Remembering Tasha Tudor

Happy Birthday, Tasha Tudor.

Visit Clarice to see how folks all over are remembering this remarkable woman.

I asked the kids what they thought would be fun to do for her birthday! They recognized how important flowers and animals were to Tasha, in her books, and in her everyday life.

It was also very evident that she was someone who loved the outdoors.
So, following is our day we spent to remember Tasha Tudor.

We certainly wanted to spend a lot of time outside today, so we began the day gathering wildflowers out in the back fields.
These pictures remind be of the beautiful pictures Tasha painted of children doing seemingly regular things. (I just wish we had the Victorian clothing to wear as we were enjoying this special day.)

After gathering our flowers, Amy, Laura, and Danny prepared a wonderful picnic lunch that was enjoyed out under a maple tree.

This does NOT happen very often around here, so it was a great treat for all the kids.
It was so easy though, that maybe it should become a regular occurrence.

After our picnic, I made Tasha Tudor's Daddy's Brownies. These are delicious! I didn't know how they would come out because they didn't have a rising agent, but they were yummy, albeit, flat.

We arranged our wildflowers and began a very festive tea party. (Tasha Tudor loved her tea, we had apple juice.)

Thank you, Grandma, for loaning us a teapot and cups. Kim was puzzled by the fine art of tea drinking. She asked for a straw! Tasha also loved dolls and toys. Notice who Gracie shared tea with.
I am a little embarrassed to admit, this was our first tea party, ever.
Gracie said as we were picking flowers this morning, "Wouldn't it be great is it was Tasha Tudor's birthday everyday!!"

Yes, Grace, it sure would!

Happy Birthday, Tasha!!

Come and join the celebration!

Author Fiesta- Around the Year

Cay has planned out this months great Author Fiesta-Tasha Tudor. We have been enjoying many of her books and illustrations.

One of the books that we have been enjoying is Around the Year. The pictures take us through the year with simplicity and beauty.

Gracie is in first grade this year, and although she can sing the months of the year, this book provided us a wonderful opportunity to carefully "say" each month and then look at its spelling and begin to learn to read the words. We also discussed how the year is a cycle that goes "around and around". I printed out the months and we "read" them and matched them to the pages of the book. Then on her own, Grace formed the months into a wonderful circle, showing the cycle Around the Year.

Author Fiesta-Tasha Tudor-Christmas Cookies

This month's author, Tasha Tudor, greatly enjoyed Christmas as seen in many of her books. The joy she found in Christmas is also very evident in the biographical video, Take Peace-A Corgi Cottage Christmas.

Her Christmas themed books always show the many old fashioned traditions that she enjoyed as a child and, later, with her own children.

One tradition that is portrayed in all her Christmas books is making Christmas cookies.

So what better activity for a hot summer day. Make Christmas cookies, listen to Christmas carols, and read aloud Tasha Tudor's Christmas books.
(The themometer is misleading, the predicted high today is only 85 degrees, this thermometer is in the direct sun-bt I liked the picture)

I decided that it would be fun for the kids to paint the cookies today. We make "paint" by using egg yolk and Wilton frosting food coloring. It makes very bright colors.


Everyone got busy stirring--my kids seem to love stirring.
Becky made the dough last night. This saved a lot of time and frustration for the morning activity. Mark and Grace cut out a few cookies, but then Becky took over and finished up the rest. We just handed out new cookies when the littles finished with the one they were working on.
"painting" busily
I guess you need to always be armed when you are making Christmas cookies in August.
Luke did a great job!

We paint them and then sprinkle with sugar.
a gingerbread man
ready for the oven
Mark make "Corgi Cottage" from Lincoln Logs for our lovely display.
Yummy! Yummy!

Author Fiesta-Tasha Tudor-Corgis

We have been really enjoying this month's Author Fiesta

author Tasha Tudor.

We have noticed that in many of her books, and in her "real" life, she just loved Pembroke Welsh Corgi dogs. So these dogs are what we learned about today.We had a lot of fun discovering interesting information about this breed of dogs thanks to the research form that Cay has included on her Author Fiesta site.

The kids learned about the history of corgis. Our favorite legend concerning these dogs is that they we given as puppies to two children by the fairy folk.

I also found a coloring page for the kids to color and put into our Author Fiesta binder.

Tasha Tudor also wrote three books with corgis as the main characters. We enjoyed these very much. Corgiville Fair: The Great Corgiville Kidnapping: Corgiville Christmas. Corgiville Christmas was Tasha Tudor's last published work.

Author Fiesta for August-Tasha Tudor

I have to humbly admit--I did not know who Tasha Tudor was. We homeschool, we read picture books by the dozens a day, we love nature and the simple life-but I did not know who Tasha Tudor was, until Cay introduced her as the Author Fiesta author for August.

I know about her now, and I know that I will be reading and learning much more about this remarkable women in the days and years to come.

If you don't know her or haven't seen the video Take Joy! it is a video biography of Tasha's life, in which Tasha herself tells about her life, work, family and inspiration. I think that just this short video has introduced me to someone whom I will admire for the rest of my life.

My home library had a few of her titles and I have many more ordered through our interloan library service. I found this site that tells a little about her life, and it includes a list of her works near the bottom of the article.

This afternoon was used to get out our Author Fiesta binder and get started on this months fun. Tasha Tudor's art is striking in its charm and simplicity. I just love it, especially since many of her subjects are children, a subject near and dear to the heart of this family.

You can see a sampling of her artwork at this site.

Our first page in the Tasha Tudor section of our binder we glued a picture of Tasha in the center, and then we carefully practiced using her art techniques to make our own drawings. We then decorated this page, in much the same way Tasha did around the border of her stories.

Amy's work

Gracie's flowers

Mommy's attempt

Mark's sunflower

Amy has become very enthralled with this artwork. She loves drawing and now she has great inspiration to learn even more.