Luke 2:11

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

B learned this verse this summer thanks to Backyard Bible Club and I honestly didn't think he'd truly remember it very long. Once again, he proved me wrong. He knows it, well and many of the Christ focused Christmas songs, he'll ask, " is it talking about Luke 2:11...A Savior has been born to you?"

We do a lot of fun things during the Christmas season and while we "believe" in Santa, we ultimately know the true meaning of Christmas and have had some fun learning about the birth of Jesus.

The Fisher Price Nativity set, B really loved this last year but this year mostly plays with the creche itself because it plays Away in a Manger...and he loves music. He has learned to sing part of the song; which has to be the sweetest thing ever heard...to hear a preschooler signing Christmas music. At least to this Mom ;)

We also played with our felt Nativity and used our Christmas Story rhyme (found below).

I love the detail and simplicity in these Nativity characters. They remind me of ones from when I was in Sunday School.

You can find this free nativity printables at activityvillage.co.uk

Christmas Story Rhyme:

The angel came down

from God to say

that Mary will have a baby on Christmas Day.

His name will be Jesus

God's only Son

He will show that God loves everyone.

Mary and Joseph traveled far,far away.

When they got to Bethlehem, there was no place to stay.

God gave them a stable filled with cows and sheep.

Jesus was born,

and on the hay he did sleep.

The shepherds were watching their sheep at night.

An angel came and caused a great fright!

"Don't be afraid. I have good news!"

Jesus is born for you and you and you

The angels sang and the shepherds ran

 to see the baby God sent to man!

Then wise men came following a special star.

All the way to Jesus,

they came from afar.

They knocked on His door,

then they knelt on the floor.

Then they gave their gifts to Jesus.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours...may it be blessed and may you experience the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas crafts

There are so many fun activities to do during the holidays, it's often hard to choose which ones to do without overwhelming myself or B. Here are a few we did...

Reindeer - We traced B's hands & a shoe onto construction paper. Add some googly eyes, a red pompom and a little mouth & say hello to Rudolph.

We also made I spy ornaments, with the above material. I wanted to use the large glass ornaments but I waited to long to buy them & only the small ones were left. They worked out well though, and are just as cute. The only problem was trying to find things that would fit in the tiny openings of these ornaments. I will be looking for the larger ones next year. 

For more examples of these, check out playathomemom3 she has some awesome ideas!

*These are glass so be very careful if you attempt this project.

One hanging on our tree...and yes that is a paper chain; over 70% of our tree is decorated in some form of paper ornaments.

What would Christmas be without a gingerbread house? Actually it's a first in our house, neither my DH or I have done one...so it was a new experience for all of us. While more time consuming that I realized, it was fun. We let B decorate it how he wanted on the roof & asked for other suggestions (Should we add a door/window etc.); then Mommy did a few finishing touches.

Considering we weren't trying for perfection, I think it turned out pretty cute.

We even did a Santa craft, that B enjoyed; I wish I could remember where I found this (if it's yours, let me know & I'll give you credit).

Once you color and cut out the pieces, glue the Santa to a tongue depressor and you've got Santa going up & down the chimney. B is saying 'ho,ho,ho'. Unfortunately B only got to play with it for a day, I guess the dog thought it was fun yummy too...the next morning, the only thing left of it was a small piece of the tongue depressor.

Christmas cookies

One thing our family loves about the Christmas holiday is all the yummy desserts. :)  While we all opt for the more chocolaty of these, we can't forget how much fun it is to make Christmas cookies. Even fake ones, yes I said fake cookies. I hadn't quiet got all the ingredients to do our baking, but when I pulled out the cookie cutters B was so intrigued with all the different ones. He was having fun just playing with them. That's when I decided, we could make fake ones out of the things I had on hand.

I traced the cookie cutters onto card stock, but any paper would work.

Then the decorating began...

I was a little afraid of giving B glitter, especially in the house but he did really well and having a little tray made clean up easy.

Adding stickers...love the finger dexterity practice, he was so patient and persistent.

