We didn't get to a lot of our Christmas activities that we planned this week. I did a toy rotation after the kids left Friday afternoon the previous week. Monday and Tuesday the kids explored the "new toys" I had put out. I heard a lot of "did you know you have _____ toy!" I've never seen kids so enthralled with the toys before. I was literally hushed when I asked if anyone wanted to color!
It was a pleasant surprise and my pile of dirty laundry in the basement thanks them. The middle of the week we had to put a ban on the game Puppies and Kitties. It's a great, imaginative game where the kids pretend to be puppies and kitties....except it's also a great excuse to hit other kids and claim they're just "scratching like a cat." The end of the week the kids were treated to a few hours in the backyard thanks to a forty degree day in December.
Here's a brief look at our week:
The kids made cupcake liner Christmas trees. I took an empty toilet paper roll and cut off all of the corners. I had to fold all of the cupcake liners into triangles and cut a hole in the back of the toilet paper roll. The kids did the rest as I instructed them where to place piece of tape. Another cute ornament that we hung on our tree.
My book
Let's Use Our Words
is finally available and we couldn't be more excited about it! It was definitely the highlight of our week and the kids had a blast looking through their story.
Our beautiful Christmas tree! This year, I decided that our tree would be decorated with all homemade ornaments (even though we have boxes filled with other ornaments). It's been a blast coming up with new ornaments to make with the kids.
The kids played with Christmas Goop. Thankfully it wasn't as messy as last time (I made strict rules), but not many of the kids enjoyed playing with it this time. They claimed it was too messy for them.
A couple of the ornaments the kids have decorated this week: wooden Santa's colored with markers (I found the wooden Santa's at Michael's for .29 cents a piece, we glued the string on) and popsicle shaped ornaments (found at Michael's).
I found giant plastic ornaments at Walmart (.96 cents a piece) and the kids covered them with their favorite stickers.
Hand print ornaments made with
Crayola Model Magic 4-Ounce, Red and
Crayola 4 oz Pouch Model Magic, Green CRY574444 (you can also find these at Michael's for $4.99 per pouch).
A certain kitty (ahem...Sophia!) really loves having the tree water right in the living room. The kids find this hilarious.
The salt dough ornaments turned out amazing this year! In years past I've never been able to get them to turn out. This year however, they turned out awesome and the kids loved choosing which two they wanted to paint. I used 1 cup salt, 1 cups flour, up to 1 cup of water, cook for 3 hours at 100 degrees. These turned out so well that I made train salt dough ornaments for next week's Polar Express Day.
Our Ninja Turtle ornaments turned out adorable! We'll be giving these out as gifts to teachers and friends.
The kids wanted to taste test a lemon. Their reactions were priceless.
I seemed to have a couple of frogs ribbiting through my house.
I didn't think through things when I bought this snowball fight kit from Gordman's last winter: the kids thoroughly enjoy throwing them as hard as they can at each other. So, much like everything else in our house, the Snowball Fight game comes with rules. I stick blue masking tape onto the carpet and the kids are allowed to through the snowballs into the bucket only as hard as they want to. This seems to satisfy their urge to throw them at each other.
One of the big controversies of the week: there was a cat in the dress up clothes!
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Play time outside! It was so gorgeous out that we pushed naps back and played outside for over two hours. I enjoyed a cup of tea on the patio while they ran around.
The second big controversy of the week: ICE IN THE COZY COUPE! "How did it get there?" "Why didn't it melt like the other ice on the ground?" "What DO we do!??!!" For that we looked in our
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Why (National Geographic Little Kids First Big Books)
The kids love this book and it does a great job of satisfying their undying curiosity about all things.
More Christmas coloring.
Clifford died and we held a dog funeral. I never thought that would be in my job description....
I got to end my week with sweet, calm snuggles from my favorite girl.
We've got a full schedule next week: Polar Express Day, Pasta Play Day, Christmas cookie decorating, and Christmas play dough making and playing, and of course, watching our favorite Christmas movies and reading our favorite Christmas books!
