Paper Bag Reindeer Puppet

Today we made paper bag reindeer puppets! This idea came from Mommy's Little Helper.

Talia had fun playing with the puppet afterward, as well as doing the craft. :)

How To Do It:

- trace hands on construction paper
- cut hand shapes out
- glue hand shapes onto back of paper lunch bag
- glue eyes & nose onto bag
- draw mouth onto bag
- play with the puppet! :)

Stained Glass Paper Trees

Today we made Stained Glass Paper Trees. I was reminded of this fun activity idea when I visited Alpha Mom's Blog.

What To Do:

- cut a tree out of construction paper
- cut holes in it (like you would a paper snowflake, or just fold here & there & cut a piece out)
- glue pieces of tissue paper on the back like this:



- hold up to the window & watch the light shine through! :)

Paper Chain for the Christmas Tree

Yesterday we started our advent calendar. Talia made her first Christmas card, and I think it'll be a daily thing, to put a cheerio into the cup each day after Talia gets her treat out, so that Katrina can pick something out, too. :) She wanted to be involved too!

Today we made a paper chain for the Christmas tree.

How To Do It:

- I cut construction paper into half inch strips with a scrapbooking paper cutter
- we glued the ends together to make the chain


One green paper & one red paper will get you a chain this long:

2 green papers and 2 red papers will get you a chain this long:

Talia really enjoyed helping me to put the chain on the tree!

This was a great, simple Christmas activity that I'm sure we'll do again in future years.

Christmas Trees

Talia made a couple of Christmas trees today:
I cut out a Christmas Tree shape from a cereal box-type of cardboard, and Talia
- painted it green
- painted the stump pink/red
- realized mixing red with green made brown, and experimented - decorated the tree with stickers and sequins
- made it "rain" sequins
- spent FOREVER cleaning up the sequins
I also made a little green paper cone out of construction paper for her (I got the idea from Ikat, through The Crafty Crow, where you can find a bunch of cute advent ideas here) and let her decorate it
- she loved using pom poms because she saw them days ago & has been waiting for her chance to use them! Here's what Katrina got to do while Talia was painting (I tried letting her at the finger paint at first, but it went in her mouth so fast, I quickly changed the plan & let her at some babyfood instead! :)
I have a feeling that cardboard tree will continue to get more and more decorated as the days go on. I'm also planning to make a larger version of it with her as we get closer to Christmas.

Paper Puppet Christmas Pageant

My parents were recently getting rid of a ton of "The Friend" magazines that they had collected over the years. I gladly accepted a box full of them, to use for pictures to cut out for different projects with Talia.

They came in handy this week for another use, as well! I started searching the internet for some fun, religious, Christmas activities to do with Talia. It was hard to find good ones! (If you have any, or any links to a good resource, please point me to them in the comments!!)
So, I searched through the box of magazines and pulled out all of the December issues. I found today's activity in the December 1995 issue! While you can find that issue online, the illustrations aren't available that far back. However, you can find illustrations and activities to print out in the more recent issues if you go to this website (they're organized by date).

Here's what we did:

- I glued the pages onto cardstock
- I cut the pictures out
- I laminated them
- I cut them out
- I used a gluegun to glue the sticks on
- We discussed the story of Jesus' birth
- Talia played!

I'm glad I decided to laminate them, because I'm hoping they'll last long enough to actually pack them away with the Christmas stuff and use them again next year!

Here's Talia, finding new & exciting uses for the popsicle sticks while waiting for me to finish my part in the craft... note: the dye used for popsicle sticks WILL come off when moistened... ahem.

Here are some scriptures that can be used for Family Home Evening, if you want to do a Puppet Christmas Pageant:

- Christmas in America

Helaman 14:1-5, 3 Nephi 1:4-21

- The Birth of Jesus Christ

Luke 2:1-7

- Glad Tidings of Great Joy
Luke 2:8-20

- Wise Men from the East

Matthew 2:1-12

Homemade Advent Calendar

Today we made ourselves an advent calendar!!

I got the idea from Filth Wizardry, and posted about it in my Christmas Ideas post a few days ago.

Preparation:

-On Saturday, Talia & I went to a local restaurant supply store and picked up some plastic shot glasses.
-Over the last couple of days, we've been making paper snowflakes.

Process:

1. I cut a piece of tinfoil for Talia to wrap around a piece of cardboard.
2. Together, we taped it onto the back
3. I cut a piece of blue construction paper, Talia covered one side with glue, I stuck it to our shiny board.
4. We decorated with some of our previously made paper snowflakes (we took turns gluing- she was getting tired of it, but wanted to direct my placement ;).
5. I glue gunned the cups to the paper
6. We took some computer time and we decided who she wanted to make Christmas cards for this year. I told her how to spell their names, she typed them out. We printed the page, I cut the names out. She folded the names & put them in the cups.