I guess we were having TO much fun, because even Daddy decided to join in the fun. I secretly think B thought this was the best part of making them. Daddy doesn't always get to join us for activities since he's working or traveling...it's nice when he can!

Some of our 'sprinkle' cookies.

A few of our sticker cookies.

Making fake cookies doesn't really satisfy the COOKIE need, so once we got all our ingredients,

 we had to make the real ones!

I meant to take some pictures of the actual 'making' of the cookies, but didn't really have clean hands to hold a camera. ;) So instead, here's B decorating them...I think he would have covered every inch with the sprinkles if I hadn't stopped him. He was having a blast making these cookies.

Some of his creations.

These aren't cookies, but are SO yummy and thanks to my SIL, Amy for sharing the idea. Super easy and perfect for a preschooler to help with, just watch out for warm pans & chocolate.

In case you are a big cookie fan or a big Sesame Street fan, then there's a book you have to read:

B LOVES this book, it's all about baking cookies. He can actually 'read' it, and by read I mean he's memorized it and can read it back to you...which happens quiet a lot. Once he learns a book, he wants to read it to us. While this one is not a Christmas book, it fits in perfect with all the baking, plus it shows where we get sugar, flour and other ingredients from so it opens up discussions on farming, plants and other changes food goes through to make an end product.

Happy Baking this Christmas!



Winter Wonderland Sensory Bin

In Texas we don't really get white Christmas's, we occasionally get snow flurries maybe even enough to stick for an hour or so but never snow up to your ankles. The last time I remember snow like that in Texas I was six...so it's been a while ;)  Since I don't think we are planning a winter trip this year I brought winter to us in the form of a sensory bin.

It doesn't take a lot to make a sensory bin, or a lot of money. I got most of the things on sale before Thanksgiving, all under $2. The most expensive thing in there is the Toob- Arctic animals pack. Most of the items are from Hobby Lobby, Dollar Store or Michael's)

So what's in there...

1 bag fake snow

 mini presents for small trees

 pack of small and large trees for Christmas villages

 cinnamon sticks

fake candy canes (Dollar store)

 scrap booking die cut snowflakes

 mini snowmen and penguins

 Toob animals (Michael's)

B exploring the bin.

*If you use the snow; put a blanket/towel down under the bin for easy clean up,

 or you'll be finding snow pieces for weeks. ;)

Christmas count down

Still playing catch up here, but here is how we are counting down the days until Christmas.

Ours is simple: ribbons, mini clothespins, mini stockings and fun Christmas socks with numbers. Each morning he gets to see what's in that day's stocking. Some are trinkets, candy and others are little notes about the fun things we'll do that day; like building a Gingerbread house or going to look at Christmas lights. He is loving it.

I also wanted him to understand that Christmas isn't just about getting things. I want him to see the joy he gets from giving and helping others, as well as the joy they receive from that giving. He already loves to be a helper, so hopefully this will just build on that.

Our Giving Box...

Our little box from Hobby Lobby, painted and decorated with scrap booking stickers. Every day I change the number and the giving tag inside.

Some of our giving tags...

Help set the table

Give the dog a treat

Give a toy to charity

Help empty the dishwasher

Tell someone why you love them

How are you counting down Advent this year?

Giving Thanks

Okay, so I'm WAY behind & I'm playing catch up. Between the holidays beginning, illness, birthday parties, lesson plans and life in general; I've fallen behind in my blogging. So if you haven't already been able to tell I'm trying to get the last month in so I can post about our fun activities for December. So like I said in the Sick day post, our Thanksgiving unit got cut short but we did manage to squeeze in a few fun activities.

Here is our Thanksgiving 'tree'. I originally wanted to do a large one the wall with paper cutouts, but then decided it was too much work and we really didn't have the wall space. So I started to look around at what we had & came up with this. I didn't spend a dime on it, it was all stuff I had plus it was nice and small. The limbs are from our backyard, the dry black beans from our pantry and the twine and construction paper from the school shelves. Yea for re-purposing! It took B a few days to understand what this tree was really about, we got the whatever he was looking at or thinking about at that moment responses for a few but then the more meaningful ones came. We will definitely be recreating this one next year.

