Advent

This year we have 2 advent calendars going at the same time. One downstairs for the daycare and one just for Jada upstairs. I thought I would share what is in both of our advents for those of you stuck for ideas. I didn't want Jada to focus on the stuff (candy)that comes in advent calendars so I did a few days with some surprises but mostly activities that we can do together. Each day has a tiny slip of paper telling us what activity to do or where to find a surprise.



Jada's advent:
1. Put up our Christmas tree
2. Christmas tree Chocolate
3. Listen to Christmas music
4. make a marbleized ornament
5. Go for a Wagon/sleigh ride
6. Look under your pillow for a surprise (Hair Elastics)
7. Go for a drive to look at Christmas lights
8. Make some Christmas cards
9. Play with our Christmas themed play Dough
10. Make a foot snowman painting
11. Find a surprise under your pillow (a snowman pez)
12. Play with our Christmas themed Sensory Bin
13. Read some Christmas books
14. Look under your pillow for a surprise ( singing snowman)~ I got it on clearance last boxing day
15. Build a snowman
16. Make some orange clove scents (activity)
17. Make a reindeer from our hand and foot prints
18. Go for a winter walk
19. Attend Grampie's Christmas Birthday (he was born on Christmas eve)
20. Have some hot chocolate
21. Go sledding
22. Watch the polar express
23. Bake cookies
24. put out cookies for Santa and read the night before Christmas
25. Mini Santa Chocolate

* Please note these are not in any particular order as they may change dates depending on the weather*
I tried to correspond Jada's advent with the Day cares. Again this is in no particular order.

Day cares Advent:
1. Christmas sensory bin
2. Christmas themed Play Dough
3. Make marbleized Christmas ornaments
4. home day
5. home day
6. Put up our Christmas tree
7. Orange clove scents activity
8. Christmas felt stories
9. Snowman made from our foot prints
10. make cinnamon ornaments
11. home day
12. home day
13. Ice cream cone Christmas tree decorating
14. Snowman buttoning
15. Have some hot chocolate
16. Reindeer feet and hands craft
17. Read Christmas books
18. home day
19. home day
20. special treat
21. watch the polar express
22. Build a snowman
23. Cookie decorating and class party
24. home day
25. home day
stay tuned for future posts on these activities. I hope you can use some of these ideas:)

December Play Dough

December's Play Dough

It smells heavenly! I added peppermint extract to the dough, One of my favorite scents besides cookies, pumpkin pie and cinnamon. And since the dough smells like peppermint I decided to do a little candy cane play dough making activity with the children. More on that later in another post.

Memories Of Christmas Past & Present

Present



Past

Christmas 2009

I miss this sweet little person........She is still sweet just not so little. Sniff......

Sneak Peek At My December Planning

I have been working on my planning for December and thought I would share. I can't wait to show you my December Sensory bin that I just finished putting together. I also had a lot more activities planned for December but decided to scale it back because I want the holidays to be as stress free as possible.

Theme: Everything Christmas

Sensory Bin: Christmas tree decorating
play Dough: Candy Cane theme

Santa Hat Pictures ~yearly tradition
Hand Print Reindeer
Ice cream cone tree decorating
Gum Drop pushing
Orange Clove pushing
Apple Cinnamon Ornaments
Pop Bottle Christmas Trees
Foot print Snowman
Hand Print Snowman
Cookie Decorating
Glass ornament and paint~Parent gift
Dot page
Some surprises!


Activity Trays:
snowflake scooping
Mini Present Tonging/tweezing or Scooping
Christmas Colored water eye dropper and bath cling
Red and Green Sort
Christmas puzzles
Christmas Pom Pom transfer
Christmas Figures tonging/tweezing

Frozen Reversible Wreath

Frozen Reversible Wreath

I saw this in a Martha Stewart Magazine years and years ago. It was back in the day when she still had a children's magazine. I miss those days! I would get super excited when a new copy would come out. Luckily I saved some of my favorite pictures and put them in my someday craft book.





I hung our wreath on the daycare door so the children could see it everyday.

This is the pretty patterned bottom

When you freeze your wreath you will need to add your string for hanging. I tied mine around an apple slice to keep it in place during the freezing stage

When you take your wreath out of the freezer place the pan in a shallow sink of warm water. You will hear it crackle. This is when you should gently remove the pan from the sink and turn over onto your counter. It should slide right out.

This is the patterned pan I used.

Pretty Orange side???

Or Pretty berry side????


Things I used for my wreath:
water, Sliced apples, sliced oranges, sliced celery and left over Swedish berries from Halloween. I didn't have any cherries and swedish berries were the closest I had on hand.

How to make a frozen wreath?

Arrange how you want your food items in the pan, tie your hanger to an apple slice and carefully place in the freezer. I froze mine for a few weeks only because I forgot about it. I'm sure you could just freeze overnight. I think next year or when this one melts I will add just a drop of red food coloring. Also some cinnamon sticks would make a nice contrast too.

A Homemade Christmas

I am pretty excited for Christmas this year so Jada can play with these:

100% recycled tree blocks made from the dead fall from hurricane Earl.

The bags I made to hold the blocks with a cute tree pattern. I made an extra set for my niece Eden. I hope the girls like them as much as I do. When I worked in a big daycare we had a set that cost a lot of money. It was a very small set and the children loved them so much they started to fall apart. To tell you the truth I forgot all about them until I saw this post. I got my hubby to cut these ones a bit thick for extra durability. I hope it works.
Are you wondering what's in the small bags yet????? I will keep you guessing for another few days :)

Some of the dead fall waiting to be recycled into play blocks

Hubby cutting the blocks in his way too over stuffed shed.

Thanks hunny!
So how do you make them? so simple
1. Find some dead fall
2. Mark your branches where you want them to be cut
3. Cut with saw along marked lines
4. Sand any rough edges to prevent any splinters during play
And you're done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy