April Goals and Rhythm

Easter! The children (and lucky parent volunteers) learned to paint Pysanka, Ukrainian Eggs. We had a fabulous workshop at school, run by Joan Brander of Baba's Beeswax, who managed to create success, step by step, for all ages gr K through 7!

If you have not followed this blog before these monthly planning pages lay out a general structure for the month, including a theme and seasonal table, a way to wake, a table candle blessing, a couple of projects and a verse for going to sleep. These are goals the follow up varies from great to imperfect but having the plan helps it to happen and helps bring rhythm to our days!

April Festival / Theme
Easter, Spring is in the air.

Seasonal Table
In our handy dandy spring storage case (see post September 29th, 2009) we have all the little Easter trinkets we have made, collected and been gifted over the years. Flower fairies, eggs, chicks, bunnies. Felted, paper, wooden, stitched. We keep palm crosses made for Palm Sunday each year - they dry nicely. We even have blown Easter Eggs made for the past decade; some are whole some are pieces. This year we add our Eggs!

Waking Song
"Little rabbit foo foo, hopping through the forest, picking up the field mice and bopping them on the head" (may not be politically correct but it sure is fun)!
Little Rabbit Foo Foo - from summer camp - an old favorite around here.. we just sing the first few lines then everyone joins in as they wake and goes where it goes.. :-)
Feel free to use comments to request words to look them up on Google.

Breakfast Verse
"Snowdrop snowdrop dressed in green and white, what do you do when teh cold winds blow?
Hide my little heard and say, Cold winds, cold winds, go away."
Seems appropriate as it is colder now in teh Northwest than its been all winter :-) we'll save the 2nd verse for next month and spring weather.

Bedtime Verse
"Star for you to wish on, sun so warm and bright
Moon for you to think on, pleasant dreams, a kiss goodnight."
Author unknown, a friend gave this to us - we draw the pictures, star, moon on the child's tummy as we tuck them in. Our children are getting older but tehy still love these familiar traditions!


April Project 1 - Cascarones
Easter cascarones - a new twist on an old Latin tradition. Little pinata eggs that can be broken for luck over a friends head and contents (confetti) sprinkled for fun - have a dust pan handy :-) For Easter we photocopy and shrink some of our art to glue onto the egg. Instructions will follow in a future post this month - watch for them!

April Project 2 - Ukrainian Eggs
The children did a Pysanka workshop at school and it was fabulous. Instructions will also follow on a future post!

April Project 3 - Easter Bread
We are ambitious this month (and all at the beginning as Easter is pretty quick); but Easter bread is a family tradition! Watch for it!