Christmas Archives - Page 3 of 5

{Christmas Ornament Activity} Positional Words

December 20, 2013 By Deirdre

As you get ready to put away our ornaments, you may want to try this activity. It asks children to place objects in an ornament storage frame based on position words that I wrote on index cards. Non-fragile ornaments in our Christmas ornament collection worked out best for us. Many of them are ones that JDaniel made himself.

What relative positions are on the cards?

There are words like:

·Above

·Below

·Beside

·In front of

·Behind

·Next to

·To the left of

·To the right of

Exploring Positional Words with Ornaments

How do you play?

· Place one of the ornaments in the center of the storage grid.

· Turn one card at a time.

· Place an ornament in the position called for on the card.

· When you turn over the next card, you can decide if you are going place next ornament

by the first ornament or the second.

·Continue placing ornaments until every section of the storage grid is filled.

Exploring the Word Over with Christmas Ornaments

Working with position words and manipulatives is a core skill. I think I saw a similar activity done using a worksheet. Using objects and a cardboard grid seemed like it would be more fun. We really enjoyed it. In fact, we had to take out the ornaments and do the activity again. Working on relative position trumped getting the ornaments cleaned up.

Christmas Themed God’s Eye for Mom

December 19, 2013 By Deirdre

Years ago my aunt made a Christmas themed God’s eye as a gift for my mom. When I tried to come up with some Christmassy to hang in my mom’s hospital room, that craft from long ago came to mind. God’s eyes are said to have the power to see and understand things unknown. I am not sure that the weaving that I created with yarn has the power to do that. I do believe the God does.

Displaying the God’s eye craft in her room acts as a reminder to me and hopefully to her that God is ever present in her room and with her. My sisters and I have tried to be there a lot of the time. There have been times when we needed to go home to sleep or do things for our children. I sometimes feel guilty that I can’t be there all the time, but I try to remember that I am not leaving her all by herself God is with her.

She had been unresponsive since she had surgery a week and a half ago. We talk to her, play music, and read to her hoping that she will in some way know that we are there. We have hoped and prayed that miraculously she will be able to communicate with us. We got our miracle last Thursday. She was ready to ask for water and wanted to get out of bed. By Friday she had solid food and talking in complete sentences.

Her future is unknown. She has several things the doctors are watching and there is little doubt that her body is probably too weak to deal with a huge battle. We are thrilled to have this time with her and will be cherishing every moment we have.

It has been a hard time for my family and most especially for my mom. I am not sure she knows that Christmas is coming. She has some homemade Christmas cards from JDaniel and me on her wall. The God’s eye craft is hanging up there too, but she can’t see all the signs of Christmas being viewed around our town.

One of the joys of Christmas is celebrating the birth of the Savior. Simple reminder’s like this God’s eyes remind me of why it is a time of great joy. God’s eyes are on us and he will not forget that we need him to be present in our lives.

I haven’t talked much about my mom’s hospital stay on the blog. Updates have appeared on my Facebook page. If you want to keep up with what is going on, you can follow them there.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s blog.

Last Minute Stocking Stuffers

December 18, 2013 By Deirdre

With Christmas just a week away there isn’t much time to gather the items you want to put into your children’s’ stockings. I thought I would share with you some of the items JDaniel will be getting his stocking as well as some old favorites. The old favorites didn’t necessarily come into our house as stocking stuffers but have been dearly loved.This post contains affiliate links.Spot It! (Color/Packaging May Vary) is one of JDaniel’s favorite card games. We received it as a review item the summer before last. It challenges players to spot pictures identical to the ones on their card to make a match. The first player to find a matching picture gets the card. This is how we play the game at our house. There are several ways to play Spot It included in the directions.Safari Ltd Coral Reef TOOB – Includes 11 BPA, Pthalate, and Lead Free Hand Painted Figurines – Ages 3+s filled with wonderful creatures that your children will love to play with in a sensory bin or sink or bathtub. They are perfect for pretend play.

Crayola Washable Window Markers, Car Window Markers, 8 Count were given to JDaniel for his birthday. He has loved drawing on the kitchen windows with them. I love how easily they clean up.

