the books and tip over the
chairs!

"Hurricane Peter," the neighbors all
called him,
"hurricane Peter," he's called to this
day!
Shouldn't you think that the name would
have tamed him?
Puppies should always take care when
they play!

Little Charlie Chipmunk

 Little Charlie Chipmunk
by Helen Cowles LeCron

Little Charlie Chipmunk
was a talker. Mercy me!

He chattered after breakfast and
he chattered after tea!

He chattered to his father and he
chattered to his mother!

He chattered to his sister and he
chattered to his brother!

He chattered till his family was
almost driven wild!

Oh, little Charley Chipmunk was
a very tiresome child!

Heidi's Puzzle

Find the Goat Peter hidden in the mountain pasture.

 

Find the Goat Peter Puzzle
by Helen Hudson

Happy little Heidi
With her flowers fair
Revels in her freedom
And sweet mountain air.

Faithful goat-heard Peter
Now is watching near;
If you search this picture
You will see him - here.

More About Heidi:

• Heidi from "When I Read, I Dream" series
• Swiss Paper Dolls: Heidi and Peter

3 Good Cheers for December!

 

3 Good Cheers!

Three good cheers for old December!
Month of Christmas trees and toys,
Hanging up a million stockings,
For a million girls and boys,
O, dear December, hurry on.
Oh! please---oh, please come quick;
Bring snow so white.
Bring fires so bright,
And bring us good Saint Nick.

Draw Santa Step-by-Step

       Progressive drawings are for beginners. Exercises like these teach more than fun! Young students learn that shapes make up larger drawings or can be found inside of larger drawings. They also learn to take directions, to watch and be patient and to solve problems through a series of smaller steps.

Santa Claus is so round and jolly. Make him a part of a larger drawing so that students may expand their thinking. Encourage them to add more details to their drawings and to color in the spaces as they like!

More Santa Claus Themed Crafts:

• Color a nostalgic portrait of Santa Claus for a Christmas Calendar
• "Santa Claus is coming to town" coloring page 
• Read aloud "Long Ago Christmas" from O'Brien's Pioneer Memories
  

Cut a Christmas Tree Border or Chain

       Download and print out the pattern below. The dotted lines indicate where the image will be folded to continue the tree silhouette seamlessly after it is unfolded. The number of images "linked" together in one continuous chain is determined by the length of the paper being cut. Use a very thin paper to make your cutting easier. Cut away the areas indicated by the design. (see image above and read text on the pattern below. This paper-cut may be used as a border around a Christmas bulletin board in a classroom or as a paper chain for the Christmas tree if you like.

Christmas Tree Chain Pattern

More Christmas Tree Themed Crafts:

• Kids can cut and paste a heart-shaped Christmas Tree
• Make a Popsicle stick Christmas tree ornament 
• Color a Christmas tree for your dolls and paste on the toys for decoration
  

Draw Christmas things using a grid...

        The following illustrated Christmas toys may be duplicated larger, smaller, or the same size by the use of a grid drawing system. Read about Enlarging and Reducing Pictures Here. After learning this method you can use these pictures as patterns for ornaments, artwork or for making a picture with them. Illustrations include: a rocking horse, drum, ball, football, wheelbarrow, Noah's ark, wooden tree, sail boat, candy cone, trumpet, sled, book and lamb on wheels.

• "Mad Cat" Bench for Children uses a grid system to transfer a pattern.
• Swinging Arm Dolls, a Lighthouse stool, a bucking bronco rocker, and a pig shaped stepping-stool all use this grid system for transferring patterns.
• 10 Free Woodcut Patterns for Tree Ornaments uses a grid system for transferring images.

Teaching students to transfer images by drafting a grid and making comparisons
reinforces many math and artistic skills.

Craft Santa's Workshop Game

        Here is a game that you can make and play with your friends. All the materials needed are easy to collect around the house. This is a kind of fishing game and is fun to play on winter evenings.

Directions: 

1. First get a cardboard box about 10x12 inches in size or larger.
2. Turn it upside down and cut 12 little slits in it with a knife. Space out the cuts evenly.
3. Next fasten the paper edge around the top. Cutting it to look like the village roof tops shown in the picture above.
4. You can cover this silhouette using construction paper.
5. Cut out the toys with numbered tags after coloring these. Slip the number side of each toy through the slits in the cardboard box half way leaving the tops sticking out.
6. Attach a paper clip to the tops of each toy.
7. Make the fishing poles using wooden sticks or dowels with string tied to one end only. Attaching a hook or magnet.
8. Additional toys may be made by cutting images from catalogs or Christmas advertisements in the mail.

To Play The Game:

• Each player has to take turns fishing for a toy by either hooking it through the paper clip or by using a magnet to lift the toys from the box slits.
• For every toy retrieved from "Santa's village workshop" that player gets one point.
• If two toys with the same number are pulled up then that player receives two extra points instead of only one.
• The player having the most points after fishing for all the paper toys wins the game.

More Christmas Games to Play:

• Guess the Gifts Puzzle and Fill In The Blanks
• A Puzzling Chimney
• Play Santa's Fortune Teller Puzzle 

Color a Christmas Poem Book

        Trim the Christmas tree below with the illustrated ornaments below after coloring and cutting them out. Use the printable cover for Christmas poems to decorate the front of your book. We have many Christmas poems for students to include inside their book of poetry at our Belsnickle Blog and also our Doll Blog Here.

Students can color the tree green before pasting ornaments on top.

