Scarecrows

My second theme for October to compliment pumpkins (so I wouldn't get pumpkined out) has been Scarecrow.

We have been doing a few things actually over the last 2 or maybe even 3 weeks, but I'm lumping them all together now, just for organization's sake.

First, we learned the following poem:

Die Vogelscheuche

Die Raben rufen, krah krah krah.

Wer steht denn da, wer steht denn da?

Wir furchten uns nicht, wir furchten uns nicht

Vor dir, mit deinem Brillengesicht.

Wir wissen ja ganz genau

du bist nicht Mann, du bist nicht Frau.

Du kannst ja nicht zwei Schritte gehen.

Du bliebst beim Wind und Wetter stehen.

Du bist ja nur ein blosser Stock

Mit Stiefeln, Hosen, Hut, und Rock.

Krah, krah, krah. Krah, krah, krah.

The Scarecrow

The ravens crow, krah, krah, krah

who's standing there, who's standing there

We're not afraid, we're not afriad,

Of you, and your glassesface (you know, like four-eyes)

Yes, we know perfectly well

You aren't a man, you aren't a women

Yes, you can't walk even two steps.

You stay out standing in the wind and weather.

Yes, you are just a stick

With boots, pants, hat, and coat

krah, krah krah. krah krah krah.

And then we made the following crafts to go along with our poem.

Corn (this went along with Christopher Columbus too, since one of the things he brought back from the new world was Mais. And I finally realized I don't NEED a popcorn popper to pop corn, therefore we will probably be eating popcorn more often)

Abigail kept asking for more and more popcorn. I couldn't figure out how she was eating it so fast... until I looked a little closer :) Food Storage - just like her parents.

There is a MUCH better picture of our corn craft later on (at least it is identifiable as corn). I like to let the kids be "creative" and Joshua knows this so sometimes he glues things in "creative" places - as in not where I would put them.

Scarecrows. We didn't have any brads, but I wish we did. That would have been more fun. Instead we just used staples. That's ok too. This is just a color, cut out, and stick together project.

Ravens. I was inspired by these adorable little metal ravens my mother-in-law has on her kitchen windowsill. They were so cute and I figured there has got to be a way to some how recreate that. Mine aren't anywhere as cute as hers, but of course I am not in the habit of bending and painting plates of metal and such. Felt and cardboard, good enough

In case anyone is interested in recreating this craft, this is how I did it. My only word of advice is to think a little bit about the balancing part when you glue on the legs. These crows do much much better if you leave them alone.

All together.

My "better" corn picture. With actual popped corn.

And we experimented with watercolors. Very nice.

Yes, there is a hole in Abby's painting. I think it makes it kind of rustic, you know, scarecrow rustic like.

This was supposed to be our crowning achievement in the scarecrow unit, but I think they look awful. I wanted to make a real one (at least child sized) but realized I didn't really have the resources or the will to go get said resources, so we settled for what you can google as a "mini scarecrow."  After completion of this project I've decided I should have looked at the online photos of the craft for more than 3 seconds because I'm pretty sure when they said "craft sticks" they probably meant ones like tongue depressors and not popsicle sticks. I can imagine these would look much better with bigger sticks.  However, the children really liked collecting "hay" from outside and then holding the finished product while reading our scarecrow books.  This craft is NOT toddler appropriate, but just mostly because I used hot glue most of the time so the children couldn't actually help. When I switched over to Elmer's, it was easy/complicated enough to capture Joshua's attention for a good while, but was way over Abigail's head still. So instead of making her scarecrow herself, I made it for her. But at least she likes to play with it, and that is important too.

And we read some books. I very much like "Feathertop" and I think when the library opens up again I'll have to get the Nathaniel Hawthorne version of the book for myself. It promises to be very thought provoking. Maybe I'll have an intellectual conversation with myself.

Besides that we've been pointing out all the scarecrow decorations we've seen outside, which has been really fun. I really like Fall decorations and it is neat to see what others put up on their front porches.

Scarecrow was a fun unit in as sense. I mean, I think the kids had fun, at it was different than just doing ghosts and witches for Halloween. But it wasn't very educational. So maybe next year we will do Bats and um... something else. I don't have to think about it for another 11 months so maybe I wont. In any case, I am kind of excited for November when we get to learn a little more history and geography, and then December for our unit on Astronomy. You know, applicable things. Especially for a 2 and 4 year old. :)