Since our unit was shortened due to illnesses, I had to re-think our plans. So each day we learned something new about Thanksgiving.

Day One...

The Mayflower: Large ship that carried the Pilgrims to America.

 The sail was larger but B decided he didn't want to cut along the lines. ;)

Day Two...

The Pilgrims - we read a few stories on them, looked at pictures and made a hat.

Day Three...

The Indians (Native Americans) - we reread books and looked at other pictures and made the feathered hat.

We even got to put together these fun shape Indians from 2Teaching Mommies.

Day Four...

Thanksgiving - Re read again and talked about the feast and how the Indians help the Pilgrims

 by showing them how to grow crops.

 We made some Indian corn too.

We also talked about the differences between the Pilgrims and Indians.

*also from 2TeachingMommies.

A fun Thanksgiving turkey snack.

Day Five...

Thanksgiving day...We made this shirt at the beginning of the week, B liked making something he got to wear. He got so many comments that day too about his 'turkey' shirt. He liked telling them it said 'happy' and 'day'. Yes, there is a bruise under his eye. The night before, he leaned on the edge of a toy box and it popped back up and hit him. Luckily no black eye.

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little guy who turns 3!

I'm not sure where the time went, but it flew. This week as we've watched videos and looked at pictures of you as a baby and how much you've changed and become a wonderful, loving, smart, handsome, friendly little man; I'm amazed and so proud to be your Mommy! 

You truly are a blessing.

Sick days...

This week we were going to start our Thanksgiving unit, however this was quickly thrown out the window when B became sick. Generally I'd give him at least a few low keyed activities to do, but this illness was not like anything he's had before. He was actually begging to sleep and to be cuddled. So I knew there was really something wrong. Since we still had another week before Thanksgiving & not only his illness but Daddy as well; I surrendered and became a pajama wearing, sleepy head with them. While my mind raced with all the things I needed to be doing, I decided that all those things could wait because sometimes you just need to 'be' and cuddle a little more.

Poor little guy spend almost a week on the sofa.



Big Machines

This week has been a busy week, so we were a little lacks on activities. Instead we were prepping for B's birthday, which this year is all about construction. He's slightly obsessed with anything construction, he will point out and name every vehicle while we're driving. So in the theme of construction, I found a Big Machines Unit online at 1plus1plus1equals1

We got to color bulldozers.

 Counting Big Machines

We even got to read about how much we liked each of the big machines.

He loves locks & keys, so I though this was appropriate with the machine theme, since they always lock them up at night.

Finding the right fit.

I had planned to let B take his construction trucks out to the dirt or sand box this day, but it FINALLY rained.
 So the next best thing, playdoh. While this wasn't as fun as dirt, he loved scooping it up in his excavator and putting it in the dump truck.

And then there was making tracks in it, since they all had different wheels.

B is very into games right now, but not generally matching. He seems to give me this 'please mom, I am SO past this' every time I give him a matching project. However these two were different, I'm sure because they were all about trucks and vehicles. The found the Tonka stickers above at the dollar store & knew right away they'd be a hit.

These stickers came from a playgroup buddy (thanks N).  I hate for good stickers to be a one time only thing, and these were awesome, not only were there two of each character, they were puffy! So I decided we need to get more than one use out of these cool guys. B was excited when I suggested we make a game out of them. He had a blast making this matching game & then playing it. He loves that it's Bob the Builder too!

We were also lucky a few weeks before this unit and his birthday we got to visit a REAL construction site, thanks to an old friend (thanks K). Here are a few shots from that day; he had a BLAST! For days afterwards he talked about all these big machines.

 Can you tell how happy he is?

And then there was the dirt! You can see it on his hands, but what's harder to see is it's actually all over his face too.

Oh to be a mother of a little boy ;)