Christmas Counting Activity

My two-year old is massively into playdough at the moment and his older brother is interested in counting, so I created this activity with both of their interests in mind.

The Christmas tree is made of playdough, which I rolled out and then cut into shape using a cookie cutter.  In one bowl I placed some numbers and in the other a handful of sequins.  I demonstrated the activity to the children, selecting a number from the bowl and placing it above the tree and then counting out the sequins to match the number above the tree.  Wugs (4) did this a few times on his own, the largest number he created was 30 before screwing up the Christmas tree and playing with it to create various shapes.  Dooey (2) didn't engage with the numbers, but enjoyed pressing the sequins into the playdough and then pulling them out again.

An easy activity to set up and engaged the boys for some time - we've pulled it out numerous times over the Christmas holidays!

What we used:
- Green Playdough
- Cookie Cutter
- Plastic Numbers
- Sequins

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh Activity

This year we brought the nativity story alive by experiencing the gifts that the wise men brought the baby Jesus.  As a child I remember wondering what the gifts of frankincense and myrrh were like and this year, I ordered a bottle of the oils.  I emptied a drop or two of each oil onto a cotton wool ball and placed the cotton wool balls into these beautifully crafted pill boxes from India.  In the third box, I added a little gold cross.

Once the children had smelled the frankincense and myrrh, I added one of the oils to a burner to see whether they could guess which oil was burning.  This was quite difficult as frankincense and myrrh do not smell that different.  Frankincense was, in my view, a slightly heavier smell than myrrh.

What we used:
- Essential oils of frankincense and myrrh
- Gold cross
- Small pill boxes
- Small tray
- Oil burner

Advent Calendar Maths Game

This Christmas we found ourselves in the awkward position of having three advent calendars and just two children to open them. The generous act of a mum at Wugs' preschool of giving each child an advent calendar meant that I had to decide whether to consume the chocolates in the third advent calendar myself or ask the children to take turns in having the chocolates in addition to the ones they had from their own calendars. Given the huge amount of chocolate that is generally consumed at Christmas, I thought I'd do something different with this advent calendar.

I decided to create a treasure hunt where the clues behind each door of the calendar are Maths puzzles, which lead to the next door and so on.

To make this game, I emptied all the chocolates from the advent calendar and put them in a bowl in the fridge. Then I measured the inner doors of the advent calendar and created 24 paper squares which would cover the picture that was already on the inner door. On the squares I wrote the puzzles. I used four different types of puzzle:
- subtraction (e.g. 5-3)
- addition (e.g. 10+3)
- counting (e.g. pictures of trees or snowballs)
- sequences (e.g. 62, 63, 64, 65, __?)

Once I wrote out all the puzzles on the paper squares, I cut out 24 small stickers and wrote the answers to the puzzles on them.  The only sticker that is not the answer to a puzzle is the first and I labelled this 100 as Wugs is interested in that number at the moment. I stuck the stickers over the numbers on the advent calendar doors and then starting with door 100, I stuck the puzzles to the inside of the calendar doors. The answer to the first puzzle is the number of the next door to be opened. For example, door 100 has the puzzle "Count the stars" followed by a drawing of 9 stars. The child then opens the door with 9 on it to reveal another puzzle and so on until all the doors are opened. The last door says a simple "well done!". If any doors remain closed then an error will have been made along the way and the child might wish to go back and double-check his/her answers.

Once I finished making the calendar, I added a chocolate to a couple of the doors, so that Wugs gets a surprise every now and then as he works through it. The second time he does it, a different door will have the chocolate and so on.

My Advent Calendar Maths Game was created for a four year old, with the puzzles ranging from very easy to difficult and I offered Wugs a hundred board and 20 stones to help him with the addition and subtraction puzzles.  The game could be adapted for any age range.

What we used:
- Advent calendar (with/without chocolates)
- White paper
- Stickers
- Pen
- A hundred board and 20 stones

Prayer Advent Calendar

For the last couple of years I have created advent calendars which contain a craft or activity to do with the children.  This year I decided to go for something a little different...

 I've often thought that the greatest thing I could teach my children is how to pray.  To be able to show them how they can speak to God, to share their happiness and their troubles with Him is really a gift that can be taken for granted.  Our advent calendar this year will contain a heart in each pocket which represents a person or a country that we will pray for on that day.  Hopefully we will do this with our Advent Candle lit and blow the candle out after we have prayed.

In putting together the advent calendar I asked the boys who they would like to pray for and then I added some of my own.

I'm hoping that throughout advent the boys will begin to lead us in prayer and grow spiritually.

In our church the children are asked if they would like to pray for the children's ministry and a child always offers to come out the front and say the prayer.  Not only does it encourage children to talk to God, but also it acknowledges that children are equally important to God and to the church and enables them to gain confidence in public speaking.

Advent Candle

Yesterday my son created this beautiful advent candle during his children's church session and the idea was simply too good not to share!

To create the base of the advent candle, a paper plate was provided together with a text "Jesus is Coming" and a ring of 24 candles to encircle the candle.  We glued the centrepiece to the paper plate first and then my son chose from a variety of small decorative materials to be added to his base.  He glued this around the centrepiece. The candle was the last piece to be added which was glued inside the ring of stars.  Each day of advent he will colour in one of the stars until the ring is coloured in and it is Christmas.  A simple and beautiful craft that could be easily put together as a last-minute Advent activity!

What we used:
Paper plate
Small decorative embellishments
A candle
A centrepiece with the words "Jesus is Coming" and 24 stars to encircle the candle (I do not have the printable, but it would be easy to recreate the text with a different wording (if preferred) and instead of using stars to colour in, the child could use star stickers to add to the centrepiece.
Glue

Snowflake Christmas Cards

Snowflakes seem to be our thing this year thanks to our Hobbycraft snowflake cutter.  It came in handy again today as we had a couple of Christmas cards still to make.

I had some leftover coffee filter paper art (click here to find out how to dye coffee filter paper) from a craft that Wugs and Dooey did a few weeks ago and (as these cards were rushed) I cut out the snowflakes myself.  I folded over an A4 sheet of card and on one side stuck the snowflakes to it. Then I drew the window frame on black card, cut it out using a knife and stuck in over the snowflakes.  As the Christmas cards were for cat lovers, I had the idea to add a silhouette of a cat sitting in the windowsill.

What we used:
Coffee filter paper
Washable felt-tip pens
Squirty bottle of water
Snowflake cutter
Coloured A4 card
Metallic pen
Glue

Cheap Colourful Snowflakes

One of our favourite ways of producing colour in our crafts involves squirting water onto felt tip pen markings and watching the colours separate and dry on coffee filter paper.  Here are a few links showing crafts we have made using this method:
Butterfly coffee filter paper art
Coffee filter paper hand wreath

I wanted to see whether it would be possible to do the same using wet wipes to produce snowflakes (I initially experimented with coffee filter paper, but it is the wrong shape and too small to be able to fold multiple times to create a snowflake).  Snowflakes require a square sheet of paper and thankfully I was able to find a packet of wet wipes that are already cut to a square shape:

I started by drying out a few of the wet wipes by placing them on the radiator for a few hours and then treating them like coffee filter paper.  Wugs and Dooey drew markings on the wipes using felt tip pens and Do-A-Dot stampers.  One they had finished, they sprayed the wipes using a squirty bottle of water.

Dooey in this picture is drenched in water from the squirty bottle because he thought it was hilarious to squirt himself instead of the wipe (something that my mum also found hilarious and so let him do it!)

Once the boys had finished, we left the wipes to dry.

Once they had dried,  I followed this video on you tube to make the snowflakes.