Rhode Island Novelty Classic Toy Soldiers in Assorted Poses 144 Pieceswere in JDaniel’s stocking last year. He loves building structures for the soldiers fight from. They have also been great to take into the woods to play with.

Toysmith Magnifying Bug ViewerToysmith Magnifying Bug Viewer is great for containing bugs that you want to view up close. I love that you can put an interesting object ( flower, rock, shell, etc..) into the container and look at it up close with having to hold it in your hand or put in on a hard surface.

Firefly Kids Toothbrush, Soft – Kylo Ren Lightsaber has been one of our favorite toothbrushes. I love that it reminds me of how long we need to brush (Yes, I help my son brush his teeth.) and JDaniel loves that the brush looks like a light saber.

These are some of my favorite stocking stuffer ideas.

What do you like to put in your children’s stockings?

Christmas Meals and Snacks for Kids

December 17, 2013 By Deirdre

I haven’t had as much time this year to make JDaniel special Christmas meals and snacks. What with going back to work and my mom being in the hospital things have been hectic and crazy. I decided rather than share a new Christmas meal or snack for kids with you I would share some of my favorites from previous years.

A layered Christmas tree lunch is made of rows of various finger foods for children. The layers could have been served in ham and cheese crackers with grapes and yogurt, but this was more fun.

Last year we made buche de Noel rolls as part of a study of Christmas in France.

A Christmas pasta wreath made from many colored tortellini was served as a snack that both JDaniel and I enjoyed.

A reindeer lunch was served in a bento box along with foods that a reindeer might like to eat.

Last year I served my family a Bethlehem dinner featuring foods like would have been available during the time of Christ in Bethlehem. We each pulled the foods we wanted to try of the various plates and bowls.

Angels are mentioned over and over in the Christmas story as messengers of good news. JDaniel was given an angels we had for lunch meal filled with angels to celebrate them.

A gingerbread man on the loose snack featured raisin bran in a gingerbread cookie cutter with wonderful treat to add to it.

What are you favorite Christmas meals or snacks?

Decorating Gingerbread Activity

December 16, 2013 By Deirdre

Gingerbread men design activity came to mind as a traced cookie cutter shapes to make the number tally math matching activity. There had to be another way to use our Christmas cookie cutters. When we went to a big box craft store recently, JDaniel just had to visit the Crayola aisle. I had told him that all of our crayons were Crayola and he has since decided that he wants to learn about what other products that they make. It was while visiting the Crayola aisle that he noticed Model Magic. He hasn’t ever used it and thought it sounded like fun. I decided it sounded like fun too and I ended up buying a couple of packages of light brown for a gingerbread activity.

Creating Gingerbread Activity

Cookie cutters and creating gingerbread men with Model Magic just seemed to come together as an idea on our way home. I didn’t tell him what I was thinking, though. The brown modeling dough was pushed into cookie cutters and set out to dry without a word to him.

Decorating-gingerbread-men-with-stars
On Saturday I set out the dried gingerbread men and various odds and ends that could be used to decorate and redecorate them. JDaniel’s eyes lit up. He was really surprised.

I had made holes in the gingerbread men with the end of a pencil thinking the odds and ends would fit into them. Some of the odds and ends ended up being a little too big. Thankfully the Model Magic has some give to it. JDaniel was able to push in the buttons when he wanted too.

He made all different kinds of gingerbread men that day. Some had button eyes and others had stars in their eyes. The rubbery dough held up despite the number of times it was used.

Creating shaped Model Magic creation spaces was so easy to do and JDaniel seemed to enjoy the gingerbread men design activity. We will have to make some using our other cookie cutters for other holidays.

{Christmas Craft} Candy Cane Reindeer

December 12, 2013 By Deirdre

I saw candy cane reindeer like this in the hall at my school. I knew immediately that we need to try to make one at home. They were just too cute. I am not sure if it was the hand print antlers or fact that it combined to wonderful Christmas elements. Candy canes and reindeer are such a fun!The ones I saw at school had paper noses and paper eyeballs. Ours needed more of a 3-D effect I decided. Thankfully we have giant wiggly eyes and red pom-poms on hand. Actually, we had everything we needed on hand. I love when things work out that way.

