Christmas Traditions Archives

Art Projects For Kids- Four Calling Birds Craft and Coloring Page

December 4, 2014 By Deirdre

Counting down to Christmas is a whole lot of fun! We have been working on counting down with memory boxes and blessings. Here is yet another way we have been working with counting and Christmas is to count the 12 Days of Christmas. We are exploring the 12 days of Christmas with several other bloggers. Each of us has selected a couple of the days to create art project for kids or fun theme activities. Today I am sharing activities for four calling birds. (You will find a list of other blogs sharing art projects for kids and activities at the end of this post.)

I confess I had a hard time deciding how to make calling birds. I created a Four Calling Birds smart phone or cell phone coloring page with four birds displayed on the monitor. This really didn’t seem all that Christmassy though. I decided that I had to think of something that was craft related.

After digging around in our crafts closet, I found some materials I thought would make really cute birds. (Four really cute birds actually.) Four really cute birds that aren’t calling to anyone is what I came up with. Well, maybe they could be calling to you to make them. This is one of those art projects for kids that you will really want to make.

How did we create them?

Supplies

Small paper plates (2)
Paper doilies (2)
Wiggly eyes (4)
Yellow construction paper
Scissors
Glue sticks

Steps to Create the Birds

Cut each of the paper plates in half.
Cut each of the doilies in half.
Glue a doily half onto half of the paper plate. The doily wing should be sticking off the flat section of the paper plate to make it look like the bird is flying.
Glue a wiggly eye near the front of your paper plate.
Glue the beak on the back of the paper plate near the top of your plate.

We glued our four calling birds to a piece of blue construction paper when we were done. I think you could put holes through top of the plates and make them ornaments. You could group them together on your Christmas tree. There are a number of ways you can display these art project for kids.

Welcome to day 4 of the 12 Days of Christmas Series, a kid-friendly activity to celebrate each of the 12 days! Be sure to stop by your 7 favorite bloggers for each of the 12 Days of Christmas Series. You will find amazing art projects for kids, cooking activities, learning fun and more.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ Stir the Wonder ~ JDaniel4’s Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ P is for Preschooler ~ ABC Creative Learning

Finding the Topper for Your Tree

December 14, 2011 By Deirdre

This is the first year we have done a full-size tree for Christmas. In previous years we have done small tabletop trees that JDaniel couldn’t topple. I wrote about last year’s tree in a post called Maybe This Tree Will Grow Next Year.

JDaniel was super excited about selecting a tree. We visited several stores to find just the right one. He lobbied hard for a bright blue tree, but we ended up settling on a traditional green one.

After setting up the tree, we hung up some of our non-breakable ornaments along with the ones we have made while doing the Truth in the Tinsel curriculum and some homemade ornaments.

The tree was missing something. It needed something on top of the tree. We hadn’t looked for a star, dove, or angel while looking for the tree so, we had to head out again to find a tree topper.

JDaniel fell hard for a multicolored star that lit up and since I hadn’t given on the blue tree. I went with the star he picked out. When we brought it home and tried it on the tree, the top of the tree began to lean toward the floor and the star decided to not stay stationary on top of the tree.

JDaniel was so disappointed. He really loved the star, but it had to go back in the box.

I decided to create a game out of our star search by having him search for things around the house we could use on top of the tree. It was raining that afternoon and cold I really didn’t want to head out and start the tree topper search again.

He came back within ten minutes with a box loaded with things for us to try.

We tried:

A Playskool Man

A Rocket

A Sippy Cup

A Chenille Worm

A Wrench

A Fireman’s Hat

None of these really fit well with the rest of the tree.

A few days later we headed to Walmart and found the perfect star. My husband and I love it. JDaniel would still like to keep trying.

What is on top of your tree?

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

Adventures-In-Mommy-Land- and a Christmas Craft: An Egg Carton Tree

December 14, 2011 By Deirdre

I saw the tree below in a Christmas craft book and knew we had to make it. Once I had gathered all the materials, creating it was sort of an adventure. JDaniel wanted to play with the decorative elements and I wanted to decorate the tree. Actually, he wanted to pretend to bake a cake and decorate it with decorative elements. He really enjoyed it.

The post sharing how to make this wonderful tree is on Adventures-In-Mommy-Land today. I hope you will head over and check it out.

What Are Your Christmas Morning Traditions?

December 8, 2011 By Deirdre

I love holiday traditions. One of the ones I remember from my childhood is opening presents on Christmas morning as a family. Presents would be distributed into piles. My mom, two sisters, and I would each take a turn opening one of our presents. It was great to get to see what others were opening as well as have everyone watching me when it was my turn.

This year for the very first time JDaniel will be able to get out of bed Christmas morning and head downstairs to the Christmas tree all by himself. I am a little nervous about what might happen to the presents under the tree.

JDaniel climbed out of his crib only two or three times while it was in his sleeping place and that was when he was nearing his third birthday. I know many of you have children that climbed out of bed much early than that! Given that he stayed in his crib and that we didn’t need the crib for another child it seemed to be a good place for him to stay. He slept well in there and we slept well while he was in there. We all did great sleeping in the crib years. (Most of the time.)

The move to a bed without sides has changed everything. It has to lead to visits to our room during the night. I have awakened to a set of eyes staring at me at all hours of the night. Recently I found him sleeping on the floor at the end of our bed with our comforter pulled all around him.

Things have started moving around during the night at our house too. Pillows from the couch in the guest room, towels from the hall bathroom, and toys from around his room have all been found in his bed in the morning.

With Christmas just around the corner I have started having visions of Christmas presents appearing in his bedroom unwrapped and already played with. Thoughts of finding him curled up under the Christmas tree with his arms around gifts have also begun to appear along with dreams of finding his sleeping with his Christmas stocking on his foot and the contents of the stocking strewn all over his bedroom floor.

Many of you have been through this for years and are veterans of Christmas morning. I need your help to calm my mind and draw plans for successfully opening presents together on Christmas day!

How do you keep a three-year-old from getting up and beginning Christmas without you?

What are your Christmas morning traditions?

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