No Time For Gingerbread

My kids and I alike have found that we have little patience for making actual gingerbread houses. Later in the season we will make mini graham cracker models, but I can admit it's not quite the same. A few years ago I discovered these cute paper gingerbread houses, though, and now they have a loving place all their own each year on our Christmas tree.

Gingerbread Houses

Head over to We Love To Illustrate to download these adorable templates.

What is your gingerbread tradition?

You might also like our foldable Pilgrim & Indian Dolls

A Series of Little Posts

It's holiday time and try as I might, I can't help being busy.  Perhaps you'll appreciate a few upcoming tiny posts from me-short writing, shorter reading. They're going to go a little like this...

Handwriting Practice

Click here for Dear Santa Template 

What creative ways do you get your kids to practice their letters?

Holiday Giving: Our Surprise in the Mailbox

I wrote on my other blog a few weeks ago about how much I DREAD the arrival of the holiday toy catalogs in the mail.  The moment they enter the front door is the last moment I have any quiet until Christmas is over. The air is constantly filled with, "I want, I want, I want!!!"  Leading up to Thanksgiving, I try to help everyone in our family to focus on the blessing of things we have instead of things we want.  It is usually pretty successful, and if I try hard to carry that over through the Christmas season, the "I Want's" die down to a manageable rate.

Throughout December the boys and I  focus our thoughts and energy on the simplicity of giving to other people instead of the intensity of keeping our Santa lists up-to-date.  This has been one of our favorite activities...

The Recipients:  The people who live on our street

The Activity:  Make & Deliver a small treat 

The Goal:  Add a joyful surprise to the mundane task of getting the mail.

Here's how we did it:

First, we counted out 10 chocolate squares, & 10 candy canes, then glued the top of the chocolate squares...

 ...and put the candy canes on top...

Next we tied ribbon around the candy "package". I would advise making sure the ribbons are long enough for a new knot-tier and then trim them up.

 Always let the kids choose a comfortable place to work...

The last step in creating our mailbox surprises was cutting out the tags and tying them on top. I used these tags, but also really liked these ones...

NOW ON TO THE DELIVERY!!!

My boys understand the concept of doing nice things for other people, but still, they're young.   I did want them to feel the reward at the end and had promised they could have some after we'd made our deliveries.  Still they were whine and beg to eat chocolate and candy canes. My ears bleed with the racket and I almost always prematurely decide the activity was an epic fail.  BUT, the minute we walk out the door, their whole attitude changes!  They get giddy, running from mailbox to mailbox and wanting to make SURE they don't miss anybody.  They get sad when a mailbox is empty, because that means the neighbor has already picked up their mail for the day.  I've caught them peeking out the window the next day to make sure those people get their goodies!

 I'd love to hear how you help your little ones understand the joy of giving or have you share this post with someone looking to add more giving into their holiday season!

The Week Before Christmas

I love all the pre-k packs available online and this week we're taking a break from regular workbooks to do the Christmas pack from Living Life Intentionally.   Go check it out!

I have a Teaching Your Children Joy activity lined up, but right now I'm watching Beck pretend he's a doctor and his stuffed lizards are in the hospital with broken tails and are being brave to get their "pokes."  I think I'll just leave him be...

The machine that puts a cast on Baby Iguana's broken neck

Fixing Lizard's broken tail

A tough recovery for Turtle

A Gift For the Birds

"Spend time feeding and watching the birds"

-Teaching Your Children Joy

We haven't seen a lot of birds around our house lately.   Because of that, we started today's lesson by talking about the reasons why (the trees don't have any leaves or seeds, the worms are too far underground, etc).  We decided to make birdfeeders as a Christmas gift for the birds.  FINALLY, a nature activity that makes sense to be doing in December!

Holiday Bird Feeders

Here's what you'll need:

Christmas (or other) Cookie Cutters

Stale Bread (either let it set out a few days or, if you forget like I did, throw it in the toaster)

Peanut Butter & knife for spreading

Birdseed (That huge bag is only $3.00 at Walmart)

String and a Straw

To make your birdfeeders:

Spread peanut butter on your bread and accept right now that this is going to get messy.

Push your cookie cutter into the bread (It might take mom strength to get all the way through).

