Thrifty Scissors

Friday, July 28, 2017

Halloween or All Hollows Eve Index

Pictures of artifacts in my collection below, for All Hollows Eve.

Halloween is on the evening of October 31. Though the occasion is usually given over to frolics, mischief and entertainments of an hilarious nature, the name means, literally, Holy Eve. In fact, October 31rst is the eve of the Church festival of All Saints, which occurs on November 1rst. Long ago pagan people celebrated All Saint's Day in honor of the good and evil spirits which were believed to inhabit the earth, and the frolicking of today is merely a survival of these superstitious customs.
Children of the St. Louis, Missouri area are expected to perform a joke, usually a simple Halloween-themed pun or riddle, before receiving any candy; this "trick" earns the "treat". Sometimes children also perform a magic trick, recite a short poem or perform a simple tumbling trick, like a cartwheel, in order to receive their candy. Parents also normally accompany their children and most are in costume as well. Because I live in St. Louis, I've included listings of jokes and poems below.

Click to download the largest available size.
On high she flies up through the skies, and
across the Milky Way. To find out who she is
just do as these directions say: cut out each
of the little pieces and paste them onto a
stiff sheet of paper to solve the puzzle.
This is a classic Halloween character.
Halloween Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans: St. Louis Style

5 Simple Halloween Crafts: Templates Included - Make a pom-pom puppet spider, recycled paper ghosts, a batty candy holder, a ghost outside a window, and a shredded paper pumpkin craft.
Just Admiring the Giant, Halloween, Yard Art on A Lovely Fall Day...
Tear and paste a candy corn picture for preschool...- help develop small motor skills in preschool through kindergarten students with this project.
Halloween Party Favor Ideas for The Classroom
A jack-o-lantern maze
A Safe Place for Trick-or-Treaters to Party
Craft a Ruote Pasta Web
A Jack-O-Lantern Dot-To-Dot
The Haunted Palace
How to Draw a Halloween Cat
Feelings Faces Game for Halloween
Pumpkin and Jack-O-Lantern Number Books
100 Spooky Crafts & Treats For Halloween
"Spooky" Tree Watercolor Painting
Paint, Cut and Paste Your Own Bumpy Little Pumpkins
Scrumdiddlyumptious Apple and Quince Treats and Recipes!
How Halloween Came to Be Celebrated in Christendom
Hallowe'en in Olden Time
Craft an Edible Jack-O-Lantern Bingo Game
Draw a Shaded White Spider Web
Corpse Bride
The Story of "Stingy Jack"
Arsenic and Old Lace
Costumes Worn On Halloween
Improvised Masquerade Costumes
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Draw a Design From a Spider's Web
Craft an Animated Skeleton
Old-Fashioned Halloween Silhouettes
How to Make "Pumpkin Spice" or "Pumpkin Pie" Playdough
Bake a Fortune Cake
"The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" - a family Halloween movie favorite!
Around The Apple Tub
Over 100 Riddles for Trick-Or-Treaters
"The Raven," by Edgar Allen Poe
How to make caramel apples, yum!
Knock, Knock Links
Shape a Draped Ghost for All Hallows Eve!
Hallowe'en by John Kendrick Bangs
Lessons: Pumpkin Soup
Paper Cuts for Halloween of Black Cats
Halloween Mask Silhouettes
Old-Fashioned Lantern Silhouettes - comes with lantern templates by kathy grimm
Weave a Spider's web for a Spooky Fall Craft - made with yarn and wooden tongue depressors
How kids can quill a jack-o-lantern picture
Halloween Window Decorations
Halloween Silhouettes for The Classroom
Halloween Lantern Designs for The Classroom
Classroom paper cuts of black cats...

Halloween Poems:

October Wood - ''Have you ever seen the glories of a dark October wood?''
The Puzzling Pumpkin - ''This is the way the pumpkin looked, Jolly fellow, round and yellow!''
Halloween Signs - "Have you ever seen, upon happy Halloween how brightly the stars do shine?''
The Unbeliever... - I don't believe in ghosts, you know.''
My Choice - "Old Halloween's the day I like"
Is It? - ''Is that the wind a-howling round about my window pane?''
Halloween Cats - Black cats, of season Halloween, you are the queerest I have seen.''
The Interrupting Owlet - ''When mother owl and father owl are talking busily,''
The Tale of The Jack-O-Lantern - ''A Jack-o'-Lantern played some pranks one moonlit Hallowe'en"

Ocean and Seashore Index

Pictures of artifacts in index below.

The ocean or sea is the vast body of water which covers nearly three-fourths of the surface of the globe. Although no portion of it is completely detached from the rest, the ocean has been theoretically divided into several great basins or areas, namely, the Pacific Ocean, which separates Asia and Australia from America; the Atlantic Ocean which separates America from Europe and Africa; the Indian Ocean, which intervenes between Africa and Australia; the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, round the North and South poles respectively. Between these divisions no very definite limits can be drawn; thus it is impossible to say where the Atlantic or the Pacific ends and the Antarctic or Southern Ocean begins.

Search the Ocean Life Coloring Index at Crayon Palace

Ocean and Seashore Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans:

More Ideas For The Study of The Sea:

Page last updated on February 12, 2022

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Children's Poetry & Prose Index

Many of the poems and prose in my index come with illustrated prints.

Poetry, one of the two greatest classes of literary production, the other being prose. According to the usual meaning of the term, poetry is rhythmical, imaginative language which appeals to the emotions and the artistic sense. As we think casually of the question, we take for granted that prose was the earlier form of literature. Moliere in one of his comedies shows the surprise of an old man who discovers that he has been, all his life, "talking prose without knowing it;" but most of us are conscious that we "talk prose," and we see nothing wonderful about it. Prose is so much simpler and more natural than poetry, we think, and surely the early nations must have had a well-developed prose literature before they ventured to attempt poetry?
Although nearly every category included under this blog lists poetry according to theme, the illustrated children's poetry is linked altogether here.

Hieroglyphics Artifacts:

Hieroglyphics or Picture Writing" The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear

Illustrated Children's Poetry Artifacts for Enhancing Lesson Plans:

More Excellent Poetry Resource for Kids:

Apple Index

Sample pictures from the Apple Index below.

Apple, a fruit that many authorities consider the most valuable of any cultivated by mankind. It is by far the most generally cultivated of any grown in the temperate regions, and it is also one of the most appreciated. The person who does not enjoy eating apples is a rarity. The tree which bears this popular fruit belongs to the rose family. It can be grown in Norway and other countries as far north as 65 degrees north. The blossoms are very susceptible to injury from frost, but they appear mush later then peach or apricot blossoms and so avoid the late frost which would be fatal to fruit bearing. Apple trees reach a moderate height and have spreading branches. The leaves are nearly oval, and the pinkish-white flowers are produced from very short shoots or spurs, which are usually of two years' growth.

Apple Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans:

DIY Apple Card Games for Early Learners - It's time for apple season and the fun games and activities teachers share in the classroom.
"Apple of My Eye" Valentines - Apple themes for Valentine's Day Fun!
Print and Play An Apple Themed Color Sort Game - Young children can learn their colors: yellow, green and red by sorting apples.
Stringing Beads at The Early Leaning Center - Start preschool small motor coordination by stringing beads.
Scrumdiddlyumtious Apple Quince Treats and Recipes! - Moms and Dads can bake apple recipes in the kitchen with their kids to celebrate Fall.
"A" was once a counting apple pie too! - Kids can craft an apple pie pocket and insert paper apples while counting them.
Craft a Half-Eaten Home! - fun with cotton balls, pom-poms and paper plates
All 'descendants' of Johnny Appleseed - How to make dolls from dried, carved apples.
Links to More Than 100 Apple Crafts!
Craft an Apple Lacing Card from A Paper Plate - make your own lacing, paper plates for little students
String a Wormy Apple Craft - A fun craft to develop small motor skills and well, eating to be honest.
"Oats and Wild Apples," by Frank Asch - Preschool through 2nd graders will love this book for Fall.
"Ten Red Apples," by Pat Hutchins - counting book for kindergarten
Johnny Appleseed Praise and Worship - old-fashioned theme for Fall
Who was Johnny Appleseed? - Do you know Johnny Appleseed was a real person? He was also a missionary...
The "Act" of Tearing Develops Small Muscles - tearing idea along with pattern links
Around The Apple Tub - people and animals still play this game?
Old Apple Recipes - recipes over 100 years ago
Template of Apples On A Branch - free, drawn pattern for teachers and students
Apple Math Game for Bulletin Boards - explanation and template
Cut, color and assemble sweet Adam and Annie Apple paper dolls... - These paper dolls come with free patterns.

Apple Themed Poems:

A Summer Snowstorm! ". . . all our pretty orchard grass, is hidden out of sight.''
Little Apple Rhymes and Poems - '' I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree...''
The Apple Rhyme - "In my garden grows a tree''
The Planting Of The Apple Tree - ''Come, let us plant the apple-tree!"
Apple Time - multiple short rhymes
At Apple-Pickin' Time - ''When a frosty carpet sparkles in the hollow...''
The Cider Mill - I can hear your music still, creaking, creaking...''

Kindergarten & Preschool Index

Sample pictures of artifacts listed below.

Kindergarten, a word meaning child garden, is applied to a special kind of school for small children. The first kindergarten was established by Friederich Frobel in 1840, and schools modeled on his are now common in both European countries and American States. Interest in the education of young children is not of recent origin, however, the vivid interest of child life and the responsive quality of childhood has always made their training possess much possibility among many nations of the earth. The Greeks, for example, planned for definite care of children under seven and their Roman predecessors invented methods of instruction which should tempt any little beginners into paths of learning. After the establishment of Church schools throughout Christendom, children became proficient in even wider studies early in life.

Teaching Aids and Centers:

Kindergarten Crafts:

Poems About School:

Off To School

Stories For Kindergarten Lessons:

More Articles About Early Learning from Art Education Daily:

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

DIY Apple Card Games for Early Learners

Alphabet Apple Cards made from die cuts.

The alphabet apple cards, just right, are made from die cut apples and precut alphabet letters.

Alphabet Apple Card Questions:

Spell out simple sight words like: GO, MY, ME, AT, TO, BE, NO, YES
Put the alphabet cards in order and recite the letters out loud.
Find a specific letter or remove a specific letter.
Identify the vowel letters?
Which letter is at the beginning of your name?
Pick out a letter and make it's sound.
How many letters are in the alphabet? Count them to find out.

The Seriation Apple Cards: are cut from red construction paper and shaded with crayons or colored pencils. Young students can line these apples up, starting with the smallest apple and ending with the largest, or vice versa.

For wild animal seriation designs click here

Homemade Seriation Apple Cards.

The Whole & Half Apple Card Set: For this next apple card set, cut four of each design: four cut apples of yellow, lime green, dark green and bright red and then four uncut apples of yellow, lime green, dark green and bright red. There should be thirty-two cards altogether.

Questions for this card game:

Match the pairs, each pair should share the same color and include one cut half apple and one whole apple
Display four apples, three alike and one different. Which apple doesn't belong?
Display five or six cards and ask the child to identify specific colors, specific cut halves, or whole apples.
Spread out all the cards face up and ask the child to make a book, four matching cards exactly alike.
Spread all the cards face down in the pattern of a grid and have the children take turns turning two cards face up. If the two cards each player turns face up match they can take the matching pair and put it into their own personal stack. If the two cards do not match, the player must return them face down to the grid. The player with the most pairs by the end of the game wins. Players must turn cards over until none are left in the grid.

Pictures of the Whole & Half Apple Card set. Far left, Match the pairs., Next, count the red apples.,
Center, make a book., Far Right, Which apple doesn't belong.

More Apple Games:

Counting Monsters for Fun!

Moms and Dads, teachers and tutors, babysitters and grandparents can make all kinds of fun flash cards using free fonts and bright, imaginative cut-outs from their local teacher's store.

I picked up these funny monster die cuts to enhance the set of number flash cards you see below. This set was on a discount table and they only cost me fifty cents.

Then I visited a free font website and downloaded a little monster font to print number flash cards. I embellished the cards with green construction paper and the monster die cuts before laminating the finished flash cards.

My young students enjoyed counting the critters! They were able to check themselves for the correct miniature monster count by turning over the card to read the numerical symbols.

Left, I made counting cards using a free monster font. Then I dressed these
up with monster die cuts. Right, the correct number of tiny monsters found
on each card was then labeled on the back of each card.

More Homemade Flash Cards to Craft:

How to arrange objects according to size?

Animal stacking blocks for
developing seriation skills.

Arranging objects or pictures according to size is important for cognitive development. This process is referred to as seriation skill in the early learning classroom environment. There are a number of advantages for learners who excel at this skill:

Students are better prepared for learning mathematics such as: the order of numbers, fractions, addition and subtraction.
Processes in logical thinking become developed, such as: predicting outcomes, understanding relationships between objects, and making assumptions that can be analyzed.

Toy companies have been making products for babies for years that encourage even infants to practice seriation skill sets. I've included photos here of an animal box set that I keep among the toys in my home.

My alphabet, animal stacking blocks are stacked according to size.

These elephants with big tusks and long trunks were fun for little ones to arrange from large, to larger, to largest etc...

Above and below are black and white prints of elephants and rhinos of varying size that I printed, cut and laminated for my classroom several years of ago and these are still in great condition. The laminated surfaces allowed me to wipe them off with a cleanser of some sort before using them over again during many different class periods. Pre-k teachers can make multiple sets of images such as these for youngsters to line up in order of size with only a bit of pocket change.

Students practiced arranging rhinos according to size in my classroom several years ago.

Below are wild animal clip art samples that visitors may use to make their own personal sets like the projects shown above. Pull the clip art into a Word Document and shrink or enlarge the beasts in order to have prints like the ones you see in my examples. I managed to print six different sizes using standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch typing paper. Start with the largest size and then scale the images down by dragging the corners of each image down to a slightly smaller version of the same image.

A tufted ape clip art image.

A giant sea turtle clip art image.

A striped zebra clip art image.

"A preschool student stacks cups to organize them by size. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children's mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments."

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Paper Cuts of Children With a Pony

A girl and a boy lead a pony through a pasture.

A boy balances on a chair, a pony nips and pulls away.

A boy rides a pony and a girl greets him.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

The Train by C. H. Crandall

The Train

by C. H. Crandall

Hark!

It comes!

It hums!

With ear to ground

I catch the sound,

The warning courier-roar

That runs along before.

The pulsing, struggling, now is clearer!

The hillsides echo "nearer, nearer,"

Till like a drove of rushing, trampling

cattle,

With dust and wind and clang and

Shriek and rattle,

Passes the cyclops of the train!

I see a fair face at the pane,--

Like a piano string

The rails, unburdened, sing;

The white smoke flies

Up to the skies;

The sound

Is drowned--

Hark!

The Woodpecker

The Woodpecker

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole

And made him a house in the telephone pole.

One day when I watched he poked out his head,

And he had on a hood and a collar of red.

When the streams of rain pour out of the sky,

And the sparkles of lightning go flashing by,

And the big, big wheels of thunder roll

He can snuggle back in the telephone pole.

Woodpecker feeds here babies, well one of them anyhow.

The Sea Gull by Mary Howitt

The Sea Gull

by Mary Howitt

Oh, the white Sea-gull, the wild Sea-gull,

A joyful bird is he,

As he lies like a cradled thing at rest

In the arms of a sunny sea!

The little waves rock to and fro,

And the white gull lies asleep,

As the fisher's bark, with breeze and tide,

Goes merrily over the deep!

The ship, with her fair sails set, goes by,

And her people stand to note

How the Sea-gull sits on the rocking waves,

As if in an anchored boat.

The sea is fresh, the sea is fair,

And the sky calm overhead,

And the Sea-gull lies on the deep, deep sea.

Like a king in his royal bed.

The Caterpillar

The Caterpillar

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Brown and furry

Caterpillar in a hurry;

Take your walk

To the shady leaf, or stalk.

May no toad spy you,

May the little birds pass by you;

Spin and die,

To live again a butterfly.

This beautiful child has learned her caterpillar poem!

The Plains' Call...

The Plains' Call

by Arthur Chapman

I must ride out on the plains again,

With a horse 'twixt knee and knee,

Where the wolves howl and the winds growl,

And the clouds drift fast o'er me;

I must ride out on the plains once more,

On the Westland's broad and level floor.

I must ride forth on the plains at morn,

Where the cactus flowers are,

And the lark calls, and the white walls

Of the mountain loom afar;

I must ride out, when breaks the day--

Ride where the gods of outdoors play.

I must ride out on the plains at night,

And smell the dew wet sage,

When the moon glows, and the late snows

Gleam like a book's white page;

I must ride out on the plains again,

And quit this haunt of pygmy men.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Rain In Summer

Rain In Summer

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs

Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

This is absolutely adorable!
A baby girl and her father in the rain.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

When Winter Comes

Two squirrels gather nuts beneath a large oak in the forest.

When Winter Comes

by G. H. L.

When winter comes, the squirrels find

Some shelter from the winds unkind;

Some hollow tree where nuts they store,

Enough to last 'till winter's o'er;

There, safe from harm, they build their nest

And settle down to take a rest,

Their larder full of nuts and wheat,

All that they do is sleep and eat;

When winter comes, Ah me! I find

Some thoughtless ones of humankind,

Who never build a cozy nest,

Prepare for time to take a rest;

Who when they strong north wind blows cold

Are friendless, helpless, hungry-old.

The Snow-Bird

Snowy pine or fir trees and a squirrel eating nuts.

The Snow-Bird

by Williams Cullen Bryant

The snow-bird twittered on the beachen bough,

And 'neath the hemlock whose thick branches bent

Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry.

A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves,

The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow

The rabbit spring away. The lighter Track

Of fox, and the raccoon's broad paths were there,

Crossing each other. From his hollow tree

The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts

Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway

Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold

This version was shortened and illustrated for school children. Read the original in it's entirety at the poetry foundation.

Paper cuts of sports and social occasions...

The following paper cuts depict everyday life during Jane Austen's era Ladies and gentlemen are dressed in Empire waist gowns and top hats with canes.

People play croquet, a lawn game using wickets, mallets and a wooden ball.

Gentlemen in the field for a hunt with their sporting dogs and rifles.

Ladies and gentlemen greeting one another with a curtsy and bow.

Two lovers sit on a park bench kissing while another vignette shows a mother with children approaching a column in a park setting.

Don't Belittle Little Things

Picture includes a puppy, bee, garden, flowers, cloudy day etc...

"Don't Belittle, Little Things"

A pup on a lark with a joyous bark,

In the clover was fanciful free.

He scampered amuck; stopped very abrupt,

When he chanced on a big bumblebee.

Now the bee looked up at the lazy pup,

The pup thereupon showed his teeth;

"I've got teeth too," said the bumblebee,

"Tho' I may be little and hard to see."

So he stung the pup with an angry buzz;

Now the pup's not so cocky as he used to wuz.

Old-fashioned figures in profile...

Below are old-fashioned silhouettes (paper cuts) of ladies and gentlemen from the Victorian era.

The greeting.

In mourning.

The argument.

A Wise Old Owl

Picture of an owl sitting on an oak tree limb with a moon and night sky behind him.

A Wise Old Owl

by Le Roy Newark

A wise old owl

Lived in an oak,

The more he saw

The less he spoke,

The less he spoke

The more he heard;

Why can't we be

Like that old bird?

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Polish Gwaizdy Paper Templates

Here are some paper stars from old Poland, these designs may be used for personal crafts. Visit few other web sites for now to see how they were cut. (links for folding below)

More Gwiazdy Paper Cutting:

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