It was a bit of an experiment and I lost some of the wipes in the process.  I had hoped to create really intricate designs with the wipes, but they are quite thick so a simple design works better or perhaps using an iron to flatten the wipe on each fold when making the snowflake would have worked well.

What we used:
Pampers sensitive wet wipes
Felt tip pens
Do-A-Dot stampers
Squirty bottle of water

Angel Craft

"See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:10)

Today's activity was all about angels and the protection they offer us.  Angel crafts are also popular at this time of year as we remember the angel Gabriel who prophesied the birth of Jesus.  

For this craft, I painted two paper plates (one gold and one silver).  I used the underneath (paper side) of the plate as I found the paint dried better on this side (than the plastic side).   Then I asked the boys to decorate each plate.  They used glitter glue, stars and sequins.  

Once the plates were dry, I drew a line to separate one half of the plate from the other.  On the part of the plate that had the least decoration, I drew a pair of wings.  The other half I cut out and fixed the two edges with a staple to form the angel's body.  I cut out the wings and drew a face and long neck for the angel.  I secured the face to the body by sticking the neck inside the hole in the top of the angel's body and gluing it on the inside.    

I gave the angels' wings to the boys and they decorated them with small feathers.  I glued the wings to the back of the angel's body.  I had some glitter pipe cleaners in my craft cupboard so I asked the boys to choose their colours.  Wugs chose two colours, so we twisted the pipe cleaners together to form a halo around the angel's head. 

What we used:

Paper plates

Gold and silver paint

Glitter glue

Sequins

Stickers

Black pen

Scissors

Glue

Feathers

Stapler

Glitter pipe cleaners

There you go - a colourful angel craft to hang on the Christmas tree!

Simple and Cheap Christmas Tree Sponge Cards

This week we have been working on finishing our Christmas cards and to my delight I found that Sainsbury's had made the job easier with their festive sponges (50p for a packet of 3).  

I diluted some green paint with water, mixed it up and then asked Wugs to dip the sponge into the paint, making sure the paint had fully covered the sponge.  I laid out some A5 sheets of white paper and he pressed the sponge on to each one.  We left the Christmas trees to dry and then both Wugs and Dooey decorated them with glitter, stickers, felt-tip pens and markers.  Then I mounted them on to card.

What we used:

Sainsbury's festive sponge/scourers

Green paint (diluted with a couple of tablespoons of water)

Paper

Card

Here are the links to other Christmas cards we have made:

Snowflake cards

Hand and Finger Print Christmas Cards

Christmas Art

Today's activity was all about celebrating creativity.  The children love crafting and naturally pull out crayons and paper and start drawing even outside of their home environment.  Today I wanted them to choose which supplies we would use to create a craft, without having the constraints of a particular project or theme in mind.  Wugs chose the paints and Dooey chose the colours pink and blue.  This was the first time Dooey was painting on an easel and it was very cute to see Wugs on the other side of that easel with some ink stampers thumping big yellow circles into his sheet of paper.  After Dooey had finished I swapped them around and gave Dooey a paper plate to use with the stampers.  (I find paper plates really handy with small children because they are small and tough, so easy to hold in place and the ridged piece at the edge of the plate can create a nice border if the art work is to be displayed).

Unfortunately Dooey puts everything in his mouth - the paint brush dripping with pink paint, the stampers and even the plate!  He hasn't been very well for over a week so he became easily agitated (I include this just so people know that although we do a lot of crafting, it isn't always easy - we have tantrums over paint brushes and mess all over the floor - all the things you can possibly dread when doing a craft with a little one).  Wugs continued with his painting and started working on a paper plate as well.

I hadn't planned to continue the craft for the rest of the day, but in the evening Wugs pulled up a chair and took down his paper plate and carried on.  (I was inspecting some glitter glue and a snowflake cutter I had purchased at the weekend which Wugs wanted to try out).  We decided to try out the snowflake cutter on their painting which was now dry and Wugs cut out loads of snowflakes.  (Later I used their cut-up painting to make some Christmas cards to send to family and friends).  Afterwards they tried out the glitter glue on their paper plates.  We decided that the paper plates looked like baubles and hung them in their playroom.