Use your knife to push the bread out of the cookie cutter.  Let the kids eat the outsides.

Then put your bread peanut butter side down in the bird seed.

Spread peanut butter on the other side of your bread. Then flip that side over into the seeds as well.

Use the straw to poke a hole through the top of your feeder and push a length of string through.

Tie a knot, set the feeder aside, and start all over again.

Hang your feeders and watch for the birds to come enjoy their Christmas feast! 

The Seasons (Especially the one I'd like to forget)

Is anyone out there in the same boat as I am...the boat where your children are OBSESSED with toys and presents and can bring any conversation back around to what they want for Christmas?  I'm seriously going to rip my hair out!

For today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity we focused on the seasons by making a collage.  I started by dividing a paper into 4 sections and having Beck practice his letters by writing out the names of the seasons.

Then we looked through our magazines for pictures that would remind of us each season.  Unfortunately our house is fairly barren of magazines.  Our choices were Time and Money Magazine plus one Family Fun.  I noticed Beck wasn't cutting anything and then realized he was only looking for toys "because they make me feel happy." Somehow we finally got enough pictures cut to fill our collage.

After gluing them on I had an idea to add a picture of Beck in each of the seasons as well.  We printed those out and I kind of half-threatened him to glue them on or I'd take away his Smith's MarketPlace Toy ad.  He did it begrudgingly and went straight back to his Santa's delivery dreaming.  I left the whole mess there and just walked away...

SPRING with rainbows, butterflies, budding trees, and Beck playing in the garden

SUMMER with watermelon, fresh tomatoes, leaves on the trees, and Beck at the splash pad

FALL with wind, the orange leaves, and Beck playing in the fallen leaves.
Apparently, he also sneaked a checkerboard on there

WINTER with a snowman, coats, gingerbread houses and Beck on his first day of skiing

Praying for strength to make it through this holiday "season"!

More Bugs

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity is to spend time with your kids being still and watching bugs.  Last time I checked, the temperature outside was 25 degrees.  Instead of freezing off our digits, we decided to take another look at last summer's praying mantis adventure.  (Didn't see it the first time? Watch the video)

Beck also played with his felt cut-out bugs and pretended they were eating each other.  He was being very specific that they only ate what the real-life bugs would eat.

For our craft today we painted Christmas ornaments.  I love that Peyton wants to do EVERYTHING that Beck is doing...

Counting the Days to Christmas

Beck is 1000% too interested in toys and presents this year so I've been looking for a really good way to focus his mind on what's more important at the holiday times.  There are sooooo many great ideas floating around right now, but this is the one that finally clicked for me...

Each day Sarah at Confessions of a Slacker Mom is putting together a song, a scripture, and an activity to share as a family and help get everybody's mind back on the center of Christmas, Jesus Christ.  

Please don't be scared off by the Mormon title.  The activities will be fun and uplifting for everyone.  Last night we sang "Away In A Manger" and read verses in the book of Luke.  Tonight the song is "O Come All Ye Faithful" with a reading in Malachi and a coloring page.  

If you've been looking for something to help add special meaning to your family's Christmas celebrating, hop over and look at "The 24 Days of Mormon Christmas."  (And while you're there, check out Sarah's Walk Beside Me preschool curriculum)

What is your family doing to focus on Christ this Christmas?

The Ants Go Marching

We had friends over today and they brought an easy Christmas craft.

 Each kid got to choose a jingle bell and then cut strands of ribbon.  They slid the ribbon through the top of the bell and tied one of the ribbons into a loop so they can hang the bells on the Christmas tree.  Great hand-eye coordination activity for Beck and his friend and the little kids loved shaking the jingle bells to make them ring!

 

On a completely different note, we got to learn about ant farms for today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity.  Being winter here, ants are hard to come by, but I found these two great links to live ant farm webcams.

The first is more small-child or squeamish-mom friendly, but if you have boys (or bug-loving girls) I'll bet they love the second one.  Check them out...

 Steve's Ant Farm Live Camera

Lots of great ant information and ant farms for sale

 London's Natural History Museum AntCam
(This one has trouble loading with Google Chrome but works great with Internet Explorer)