Color, cut and paste these Christmas ornaments on to the pine tree above,
turning it into a Christmas tree! There are so many ornament types here:
angels, bells, birds, stars, candy canes, drums, horns, houses, soldiers and 
snowmen!

Snow Baby Gift Tags

        Below are "snow babies" for students to color as they wish, cut out and paste to their packages this Christmas. Snow babies have a long history in our country. 

• Read more about where they come from and what they are here. 
• See how to craft a traditional snow baby for the Christmas tree on this post.
  

Six snow babies per printable for Christmas gift tags.

Star Templates for Your Classroom

        "Stars, either cut from cardboard and covered with gold or silver paper, or cut from construction paper, and attached to black thread, may be hung in the windows, used on the Christmas tree, or suspended over the sand table showing a Christmas scene."

• Older students can learn to wrap flat Japanese temari for the Christmas tree.
• Read about Froebel Stars and watch a video by Jo Nakashima
• I discovered Scandinavian Star Curl Ornaments at an estate sale...

Star templates in five sizes for the classroom.

On Christmas Day by Dickens

 

On Christmas Day
by Charles Dickens

       Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places around the Christmas fire, where what is sits openhearted. In yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze an enemy's face? By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him!
       On this day, we shut out Nothing! Charles Dickens quote.

Thanksgiving by Anonymous

Thanksgiving

Praise God for wheat, so white and sweet,
Of which to make our bread!
Praise God for yellow corn, with which
His waiting world is fed!
Praise God for fish and flesh and fowl
He gave to men for food!
Praise God for every creature which
He made, and called it good!

Praise God for winter's store of ice!
Praise God for summer's heat!
Praise God for fruit trees, bearing seed;
"To you it is for meat!"
Praise God for all the bouncy
By which the world is fed!
Praise God ye children, all to whom
He gives your daily bread!

Drawing Skills Index

Samples of drawing exercises listed in the index below.

        

       Drawing, the art of representing upon a flat surface the forms of objects and their positions and relations to one another. Drawing is a mode of expression. It is as natural to the child as writing and is used by him long before he learns to write, and in many instances even before he learns to talk. Experienced teachers of drawing claim that were drawing taught with as much care and persistence as language in the primary grades of the public schools, the children would go from these grades as proficient in one mode of expression as in the other.

1. Practice Shading An Owl
2. Ed Emberley's Children's Books 
3. A Terrible, Horrible Cursive Exercise
4. Create Fall Leave Patterns
5. Draw a Scarecrow Emphasizing The Use of Pattern(s)
6. Draw a Shaded White Spider Web
7. Draw a Landscape Using Vincent Van Gogh's Drawing Technique
8. Draw Klimt Figures
9. Drawing Dragons
10. When History Becomes Legend: Catapults and Dragons
11. Draw Mardi Gras Performers
12. Learning to draw birds
13. Learning to draw by use of a grid system

Simple Drawing Exercises for Young Students:

1. Draw bees and clover for St. Patrick's Day
2. How to draw a furry fox
3. How to draw a peacock, an ostrich and a blue jay...
4. How to Draw a Pelican 
5. How to Draw A Cow
6. How to Draw the Head of A Horse
7. How to Draw a Halloween Cat
8. Steps to draw a woodchuck, a weasel, and an opossum... 
9. Draw Santa Step-by-Step 
   

Picture Writing:

• Hieroglyphics or Picture Writing

Drawing Games:

• Five Dots Drawing Game
• A fun drawing game for a crowd

Printable calendar pages for any year...

        Teachers will need to fill in the correct numerical dates for the specific days that will change every year. However, the grid and titles of the days of the week, plus months are already printable on the following calendar pages.

January calendar page.

February calendar page.

March calendar page.

April calendar page.

May calendar page.

June calendar page.

July calendar page.

August calendar page.

September calendar page.

October calendar page.

November calendar page.

December calendar page.

Wrens Learning to Sing

Wren mother teaches her young to sing.

       A wren built her nest in a box, so situated that a family had an opportunity of observing the mother bird instructing the young ones in the art of singing peculiar to the species. She fixed herself on one side of the opening in the box, directly before her young, and began by singing over her whole song very distinctly. One of the young then attempted to imitate her. After proceeding through a few notes, its voice broke, and it lost the tune. The mother immediately recommenced where the young one had failed, and went very distinctly through the remainder. The young bird made a second attempt, commencing where it had ceased before, and continuing the song as long as it was able; and when the note was again lost, the mother began anew where it stopped, and completed it. Then the young one resumed the tune and finished it. This done, the mother sang over the whole series of notes a second time with great precision; and a second of the young attempted to follow her. The wren pursued the same course with this as with the first; and so with the third and fourth. It sometimes happened that the young one would lose the tune three, four, or more times in the same attempt; in which case the mother uniformly began where they ceased, and sung the remaining notes; and when each had completed the trial, she repeated the whole strain. Sometimes two of the young commenced together. The mother observed the same conduct towards them as when one sang alone. This was repeated day after day, and several times in a day.

Apple Math Game for Bulletin Boards

This Apple Math Pattern Illustration is in Creative Commons.

        The Game Rules: Above is a illustration of how teachers might assemble an apple tree on a bulletin board in their classrooms for students to participate in math exercises. One the left is a simple apple shape for cutting from red, green or yellow construction paper. Teachers may post either the answers or problems in advance to the board on her own set of apples. Then students may write out the answers to the apple math game on their own apples and post these on top of the teachers sample problems. For those who get the answers or questions wrong...their apples will fall beneath the tree when the teacher checks their answers.