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers.

If you want to make one at home, here is what we did.

Trace two hands (One right and one left will work best)
Hand tracing will need to be cut out.
Then cut out a red candy cane shape
Next cut out white stripes for the candy cane
Glue the white stripes to the red cane
Cut the extra white paper of the edges of the red cane
One wiggly eye will need to be glued onto the red cane
Glue the brown hand antler in place on the top of the cane
Glue a red pom-pom in place if you want a Rudolph like candy cane reindeer ( A brown pom-pom could be used if you want to make a non-Rudolph reindeer.)

I think our candy cane reindeer Christmas craft is as cute as the ones I saw on display in hallway at school. Our little deer herd has only two deer as opposed to the large herd that is displayed in the hall at school though. Maybe you could make some candy cane reindeer at your house and we could have a virtual herd.

If you decided to make candy cane reindeer, let me know on the Facebook post featuring this craft. You can paste an Instagram link to a picture of yours if you like.

Are you looking for other reindeer Christmas craft and snack ideas?

Handprint Reindeer created for Hands On: As We Grow.

Creating a Reindeer Lunch

Treats for Santa and the Reindeer

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers. They will also love the pom pom nose and the wiggly eye.

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Kid Made Ornament – Branch Bracelets

December 11, 2013 By Deirdre

The idea for branch bracelets came to me as we were decorating our Christmas tree last week. When we came to a kid made ornament that JDaniel had created himself, he face just lit up. He was so proud of each kid made ornament he had made in preschool or with me at home. It occurred to me that we hadn’t made any new ornament this year and we really needed to. I remembered creating spider web ornaments last year with him and how much he enjoyed weaving the yarn up and down though Christmas cutouts that had been punched with holes. This year’s kid-made ornament needed to have weaving be a part of it.

When I went to school the next day, the kids were all wearing homemade bracelets. Why not my brain thought make branch bracelets for our tree what incorporate JDaniel’s interest in weaving through hole punched holes.

When I go home a noticed a small pile of empty paper towel tubes, they were just waiting to be taken out to the recycling bin in the garage. (I take care of sorting through what we recycle and what could be possible craft item.) Sections of an old paper towel tube would make wonderful branch bracelet Christmas tree ornaments I thought.

With the materials and idea decided on I set everything we would need out on the kitchen table for JDaniel to find. He instantly understood that the craft idea was to randomly punch holes into the section of tube and then weave ribbon through it.

Kid Made Ornaments -Branch Bracelets

I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

After Constructing This Kid Made Ornament More Constructing Was Done

After creating two branch bracelets, he declared the remaining tubes sections and ribbon needed to be used to create a sculpture for under the tree. Who knew that we would end up with kid made branch bracelet ornaments and a free form sculpture by the time our crafting time was done. (To see what the sculpture looks like you will need to visit our Facebook page.)I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock.

Advent Calendar Ideas – 25 Blessings

November 20, 2013 By Deirdre

25 Blessings Advent Countdown Activities for Kids

Every year my sister Shell sends my son an Advent calendar with chocolate pieces tuck behind its tiny doors. He loves it. JDaniel looks forward to hearing scripture verse behind each door while he is enjoying a piece of milk chocolate every morning. Why not come up with something special for us to do in the evening each night during Advent I thought when the box delivering this year’s Advent calendar arrived. That is when the seed of thought for the Advent activity 25 Blessings started to grow.

I had to think through what I wanted our family to do for our 25 blessings and if it needed to be something beyond offering prayers of Thanksgiving. After thinking about it for awhile, I decided that I would offer up an area or person for us to be thankful for and a list of ways we could show our thanks for that area or person in our lives.

My family has been blessed in so many ways this year along with having many challenges. This year my husband lost his job and went back to school. I searched and searched for a job and found one at a wonderful school in early November. JDaniel started kindergarten and found going to school five days a week full time wasn’t something to dread.

We have been blessed with an amazing family, friends and church that has supported us with prayers, listening ears, and emotional support through the challenges we have encountered with all those changes. They have truly helped us is make it through this year.

