Christmas Paintings
Remember from the Thanksgiving posts our Fall Trees that we dot painted and put on the wall above the buffet? Well I liked those pictures up on that wall so much that I have decided to make that our "child masterpiece" wall. I have been trying to figure out a way to display my children's artwork and I feel that is my solution! :-) I am going to change it out each season (or every couple of months or so) with different pictures that they have made.
Since my big nativity scene sits on the buffet at Christmas time I decided I would get them to paint pictures that went with that to display through December. So I printed off coloring pages of angels and stars and had the kids dot paint them (since they love that so much). Seth also drew a picture of the entire nativity scene - that I put in in the middle.
Here is a picture of the wall with the nativity scene on the buffet.
Here is a close up of Seth's nativity drawing - complete with 7 wise men (he has decided that there were more than 3...which he could be right...bible never said there were 3...just that they brought 3 gifts)
Here is Alyssa's beautiful angel :-)
Aaron's pretty dot painted star!
Seth also did a small star.
I was working on a small angel - and, of course, Alyssa helped. (and I removed that picture hook to the left of the picture after I took this picture - LOL!)
Yesterday afternoon we had friends over for a play date!! :-) While the kids played, Angela and I played as well :-) We made advent calendars for the month of December!
I decided to use my red pocket chart for my calendar. We won't be using it for school this month so it worked out perfect. I went to Target and got some cute cookie bags in the dollar spot, along with some cute ribbon and a 24 piece puzzle!
We cut out 24 green squares and wrote the numbers 1 to 24 on them and placed them in the chart. And then I cut the bags to smaller sizes. I took red pieces of paper and wrote activities for each day. I folded up the piece of paper and put it in the middle of the bag cut out with a piece of the puzzle. I then gathered up the bag and tied a piece of ribbon around it and stuck it next to one of the numbers in the pocket chart.
Here is a picture of the calendar on the wall with the puzzle board.
And a more close up of the advent calendar.
Here is the puzzle board. This is a Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer puzzle. When I saw that it had 24 pieces I thought how perfect! Each piece is numbered and has a numbered spot on the board (you can see that I messed up my numbering - oh well). Each day the kids will glue the next piece in place.
Also having a print out of the activities will be helpful if "life" happens and I need to do a bit of rearranging to make sure we can still do all the activities (for example the day I have for us to go look at Christmas lights...if something comes up and we can't go that day we can switch things around to make sure we don't miss that activity, and we are not left with a day without an activity).
Here is a close up of Seth's nativity drawing - complete with 7 wise men (he has decided that there were more than 3...which he could be right...bible never said there were 3...just that they brought 3 gifts)
Here is Alyssa's beautiful angel :-)
Aaron's pretty dot painted star!
Seth also did a small star.
I was working on a small angel - and, of course, Alyssa helped. (and I removed that picture hook to the left of the picture after I took this picture - LOL!)
Yesterday afternoon we had friends over for a play date!! :-) While the kids played, Angela and I played as well :-) We made advent calendars for the month of December!
I decided to use my red pocket chart for my calendar. We won't be using it for school this month so it worked out perfect. I went to Target and got some cute cookie bags in the dollar spot, along with some cute ribbon and a 24 piece puzzle!
We cut out 24 green squares and wrote the numbers 1 to 24 on them and placed them in the chart. And then I cut the bags to smaller sizes. I took red pieces of paper and wrote activities for each day. I folded up the piece of paper and put it in the middle of the bag cut out with a piece of the puzzle. I then gathered up the bag and tied a piece of ribbon around it and stuck it next to one of the numbers in the pocket chart.
Here is a picture of the calendar on the wall with the puzzle board.
And a more close up of the advent calendar.
Here is the puzzle board. This is a Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer puzzle. When I saw that it had 24 pieces I thought how perfect! Each piece is numbered and has a numbered spot on the board (you can see that I messed up my numbering - oh well). Each day the kids will glue the next piece in place.
I have carefully planned out the activities, because I want us to actually stick to this and do it every day! I have even covered our bases for times when I know that we will be busy or out of town (like on day 10 I put "Go to a Christmas Concert" because we will be at my parents going to see Denver and the Mile High Orchestra or the activity of "Doing something special with Daddy and PaPa" on the day that I will be hosting a Christmas party for my ladies bible study group at my house So Daddy and PaPa will be babysitting :-).
I have also made a print out of what activities I have on what day because there will be a little bit of planning that will be needed for certain activities, such as making sure I have the ingredients for baking cookies, or planning the treasure hunt (the prize will be a $1 for each child to go spend at Dollar Tree the next day when we go out for a Christmas treat).
Also having a print out of the activities will be helpful if "life" happens and I need to do a bit of rearranging to make sure we can still do all the activities (for example the day I have for us to go look at Christmas lights...if something comes up and we can't go that day we can switch things around to make sure we don't miss that activity, and we are not left with a day without an activity).
It is going to be so fun!! I will keep you updated, of course, with pictures :-)
Oh and one activity that I love doing as many days as possible - reading Christmas novels with a nice cup of coffee while the kids nap! I started this tradition last year and loved it so much that I am doing it again this year! I have one "real" book I am reading and I have several on my kindle as well!
I so love December!
Until next time,
Kellie
Whats on your list of christmas novels? That sounds like a great tradition.. we started this year the Jesse tree journey devotional.. from the Holy experience blog.... from the beginning of advent...
ReplyDeleteIts nice to some family traditions during Christmas.