These were the busiest two days of my life but so much fun! We brought in a new special helper in the afternoons to help out with all of the extra kids I had around thanks to schools being out on Christmas break. We played games, colored, had a Sensory Play Day, made cupcakes, had a balloon party (it's just as it sounds, a bunch of blown up balloons that the kids hit up in the air over and over again) and had our daycare Christmas party...all mixed in with the every day craziness.
Take a look at the few moments I was able to quickly capture:
Our sensory activities: Christmas play dough (I used our salt dough ornaments recipes and put cinnamon in for the red and peppermint in for the green) and Christmas snow (I used this recipe: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/09/pumpkin-snow.html) and used cinnamon for the red and peppermint for the green. The kids love this stuff! Luckily it's an easy clean up because things get messy!
Always a hit: a veggie tray in the middle of the living room. We watched a new winter episode of Daniel Tiger while the kids ate. By the end the tray was demolished and nearly every child had tried something new (or something they didn't like) at the encouragement of their friends.
A card game while they ate apple slices.
A couple of our party games: Christmas tree bowling (our Christmas trees were 2 ltr. bottles filled with paint, they used the Snowball Fight as their balls) and Christmas tree ring toss. The rings were too small so eventually we just used the kid's paper plate wreaths that they made.
Next week will be another short week, but jam packed with fun. We'll paint, read our few New Year's books we have, enjoy a few of the new crafts the kids got, and have a New Year's party!