Thrifty Scissors

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Lincoln

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Lincoln by Nancy Byrd Turner

There was a boy of other days,

A quiet, awkward, earnest lad,

Who trudged long weary miles to get

A book on which his heart was set--

And then no candle had!

He was too poor to buy a lamp

But very wise in woodmen's ways.

He gathered seasoned bough and stem,

And crisping leaf, and kindled them

Into a ruddy blaze.

Then as he lay full length and read,

The firelight flickered on his face,

And etched his shadow on the gloom,

And made a picture in the room,

In that most humble place.

The hard years came, the hard years went,

But, gentle, brave, and strong of will,

He met them all. And when today

We see his pictured face we say,

"There's light upon it still."

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Paper Cutting & Silhouette Index

Examples of cut silhouette designs in paper from the collection below.

Papercutting is the art of cutting paper designs. The art has evolved uniquely all over the world to adopt to different cultural styles. Read more...

More Articles About The Art of Silhouetting:

Silhouette Artist Videos:

Paper Cut Artifacts to Illustrate Poems:

Patterns of Paper Cuts: Additional Motifs:

Insects or Bugs Index

Samples of insect artifacts in my collection below.

Is an insect useful or beautiful? No one could answer questions like these simply by saying "yes" or "no," because the class to which the name insects is applied includes thousands of different species and uncounted millions of individuals, of many degrees of usefulness, beauty and harmfulness. There is no other class in the animal kingdom, on land or in the sea which claims so many members as the class Insecta, as scientists designate it.

The Insect Coloring Pages from Crayon Palace

Insect Artifacts for Enhancing Lesson Plans:

Insect Artifacts from Easter Egg Crafts:

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Saint Valentine's Day Index

Examples of Valentine Activities in my collection below.

A saint of the Roman calendar, said to have been martyred in A.D. 306. The custom of choosing valentines on his day (February 14th) has been accidentally associated with his name. On the eve of Saint Valentine's day, young people of both genders used to meet, and each of the men drew from a number of names of the opposite sex. Each gentleman thus got a lady for his valentine, and he became the valentine of a lady, to whom he was bound to be faithful for a year. A similar custom prevailed in the Roman Luperealia, to which the modern custom has with probability, been traced. The day now celebrated by sending through the post, sentimental or ludicrous missives, specially prepared for the purpose.

Valentine Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans:

Friday, July 28, 2017

Halloween or All Hollows Eve Index

Pictures of artifacts in my collection below.

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.

Halloween Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans: St. Louis Style

Halloween Poems:

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:

Apple Themed Poems:

A Summer Snowstorm!
Little Apple Rhymes and Poems - several poems
The Apple Rhyme
The Planting Of The Apple Tree
Apple Time - multiple short rhymes
At Apple-Pickin' Time
The Cider Mill

More Fun Apple Crafts:

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."

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