7. We got a chocolate advent calendar and had fun opening all of the doors in one shot, to get the chocolates out and put them in our own calendar :)

8. While she napped, I stamped the tissue paper with numbers and glued it onto the tops of the cups, so that she could break the tissue paper with her finger and get out the candy and the name each day of December.

(The plan is to make one Christmas card each day, so that she doesn't get sick of making a bunch in a row.)

Alternatives:

I also thought of putting a paper in each cup listing the activity for the day, but I can guess that we'll end up switching things around, so for us, that wasn't the best choice :)

I have seen this idea used as a way to put left over Hallowe'en candy to use as well. You can use it for the month of November if you're doing that, or make a giant one that goes from Hallowe'en to Christmas!

Christmas Preparation

This year I really want to do a lot of Christmas activities with Talia leading up to Christmas. I love Christmas for so many reasons, and I want her to experience the joy of the season. From gift giving and service to decorating & creating the Christmas atmosphere in our home to the true meaning and story of Christmas.

So, I'm starting now to gather ideas for activities to do with her come December.

Ideas I've found surfing just three blogs that I hope to try this year are as follows:

From Chasing Cheerios:

- Jinglebell Bracelets
- Clove oranges

From Filth Wizardry:

- Salt dough ornaments
- newspaper/streamer wreaths
- homemade advent calendar
- tights snowman
- cardboard Christmas trees


Stained glass paper trees from Alphamom

Popsicle stick tree ornaments from A Homeschool Journey

Candy Cane Syrup from Storybook Woods

Pipecleaner/bead Ornaments from Make and Takes

Santa Claus Card from Tutus and Turtles

Sparkly Pinecone Ornaments from Mom in Madison

Reindeer Paperbag from Mommy's Little Helper

I'll be adding more ideas as I come across them!

Now, please, if you're reading this, and you have any ideas (or great blog resources!), please share them in the comments section!

Foam Pumpkin Art

My husband (Ken) is great at finding fun things to use at dollar stores. He bought these foam sheets & Hallowe'en shapes there and he & Talia had fun creating Hallowe'en "cards" together. It was Talia's idea to use the little white punch outs for the Pumpkins' eyes :)

Apple Pumpkin Stamps

I have seen this activity before but I can't remember where.

You just cut an apple in half, dip it in paint (or paint it with a paintbrush) and then use it as a stamp. We used them to make pumpkins.

We did the stamping in the evening, and since they used a lot of paint,we let them dry overnight before adding googly eyes & paper jack-o-lantern faces. (I cut out the pieces & Talia arranged them).

Bee Study

Talia's insect of choice yesterday was the Bee. We read two books about bees, and then made a paper Bee similar to the ladybug she made the other day.

This time I let her make more choices and do more of the work on her own.

Observations:

She liked being "the cutting person" :)
She wanted me to help her with gluing a few of the things, but seemed to enjoy doing it herself as well.

Note the long tongue for drinking nectar (it is not a stinger-and did you know only females have stingers?) It was good to let Talia do the cutting because not only did she enjoy cutting, but we were able to discuss how many legs we needed, how big the tongue should be, how many wings a bee has, etc.

Ladybug Study

Yesterday I took Talia to the library in search of bug books (her topic of choice). We came home with an armful of books plus the Paper Bag Princess movie.

I'm going to see if we can get to the library as often as once a week, and choose different topics to find books for, each time. This way we can have a "topic of the week" to focus on.

Today she chose the Ladybug book and we read it together. I was impressed with how much she learned from it when we reviewed it. The plan is to teach Daddy all about ladybugs later (the babies are called Larva, the children are called Pupa, their feelers smell, in the winter they sleep, etc.)

I've already noticed this blog being helpful to my own motivation to do more with Talia. After we read the book, I thought to myself, "well that was a good, educational thing to do with her... too bad I don't have a picture to share it on the blog." And then I thought of something that I could post a picture of, and the idea of an activity to do with her, related to our Ladybug study, came to mind.

So, I prepared some pieces of lady bug out of construction paper, and she put it together. It allowed us to review again about the the different parts of the ladybug's body.

This next photo demonstrates her idea to bend the legs so that the ladybug could crawl :)



Things I Would Change:

I would probably let Talia cut out the dots, legs, etc. next time so that she could do more of it herself. I think she enjoyed doing it a lot, but I want always to reinforce her own creativity and abilities. It would probably be more of a "thinking" activity for her, if I had discussed with her about "what else does the Ladybug need?" for example, and helped her figure out how to make it.