Autumn Tree

What you need:Autumn Tree
• Canvas
• Painters tape
• Acrylic paint (brown, yellow, red and orange)
• Brush
• Scissors

What you do:
• What you do:
• Take the painter’s tape and create  a tree design with branches by attaching stripes of tape from one end of the canvas to the other. Make sure to rub the tape onto the canvas to really secure so that the paint doesn’t bleed under the tape strips.
• Fill each  shape created by the paint lines with your paint colors.
• Let your painting dry completely  before trying to peel off the tape.
• Once all of the paint is dry, slowly peel away the paint strips. If you need to, touch up any spots with the base color where the paint might have gotten under the tape.
• Display.

T.P.R. Turkey

What you need:
• Toilet Paper Roll
• Glue
• Construction Paper
• Pencil
• Wiggle Eyes
• Scissors

What you do:
• Cover the toilet paper roll with the construction paper. Glue it
Trace your hand on one half of 2 sheets of paper. Fold the paper in half.
• Cut out the handprint through both thicknesses of paper. This will leave you with 4 handprints.
Glue the handprints onto the toilet paper roll.
Using scrap construction paper, cut out a beak and a waddle for your turkey, glue it the roll.
• Glue on a pair of wiggle eyes.
• Your turkey is now done!

Turkey Craft

What you need:
Paper Plate 
• Paint
• Paint Brush
• Construction Paper
• Pen
• Scissors
• Craft Glue
• Wiggle Eyes
What you do:
Paint the back of the paper plate brown.
Trace your hand on one half of 3 or 4 sheets of paper. Fold the paper in half.
• Cut out the handprint through both thicknesses of paper. This will leave you with 6 to 8 handprints. Set them aside.
Trace your foot on a brown piece of construction paper.
•  Cut out the footprint. Set it aside.
Using scrap construction paper, cut out a beak and a waddle for your turkey. Set these aside.
Glue the handprints onto the unpainted side of the paper plate, poking up over the top edge.Your fingers will look like the turkey’s feathers.
Glue your footprint/shoe print toe side down onto the front, center of the painted plate.
• Glue on the beak and waddle that you cut out.
• Glue on a pair of wiggle eyes.
• Your turkey is now done!

Leafy Creature

What You Need:
Preserved leaves
• Construction paper
• Water-based glue

What You Do:
• When the leaves are dry begin arranging the leaves on construction paper. Think about different animals and try to create their shapes. Tear off leaf pieces to make eyes or other small features.
• When you’re happy with a leafy creature, glue the leaves to the paper.

Leaf Prints

What you need:
Leaves
• Sketch paper or construction paper
• Acrylic paint
• Paint brushes

What you do:
• Collect leaves of various shapes and sizes.
• Cover your work area with a mat or with newspapers. Prepare different colors of paint on your palette.
• Position a leaf with its under-side facing up and paint on its entire surface.
• Press the painted leaf onto sketch paper or construction paper.
• Remove the leaf to reveal a beautiful leaf print.
• Repeat the process using different colors and other leaf shapes.
• Repeat the process using different colors and other leaf shapes.
• Make overlapping leaf prints to create a colorful leaf collage.

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Fall Button Branch

What you need:
• canvas
• branch
• buttons
• glue

What you do:
1. Glue your branch onto your canvas. I put a very heavy book on top of the branch while it dried to keep it flat to the canvas.
2. Once the branch is glued and dried, start gluing your beautiful buttons on the smaller branches to look like leaves on a tree. Allow to dry.
3. You’re going to want to display this beautiful masterpiece!

Pumpkin Lantern

What you need:
• 8.5×11 orange construction paper
• string or ribbon
• a hole puncher
• a sticker or tape

What you do:
• Cut your construction paper into strips that are equal in length and width.
• Stack the papers and punch holes through the top and bottom of each strip.
• String the strips on your piece of string or ribbon. Seal the string with a piece of tape or sticker.
• String through the top holes.
• Pull the string tight until the paper bows out. Tie off the top (make sort of a bow/messy knot. It just needs to be big enough that the string doesn’t go back through the paper).
• Fan out the strips until you have created a sphere shape.
• Hang your pumpkin.

