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growing & learning with him
By Deirdre
By Deirdre
Time to get this Holiday Hop of Goodies going! For the next 2 weeks I will be posting holiday skinny mini recipes, crafts, decorating ideas, giveaways and more! Today I am going to share with you a cardboard advent candy wreath. Kids will love taking one piece of candy off the cardboard Adventwreath each day during Advent. My son has enjoyed having this up at our house.
We made an Advent candy wreath out of an old cardboard box. A plastic lid was used to trace the circles that make up this wreath. We just overlapped the circles until we had connected the first to the last. Cutting out cardboard isn’t easy. I used an X-Acto knife to cut out the wreath and then scissors to trim off the rough edges. If you have access to thin cardboard , it would be much easier to cut out.
After the wreath was cut out, JDaniel sponge painted our advent wreath green with a leave shaped sponge. I know you can’t see the leaves shapes once the paint in on the advent candy wreath. I just thought paint with a leaf would be fun.
Then we threaded four ribbons through pre-made holes (scissor cuts) in the cardboard to represent the four Sundays of Advent. Finally, twenty-four small candy canes were taped onto the wreath with cellophane tape.
One candy cane will be removed each day until we get to Christmas. This cardboard advent wreath will help us count down to Christmas and be used as during our discussion of advent.
You will find even more craft ideas for kids on my Crafts for Kids Pinterest board.
By Deirdre
When the snow arrives, the scarecrow is covered from head to toe in it and the animals think he is a snowman. The animals come out to play on and around him. Yet he was afraid that they would fear him again when the snow melted.
Thank goodness they remember who their friend is on the inside when spring comes and his scary features reappear.
My sister in law Marcia make the most wonderful haystacks and brings them to our family Thanksgiving celebration. Her version contains peanut butter and chow mein noodles. JDaniel avoids everything with peanut butter in it even though he has decided he likes peanuts. We made our haystacks with chocolate and butterscotch chips, marshmallows, and chow mein noodles to take to our family’s Thanksgiving celebration.
JDaniel thinks they are wonderful!
Measurement Activity with Scarecrow
JDaniel made this wonderful scarecrow in preschool a few weeks ago. We have had him hanging on our refrigerator. Recently we took him down and used inch cubes to measure him.
We measure the length of his smile
It was fun to use some of JDaniel’s school art to work on a math activity.
I love the wild bird study that was done on Like Mama~Like Daughter. Her handprint bird project is amazing.
This retelling tool for Jack in the Beanstalk from Fantastic Fun and Learning is truly amazing too.
By Deirdre
Today I am taking the day to enjoy time with members of my extended family. The Smith clan is in South Carolina this year for a family reunion and a time give thanks. I hope you enjoy looking for this wonderful collection of fall crafts and activities.
I am giving thanks that they everyone from out of town is staying at the amazing Embassy Suites hotel and that almost all the food is catered. Our Cape Cod house would have been filled to its rafters if everyone had tried to dine at our house.
The other blogs and websites represented are Kiwi Crate’s The Studio and Kids’s Activities Blog this month.
Here are the Fall Crafts and Activities:
A yummy Turkey Bento Lunch with apple feathers and frozen yogurt Thanksgiving molds was served to JDaniel two weeks ago for lunch.
JDaniel and I made a delicious Pumpkin Smoothie. It was smooth and just a tad spicy according to the JDaniel.
One morning for breakfast JDaniel had Apple Cider Pancakes. My husband keeps asking for me to make more the ones I made for him disappeared too quickly he claims.
The final picture in this collage isn’t food related, but we did have fun with the owls in it. They were for a post called Owl Craft for Skip Counting. We counted by ones as we counted their beaks, we counted by twos when we counted their eyes, and we counted by threes when we counted their claws.
A turkey activity for preschoolers and others to work on spatial terms like above, below, and over was created with feeling. JDaniel was told to place the small red feather on the large green one. Then we were asked to place it beside the large red feather. We had a great time making various turkeys with this activity.
Beside it is a turkey JDaniel created. His feathers were created by painting in a salad spinner.
JDaniel and I did our November shopping for our local food bank using a word and picture guide I created that displays food the food bank really needs.
Here are some of our fall crafts and activities :
JDaniel and I made two paper plate turkeys. They were a part of a post called Read.Explore.Learn.- Trouble at the Tappleton’s.
I made the turkey bowling pins for JDaniel when he was two and a half. The turkey’s bodies were made of his hand prints. The post was simply calledRead.Explore.Learn.- Thanksgiving
We made the turkey treat bag to take to our local fire station. We filled the bag with cookies. The post the bag was featured in was called Read.Explore.Learn.- The Firefighter’s Thanksgiving.
Our thankfulness tree spent last Thanksgiving on our kitchen table. It is filled with leaves that list things we are thankful for. The post that featured the tree is called Thanksgiving for Kids: Being Thankful.
