Book-n-Craft Advent Activities - December 2nd

Our second Christmas Book-n-Craft is If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff. I just love her books. I own most of them. These are great books to use in the classroom as well. This is another book that my Darling Mom brought me along with the stuffed mouse that is in it! She is always on the look out for great books for the kids! (By the way, Kaleb loves that mouse) The book starts out with popcorn and ends with popcorn, so to celebrate, we made popcorn!

I added pink food dye to the oil while popping so it came out tinted pink. We then watched a movie and made a popcorn string.

 

She wasn't totally thrilled with my Christmas movie pick but she got over it.

I now know why very few people string popcorn anymore. It was harder than it looked and the popcorn kept breaking. (not to mention, my fingers are now pink)

J made a heart shaped pink and purple mouse ornament from some foam that I brought from the states. Of course, she chose the colors!

Then we played Penguin Knock Out from Walking by the Way. We used foam shapes and rolled dice. J had to cover the number she rolled. The first person to cover all of the numbers won. It was a cute game and it would be even cuter if I had different penguing markers or erasers.

We will use this game through out the month of December. Two Book-n-Crafts down, yay! See ya soon!

Book-n-Craft Advent Activities December 1st

Our first book is Mrs.WishyWashy's Christmas by Joy Cowley. This is probably one one the all time preschool books - especially Mrs.Wishy Washy by Joy Cowley. Apparently they are out of print because their prices are alittle high. My dear Mom brought this book to me. Thanks Mom! I love when she brings me...uh..J books!

We played snow tic tac toe. We used this game last year and I brought it out again. I love this face! We read the book and then worked on a Mrs. Wishy Washy ornament using two small paper plates.

She painted one red and the other a cream/facial color. We waited for them to dry and then we glues them together. While she was waiting, she played some Christmas games on computer. (in case you were wondering, she dressed herself)

She cut up some yellow yarn to add for hair.

Here is our final product. I think it turned out kinda cute. I used the small paper plate but it still turned out alittle big. Since all of the animals sneak into Mrs. Wishy Washy's bathroom, J and Kaleb also took a bubble bath. Our first Book-n-Craft is done. Only 23 more to go. Happy Day.

Book-n-Craft Advent Activities

I have been reading across the Internet what other people are doing for Advent. I drool over their ideas and their resources. But I have decided this year to do my own thing. We are going to read a book each day and do an activity or craft related to our story. I went through my Christmas books and I had just enough for twenty five activities. The books might not be considered the best choices but I have to use what I have. English books are hard to find here, as well as extremely expensive. So I am using all of the Christmas books that we own. So, starting in December, our school activities will be holiday related. We will still be doing our daily bible, math, and language arts but we will put Five in a Row on the shelf until January to enjoy the holiday preparation (and not stress me out). Wish me luck, because some of the books were hard to find crafts relating to them. We will just have to use our imagination.

One great link that I would like to leave you with is Walking by the Way has some great math and phonics games for Christmas. I am planning on playing these along with our holiday activities. They look like fun. Maybe you can find some inspiration!

Monday's Discovery

Last week was quite a week. First, I found out that my DS hurt his foot and had to have surgery. I couldn't be there, which just about killed me. Then, Kaleb decided to climb on J's toddler bed and climb off, only to get his foot stuck in one of the side panels. He twisted his leg. We spent about two hours at the hospital. It isn't broken but they put a splint of sorts on his leg. The doctor asked me to keep him immobile - just how do you do that? We put a large sock on it so he couldn't take the splint off. He will have it off in a couple of days. I think it adds about ten pounds to him and he was heavy to begin with!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Oh, how I miss Thanksgiving in the states! We always had Thanksgiving with our special friends and after a great dinner, we would sit around the table and talk. I miss watching the parade in the mornings and setting up the Christmas tree. I miss my family and my friends but know that I am thinking about you and that you are in my heart! I am thankful for all of you. Just know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Happy Thanksgiving!! Love you guys!!

J's Birthday Surprise

A couple of weeks ago, we studied dinosaurs and then we found out that there was a Dinosaur Land here in one of the malls. We thought for J's birthday celebration that we would take the family to see the dinosaurs!

Here is J on one of the animated dinosaurs. It wasn't quite a museum, I would say it was more of a small attraction but we had fun. The dinosaurs were animated and made funny sounds. We weren't allowed to take any pictures - sorry.

After seeing the dinosaurs and having a lunch at Arby's (what a treat!!!), we drove home. I made J some pink cupcakes complete with pink frosting and she opened her presents.

Her favorite was a Fur Real pet dog. She also received a cat from her sister. These Fur Real pets are handheld and move kinda like a pet (but without the poop). She truly wants a real animal, I just can't see having one inside an apartment in the city! This is about as close as she will get for now. I think she had a good birthday.

The Glorious Flight

We are still working on The Glorious Flight this week. Our sight words for the week are I and see. So J worked on stamping and writing the words.

She worked on an airplane dot to dot with numbers up to fifty.

This story takes place in France so we worked on a mini book about France. She wrote the answers that I spelled for her.

Over the weekend, I made these cubes from some rainbow fabric that I found in my mother's cabinet. They resemble the photo cubes. I put different pictures in the pockets and we took turns rolling it. We then graphed the pictures that ended up. They were easy to make but the vinyl was a pain to sew. I think they will do for our graphing projects and games.

I printed an airplanes version of Go Fish game and this is our game of the week. It goes with our learning about planes and flying.

We made pictures using a template that I found at a sale here. She traced airplanes and colored a scene around them.

This week, we will finish our book and work on more Thanksgiving activities. We will have a mini Thanksgiving dinner with the teachers and we will celebrate J's birthday. Have a great one!