South Pointe Academy

Recently we did another “Windy” school visit to South Pointe Academy in Tsawwassen. After reading Snowy & Chinook, two kindergarden classes wrote and illustrated their own Windy-inspired story about a trip to the Animal History Museum. Here are some of the amazing animals they made for their story. Can you see which is the elephant, bunny, fish, penguin, leopard and dinosaur?

taking the easy way

I like to do a dedicated windy post once a week, but I need to cheat a little this week and pull some posts from my own notebook to make the Saturday post. I have a lot to get done. This is a roundup of activities from the last month. They were all to varying degrees of success because, to tell you the truth, my son is on strike against hats this week and bits of my home that used to be not sky blue are sky blue. But on the other hand, we've had much more drawing and painting this week and tried some new activities. And the days are getting longer.

rainbow bread

A few months ago Auggie found a video about baking rainbow bread on youtube. It’s a pretty long cooking demonstration — I never would have guessed he would find it so interesting, but he asked for it a few times. So we finally decided to try making it. The recipe in the video requires kneading and uses all the colours of the rainbow. Since we didn’t have the time or patience to do a long recipe, we did a much easier version using less colours and no-knead bread... read more

the easiest pancake

Maybe I will dedicate this pancake to Tulip the Buffalo. Snowy & Chinook already have their favourite recipes for pancakes, but this is such a fantastic recipe and so puffy and simple (and good with berries) that maybe it's perfect for Tulip via endless banquet ... read more

kindergarten hat from pickles

I made this little hat (another one from pickles) from their kindergarten set. The pattern is great and simple and good for using up scraps of yarn... read more

snowy cocoa

Here are two recipes for cocoa from Snowy & Chinook, one with solid chocolate, Melty Chinook Hot Chocolate, and and one with cocoa, Snowy's Cocoa. We like the cocoa for breakfast sometimes. Have it with some healthy breakfast gingerbread and it's perfect for a chilly morning.

Chinook's Scarf (free pattern)

A simple lace scarf for beginners (PDF link). This project is inspired by Chinook’s mauve scarf in Snowy & Chinook and the flower they find in the snow.

This lace stitch used in this scarf, called the four-spot,

Overnight French Toast with Panettone (or without)

Last year, I put in Snowy & Chinook's recipe for pancakes, from Snowy & Chinook.

This year, I'll give you my favourite breakfast recipe. This is my version of Overnight French Toast: French toast you make the night before and then bake in the oven in the morning. This is a very kid-friendly recipe, both preparing and eating.

December giveaway: cards

We are having our December giveaway early, because the prize will be more useful before the winter holidays (although these are useful all year round): a set of our greeting cards. We've just gotten caught up and restocked our cards at buyolympia.

To win a set of our cards, please leave a comment below this post. Please be sure to leave an address so that we can contact you. Let us know in the commments below. Contest ends midnight December 9. This is open to anyone worldwide and there is no fee to enter.

Our cards are 4.75 inches x 4.75 inches and are blank inside. They are offset printed on glossy cardstock and come packaged with a white square envelope. There are 4 cards in our set, Windy, Sunny with his guitar, Snowy and Chinook jumping on the bed and Chinook with a snowball. Each one has a little drawing on the back. (Thank-you to buyolympia for the product photographs.)

Puzzles

We've made some simple block puzzles for you to print and make, one from each book (high quality PDF link).

Simply print these out and cut along the dotted line with scissors. You can also glue your printout to a piece of card or cardboard and cut them out with a craft knife if you would like the puzzles to be a bit more durable.

Tiny Quilts

Sometimes you want to do a craft project, or learn a new skill, but it's daunting to start. Making mini versions is a nice way to get in the game. Also, miniature versions of almost anything are so pleasing. We made Snowy and Chinook's bedding out of some fabric scraps and some felted wool (the mattress is a stack of 2 books and their sheets are paper) — we'll see if we can find a better detail to post.

The purlbee is one of our favourite resources for craft ideas and inspiration. They are currently working on a series of mini quilts. Below is a detail of their February quilt. We think this is a fantastic idea, and it has inspired our post today.



The nice thing about quilting is that the quality of the hand sewing leaves a sort of fingerprint behind. All the imperfections in the sewing make it more special. Allowing the shapes to be wonky, as in crazy quilting, makes it more interesting, rather than less perfect (image is from texasquiltappraiser).

Sunday morning pancakes

While we're on the subject of breakfast, we thought it would be a good time to put up Snowy and Chinook's recipes for pancakes (PDF link).

As we're still finding our feet with blogging, please let us know if you have any trouble accessing the link.