Statue of Liberty

On July 4, 1884 France presented the United States with an incredible birthday gift: the Statue of Liberty! Without its pedestal it’s as tall as a 15-story building. She represents the United States. But the world-famous Statue of Liberty standing in New York Harbor was built in France. The statue was presented to the U.S., taken apart, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in crates, and rebuilt in the U.S. It was France’s gift to the American people.
It all started at dinner one night near Paris in 1865. A group of Frenchmen were discussing their dictator-like emperor and the democratic government of the U.S. They decided to build a monument to American freedom—and perhaps even strengthen French demands for democracy in their own country. At that dinner was the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (bar-TOLE-dee). He imagined a statue of a woman holding a torch burning with the light of freedom.
The Statue of Liberty, known officially as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and funded completely through donations from the French people.
After Bartholdi finalized the design in miniature, the statue itself was created using wooden molds, a copper shell, and an iron structure designed by Gustave Eiffel, who later built the Eiffel Tower.
On July 4, 1884, the 151-foot-tall, 225-ton Statue of Liberty was delivered to the American Ambassador in Paris. In order to transport Lady Liberty to New York, the statue was dismantled into 300 pieces and packed into 214 wooden crates.
Unfortunately, a lack of funds in the United States delayed the building of the pedestal. Fund-raising efforts stalled until Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of “The World” newspaper and noted for the Pulitzer Prize, decided to use his newspaper to push Americans to donate. The Statue was finally re-assembled on her new pedestal and dedicated on October 28, 1886.
The Statue of Liberty celebrates her birthday on October 28th in honor of the day she was officially accepted by the president of the United States in 1886.
Fast Facts
• Engineer Gustave Eiffel, who would later design the Eiffel Tower in Paris, designed Liberty’s “spine.” Inside the statue four huge iron columns support a metal framework that holds the thin copper skin.
• Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi knew he wanted to build a giant copper goddess; he used his mother as the model.
• The statue—151 feet, 1 inch (46 meters, 2.5 centimeters) tall—was the tallest structure in the U.S. at that time.
• The arm holding the torch measures 46 feet (14 meters); the index finger, 8 feet (2.4 meters); the nose, nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters).
• The statue is covered in 300 sheets of coin-thin copper. They were hammered into different shapes and riveted together.
•The statue sways 3 inches (7.62 centimeters) in the wind; the torch sways 5 inches (12.7 centimeters).
• Visitors climb 354 steps (22 stories) to look out from 25 windows in the crown.
• Seven rays in the crown represent the Earth’s seven seas and seven continents.

Tree Sculpture

What you need:
Play dough
• Plate
• Small Branches
• Stones

What you do:
• Put some playdough on the plate.
• Poke branches into the playdough.
• Add small pieces of red, yellow, and orange playdough to make leaves.
• Add some stones around the base of your tree.
• Find the perfect spot to display your work!

Air Freshener

What you need:
• 2 cups water
• 4 packages Gelatin (plain)
• 15 to 20 drops Essential Oil (adjust to personal preference)
• 1 to 2 TBS salt
• Food Coloring

What you do:
• In a small pot, mix 1 cup water, essential oil and food coloring. As soon as it starts to boil, remove from heat.
• Completely dissolve gelatin and salt in the hot water then add the other cup of water (cold) stir well (gently so it doesn’t foam).
• Pour into jars and set aside for a couple days before using so the gelatin has a chance to completely set (you can refrigerate to speed up the process).
• Once cooled, cover with lids that have a few holes punched in them to allow fragrance to escape.

The salt in this recipe is used to help combat mold, please make sure to add it.