There have been troubles with an aging house and cars. Thankfully our immediate family is aging well. (My husband did back issues earlier this year, but it is much better.) Both our mom’s had health scares early in year and seem to be much better now. JDaniel’s fall allergies seem to have disappeared and only his spring ones remain.

Why did I tell you all this before sharing my list? I thought it might help some of the things on my list make more sense.

Advent is truly I time for us remember those blessings and be thankful.

Here is the list of advent calendar ideas or blessings and the day we will be rejoicing and remembering them:

Grandparents health
Births in our family and our church
Family returning from job assignments overseas
Good doctors and healthcare
Wonderful teachers at school
Learning to read
Wonderful coaches in soccer class
Our home
Clean Clothes
Kind neighbors
Friends to play with
Good food to eat
Cars that get us where we need to go
Awesome resources available at the library
Police and firemen that keep us safe.
Clean water to drink
Being able to freely worship
Allergies that seem to be lessening
Opportunity for my husband to learn a new SQL Server Database and Programming
Job for Mom (me)
Wonderful parks to explore and play in
People who remember our family in prayer
Words of encouragement and lessons from the Bible
Amazing friends
Memories of loving and laughing as a family

Here is my list of ways we can celebrate our advent calendar ideas or blessings:

Make a baked good to take to a person on the list we are thankful for.
Draw picture to send to a person on the list we are thankful for.
Send a prayer of thanks
Donate some toys in their name to Miracle Hill
Donate books in their name to the local library
Take food to the food bank
Call a person on the list and give them thanks
Invite a person on our list to do something with our family
Look for someone during the day to do something kind for just as we had kind things done for us
Send a card or e-mail to family remember sharing something we are thankful or to give them thanks
Read a bible verse that talks about that area of thanks
List five things that make that area or person special
Share a special memory about that area or person
State a lesson you have learned from that person or event

You could easily adapt this to your family. Simply sit down and make a list of things you are thankful for or have blessed you. You will have 2 areas or people in no time at all. I tried to include things in the following areas:

Immediate family
Extended family
Health
Neighbors
Community helpers
Church members
Events that happened this year
Ways our basic needs have been met

Then all you need to do is come up with ways you want to rejoice in those blessings or advent calendar ideas. You are more than welcome to use our list of ways.

I printed out our blessings and ways to celebrate onto an envelope and index cards. They could have simply been written out.

Will you join me in this Advent activity of counting down 25 blessing?

Merry Christmas Wishes!

December 25, 2012 By Deirdre

Merry Christmas! Today we remember the birth of Jesus or as JDaniel calls him “God made little” a long time ago. ( I know God wasn’t little even as a baby, but I love how JDaniel says it.) His birth changed the world. This year it has been wonderful time to share the events that lead up to Jesus’ birthday and the reasons why he came with JDaniel.

JDaniel has a four year old’s a simple faith in God. He knows you can lift of prayers to God no matter where you care. I loved hearing him last week as he prayed for a sunny day warm enough to play outside in. He knows that God is everywhere. JDaniel has informed that He even stays with him in his room. He knows God made all things. JDaniel can’t wrap his brain around why God made ants, but he thinks it is cool that God didn’t need a microscope to make microorganisms.

On the special day I have three Merry Christmas wishes for you and for my family.

The first Christmas wish is that we will have a simple faith just like JDaniel. A faith that lifts up prayers and knows that God can answer them. Just last week I heard him praying in his room for a really warm day without rain. He was thrilled that we got two beautifully warm days in a row. JDaniel recently prayed for me on the ride to school last Monday. He said I needed to not have worried voice.You need to have a happy voice I was told.

My second wish is that we will find peace. The world is so filled with turmoil, stress, and wants. Finding time and a place where you can have peace despite all that is going on world is something I wish you each could have.

My final wish would be that we would each find a way to give something to someone else each day this year. A simple smile or “How are you?” to a friend or stranger. A phone call to your spouse to tell them that you love them. Holding the door open for someone or giving quarter to the customer in front of you at a store that is a few cents short on their grocery bill. Even a wave given to the mail carrier could really make there day.

You will find some more Merry Christmas activities below:

Christmas Fruit Trees

Fine Motor Christmas Activities

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.