May Day songs, crafts and activities

This time of year the traffic on my blog goes way up as people are searching for all things Maypole and May Day. So in an effort to give the masses what they want, I thought I'd post what I plan to do at our may day festivities this year. You're welcome, internets. (And sorry... I should have done this sooner. I have been a bit busy.)

First of all I'll pull the May Pole out of the closet, where it has sat since last year. I made it out of a broom handle by winding ribbon around the pole and securing with tape, then tying several long ribbons to the loop in the top. I jerry-rigged a stand by putting the pole in a cup full of rocks inside a bucket full of rocks. Then I tossed some flowers on top of the rocks to make it look pretty. Admittedly, after a few times around the pole it came loose and got a little wobbly. I will try to come up with a better system this year.
Last year the girls loved just going around the pole. They did it over and over and over. If they seem in the mood maybe this year I'll have them sing:

Ring around the Maypole
with flowers from the fairies we stole
Ribbons, Ribbons
We wind around!

You can find more songs here.


It is said that fairies are a bit easier to find on May Day, and so this year I plan to do more fairy crafts. Like these flower friends and petal fairies I found at Family Fun. Maybe we'll even make a fairy house.


Since our guests may not still have their floral crowns from last year I think I'll make floral headbands by hot gluing felt flowers on plastic headbands

I think we'll make some cool flowers out of soda bottles. See a photo tutorial here.

We may color some coloring sheets that I found here, here, and here.





If I have enough empty glass bottles around I may decorate with these May "Baskets." Find more may basket ideas at The Crafty Crow




If that's not enough ideas for you, you can check out last year's May Day party plan and learn why I call myself Painted Maypole, and thus have adopted May Day as my blog's official holiday.

With all this May Day hullabaloo, I have to confess that on the actual day I will not be dancing around the Maypole, but rather I'll be dancing around jazz fest. We'll celebrate over the weekend, and I hope to have some pictures to post then.

Happy May Day!

The first of May

The first of May will quickly come

Where has the past year gone?
How can it be in four short days
This May will have its dawn?

Like ribbons round the tall may pole
the days and months do swirl
A weave of color life creates
each day with my sweet girl
So come this weekend and you'll spy
The sweet May Queen and me
With ribbons 'round the broom handle
as we dance and leap with gleeJoin us as we welcome spring:
a fairy you may find
a-dancing in our garden fair
as round the pole we wind.
*all photos from our 2008 May Day celebration

This post has been a Monday Mission, in which I shamelessly asked you to write a post in the style of a May Day poem or song to help me celebrate the holiday I've adopted as my own here at Painted Maypole. If you choose to so humor me, please leave a little link in the widget below




And if you'd like to use this little nifty button on your blog, you may

And May is upon us, which means a whole new month of missions. I think after May we will take a break for the summer, so let's make this a fun month, shall we? Your May Missions, should you choose to accept them, are to write posts in the style of

5/4 - a cast list. Take a book or story or play or TV show and cast it... with fellow bloggers or your favorite actors. Play casting director for the day. This fun idea comes to you courtesy of No Mother Earth, who cast bloggers in a book she was reading.

5/11- song titles. See how many song titles you can jam into one blog post. In high school my best friend and I used to write stories this way all the time. It passed the time in our boring classes. I had the idea when I was on a streak of titling all my blog posts with song lyrics. I have to say, I am rubbing my hands in glee over this one.

5/18- a discussion between characters/bloggers/historical figures. Mad did this brilliantly, and I thought it would be fun to imagine a conversation between characters from different sources.

5/25- a "What I did on my summer vacation" essay. Yes, before summer vacation.

A word problem. In more ways than one.

An actress has 65 total pages of dialogue (of a 68 page script... allowing for the 3 pages she is not on stage), and has memorized 51 pages in 20 days. If she keeps memorizing at the same pace, how many more days does she have until she has memorized the whole script?

What if the learning curve increases by 50% towards the end of the memorization process, because of the time the actress has spent working on the as of yet unmemorized pages?

And what if the actress is no longer spending 2-3 hours a night obsessively watching Slings and Arrows (after rehearsals!) in an attempt to finish the series and get the DVD back to the library before a late fee is incurred, thereby increasing her time to work on her lines by appx 100% per day (assuming that she spends some of that regained 2-3 hours doing other things, like, oh, housework).

Keep in mind that in order to retain those previously memorized 51 pages, they must still be regularly reviewed. Reviewing takes about 15% of the time it takes to memorize new lines.

Given all the factors above, when can the actress expect to have the whole script memorized?

(Never... if she keeps blogging...)

____________________________________

This post has been a Monday Mission. Today's mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the style of a math problem or proof. (Please keep in mind that I'm not a mathematician, I just play one on the stage). If you get your Monday Math Mission on, please leave a link in the widget below.

And join us next week, when your mission is to write a post in the style of a May Day song or poem. I'm totally being greedy here. Help me celebrate the impending May Day. We are dancing around the Maypole, you know. (To see the festivities from last year's May Day click here. To see the May Day crown I made with my own little hands and gave away last year and to read a May Day poem by Tennyson click here. To learn why I celebrate May Day and to get a plan for a May Day party, including links to crafts, songs and more click here.)

Kaye, at The Road Goes Ever On, made this nifty little button,

that you can use to link to me if you participate in Monday Missions. Thanks, Kaye!

(I think all you need to do is highlight the button, copy it, and paste it into your blog post. It seems to have worked for me)

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to memorize I go...

secret identity

There's a high school sophomore playing a servant in the show I'm doing. She reminds me a bit of myself at that age - putting myself out there and auditioning for shows and doing whatever I could. I remember how much I loved when the adults in the show would talk to me and include me, and I've been careful to always say hello to her and chat with her from time to time. The other day she was telling me about this great summer Shakespeare program she attended in Oxford (yes, England. She's 16. And yes, I was jealous) and how she played Helena. We began comparing Helena notes and another guy who was talking with us looked at me and said "You Painted Maypole."

I raised my eyebrow, smiled, and said "Yes, I am Painted Maypole."

Crowning the May Queen

My May Queen

The May Day fete was a hit! The girls had a lovely time. There was dancing around the maypole, which actually lasted much longer than I expected as they did it over and over, until the pole would no longer stand upright (it's amazing what one can do with a broom handle, a tin pail and some ribbon, no?)

We enjoyed crafts and goodies.

The party continued with dancing in the backyard,

complete with a newly freed maypole.

And of course I had to get a picture of Painted Maypole and The May Queen for the blog....

If only The May Queen had cooperated.

And the virtual May Queen? I crown nomotherearthQueen o' the May! e-mail your address to pntdmaypole AT yahoo DOT com and I'll send you your floral crown! Congratulations!