Bat

What you need:
• TP roll
• Black  tempera paint
• White tempera paint
• Black construction paper
• Scissors
• All purpose glue

What you do:
• Paint the TP roll black . Let it dry.
• Cut out triangles for the bat ears from the black construction paper and glue those onto the top of the roll.
• Make two white handprints on the black construction paper creating wings.
• Cut the wings out. Glue them to the side of the TP roll.
• Paint the bats eyes.

Columbus Day

Columbus Day, which is annually on the second Monday of October, remembers Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas on October 12, 1492.
One of the first known celebrations marking the discovery of the “New World” by Christopher Columbus was in 1792, when a ceremony organized by the Colombian Order was held in New York City honoring Christopher Columbus and the 300th anniversary of his landing in the Bahamas. Then, on October 12, 1866 the Italian population of New York organized the first celebration of the discovery of America. Three years later, in 1869 Italians in San Francisco celebrated October 12 calling it C-Day.
To mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison made a commemorative proclamation. But it was Colorado, in 1905, that became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Since 1920 the day has been celebrated annually, and in 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 as Columbus Day. That’s where it remained until 1971 when Congress declared it a federal public holiday on the second Monday in October.
Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1505)
A child of poor wool tradesman from Genoa, Italy, Christopher’s childhood dream was to live on sea. When he was 23 he took part in a big sea voyage – in the Mediterranean; two years later he saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. He settled in Portugal and became a merchant sailor in the Portuguese fleet. His most significant voyage was to Iceland through Ireland.
Between 1477 and 1482 Columbus made merchant voyages as far away as Iceland and Guinea. But in 1484, his “Enterprise of the Indies” idea fell on deaf ears when he presented it to King John of Portugal. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Spain, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella became more interested in his adventuresome ideas.
To the New World
On August 2, 1492, Columbus set sail in search of the East Indies. The voyage was financed by Ferdinand and Isabella by making the city of Palos pay back a debt to the crown by providing two of the ships, and by getting Italian financial backing for part of the expenses. The crown had to put up very little money from the treasury.
Columbus and 90 crewmen boarded the three ships that were to make the first voyage to the New World, the Niña, Pinta, and the flagship, Santa Maria. On October 12, 1492, Columbus first saw the islands of the new world, landing in the Bahamas. Later in the month, he would sail to Cuba, and to Hispaniola (now Haiti). He thought he had reached the East Indies, the islands off Southeast Asia.
What was not realized by Columbus, was just how big a globe it was. Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the planet.
Seaworthy Cuisine
The menu for Spanish seamen consisted of water, vinegar, wine, olive oil, molasses, cheese, honey, raisins, rice, garlic, almonds, sea biscuits, dry legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, beans, salted and barreled sardines, anchovies, dry salt cod and pickled or salted meats (beef and pork), salted flour.
Food, mostly boiled, was served in a large communal wooden bowl. It consisted of poorly cooked meat with bones in it, the sailors attacking it with fervor, picking it with their fingers as they had no forks or spoons. The larger pieces of meat were cut with the knife each sailor carried. Fish was eaten most often. On calm days, the crew would fish and then cook their catch.
Return to Spain and Additional Voyages
On Christmas Day, 1492, the Santa Maria sank off Hispaniola. Columbus departed for Spain on January 16, 1493 on the Niña, arriving there on March 4.
Columbus made three additional voyages to the New World. The second voyage set sail in September, 1493, with 17 ships. During his expeditions, he helped to colonize Hispaniola, and discovered the South American mainland. He did not, however, see mainland North America during any of his voyages.
He returned to Spain for the last time on November 7, 1504. He died at Valladolid, Spain on May 20, 1506, at the age of 55.
Even though Columbus will always be “the Discoverer of America” to most people, nowadays more and more scientists support the thesis that the first European to reach the New World was in fact Leifur Eriksson who went from Iceland to North America in 11th century.