The muffin tin meal on the top of this collage features a turkey and all different foods a turkey would eat. The post was called Muffin Tin Monday- Turkey’s Food Pyramid Meal.
The muffin tin meal on the bottom features a stuffing turkey, the best sweet potato casserole, and turkey divan with a turkey biscuit on top. The recipe for the sweet potato casserole is included in the post. It really is wonderful. The post is called Muffin Tin Monday- Thanksgiving with Sweet Potato Casserole and More.
I made my guys a Breakfast Turkey last year. They loved the pumpkin spice pancakes, bacon, and sausage.
I hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
By Deirdre
The turkey treat cups requires only wiggly eyes, some colored sheets of foam, and a clear plastic cup. Literally all you have to do is cut out feathers and a beak out of foam. Then glue the eyes, feathers, and beak onto the plastic cup. If you have wiggly eyes and foam that have sticky backs you don’t even need glue.
The Mayflower sail straw is just a piece of white foam cut into a sail. A blue straw was laced through holes punched into the sail. If you have straws of various colors, you could have the children create a pattern of straws with sails by having every other cup of the table be the same color.
The napkin ring can be made by wrapping felt around a toilet paper tube that has been cut down. A simple turkey can be created with felt or foam. The turkey is then glued onto the felt wrapped tube. I didn’t add feet to my turkey, but you could. I bet they would look adorable.
If are looking for a more formal look for your Thanksgiving table, you might think about creating a table setting like this for Thanksgiving breakfast or the leftover snack on Thanksgiving evening.
Building Thanksgiving Words with Letter Feathers
Thanksgiving Science -Sink or Float
By Deirdre
By Deirdre
Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch
Minion Lunch with Blueberry Overalls
You will find more bento lunch ideas on my Food Creations board on Pinterest.
By Deirdre
We have so much in my family to be thankful for. The cornucopia of our life is filled with wonderful blessings.
We have wonderful church to go to and can teach our little man freely about God. The cheese cross represents that they gratitude we have for being able to do that.
We are so thankful that Jesus’ birthday is drawing near. The Chinese noodle stable with an apple manger represents how thankful we are that Christmas is so much closer than it was when JDaniel started his Christmas list last February. He has started asking almost everyday about the number of days until Christmas.
Finally we are thankful that our little night owl has adjusted to the time change finally. He spent several nights howling at the moon way past when his parents were ready to go to sleep.
As you can see we have big and little things to be thankful for. How blessed we are!
The next blog in this wonderful I Am Thankful For.. Bento Hop is BentoDays! Please stop by and check out her lunch.
Here are some more fun Bento lunches for kids:
By Deirdre
Did I want to change my day to something else?
Ever since I walked in the kitchen in the house my husband had built many years ago, I have wanted to change it. It is not a bad kitchen. He chose wonderful cabinets and pretty tile for the room. He had curtains made that are nicer than one I would have picked out. It is a pretty room, but it is tiny.
The house I owned before we got married had a wider kitchen with a wonderful island in the middle. It was easy to move around. One person could prep food on the island while another person got things out of the oven. You could open the dishwasher and the refrigerator at the same time if you wanted to.
So, I pulled out my bible and I read about thanks.
Thinking about their losses has left me with many things to be thankful for.
I am thankful for…
By Deirdre
This past Sunday I was teaching a lesson on gratitude and thankfulness to my Sunday school class of kindergartners. We were looking at how filled with thanks giving the Israelites were for all that had been given by God.
When I was brainstorming about how to help the children bring home the concepts I was teaching, the wonderful list of 21 Days of Contagious Gratitude on Inspired By Family Magazine came to mind. The list is filled with everyday items and concepts that children or anyone can be thankful for.
Why I thought couldn’t I create a turkey with feathers displaying each of the concepts covered on the list?
They nodded their heads in agreement for most things as other children shared. They all agreed that the time of day they were thankful for wasn’t bedtime and the new baby giraffe at the zoo was everyone’s favorite animal. It was fun to hear their answers.
I can’t wait to do this with another group of students. Maybe JDaniel’s preschool teacher will let me share the activity with the class.
Until then I will be putting this thanksgiving or gratitude turkey out on our kitchen table. We will be giving thanks for each of the concepts covered on the feathers. Maybe my husband, JDaniel, and I can pick a feather each night to add to the turkey basket turkey.
The link below is an affiliate link. It was put there for your convenience.
I love the tie children’s book to activities that we do. I can across a wonderful book to tie to this lesson called Thanks for Thanksgiving. This amazing book by Julie Markes points out that we have things everyday to be thankful for. What a wonderful lesson to share with kids at Thanksgiving time or any other time during the year.
Warning: This isn’t a story as much a a wonderful book that shares reasons for gratitude.It is just a great Thanksgiving kids book.