Just when I thought stage two of our crafting day was over, Wugs took down another paper plate, folded it in two and made a mouth with it.  He started stamping green circles on to it and took a wet wipe and smudged the green over the surface of the plate, chatting away while he was doing it.  (Wugs likes to imitate Mr Mister Maker from CBBCs).  I asked what he was making and he said "a crocodile" and then I looked closer at the plate and realised that the green circles were the scales and smudged green was his skin.  Unfortunately the glitter glue that Wugs applied to the plate to create eyes, mouth, nose and ears came out so fast that the different features intermingled into one big glittery blob.  Nevertheless, the process of watching Wugs experimenting with effects, colours and different mediums for crafting was fascinating!

What we used:

Paints

Paper

Do-A-Dot ink stampers

Paper plates

Glitter glue

Hobbycraft snowflake cutter

Kitchen foil

Card

Glue

Creating a Nature Table

"See how the flowers of the field grow.  They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these" (Matthew 6:28-29)

Today's activity was almost cancelled as Dooey woke up multiple times last night with a high temperature and I anticipated that he would be too ill to engage with the activities.

I had planned a visit to the winter walk at The Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley today as it is very near to where we live and looks stunning.  Then I stepped outside and it was so cold that I knew the little one couldn't take it.  (Click on the link above to see pictures of the beautiful gardens there anyway).

Following on from our walk, I planned to set up a nature table that celebrates the sights, smells, tastes and textures of the festive season and we managed this, taking some of the items for the nature table from our garden.

Our table consisted of:
Pine cones
Reindeer moss (which is actually a lichen and is patterned just like a deer's antlers- not to be consumed)
A wreath
A cutting from a bush in our garden (which looks just like holly - it's prickly, green and shaped like holly, but turns out to be an "osmanthus" , a shrub - commonly called "Variegated false holly")
Some red berries from a bush in our front garden
Cinnamon Sticks
Cranberries
Oranges
Twiglets (something I've often associated with Christmas and they suited the nature table as they look like mini twigs)
LED tea lights (a candle would have looked nice, but Wugs and Dooey love playing with LED lights)
Warm spiced drink

The nature table went down well with the boys - the consummables (although not all of them were specific to the season) were a nice addition as Wugs and Dooey were eating and drinking while playing with the pine cones and smelling the cinnamon sticks which made the table a truly multi-sensory experience.

I'm considering keeping the nature table as a permanent feature in our house (at least throughout December) as a place to collect interesting finds.  And hopefully we will get a chance to visit Wisley Gardens and I can update this post with some amazing pictures.

Wisley Garden pictures from our outing on 9th December:

Advent Calendar 2014 Activity – Day 1: God Is With Us Through Creation

Today is the start of this year’s advent calendar activities which are based around the theme “Immanuel – ‘God is with us’”.  (The name given to Jesus by the angel Gabriel when he appears in a dream to Joseph to prophesy Christ’s birth (Matthew 1:23)).  Each day we will be doing an activity that celebrates the ways in which God is present with us.

“…all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17) 

I love the holistic spirit of this passage - Jesus is not simply a baby in a manger or a man dying on a cross, but a Person through whom everything finds its purpose and connection with everything else.

My favourite room in our house is the conservatory.  It is full of light and enables us to have a close-up encounter with the animals and plants in the garden without actually being out there and suffering the cold.  This morning I arranged for Wugs to put out some bird seed and nuts to entice more wildlife into the garden.  This simple activity taught him a couple of things: hand control when pouring the food into the containers and an appreciation for animals, who are worthy of our care and attention. 

We went back into the conservatory expecting to see a garden full of squirrels and birds, but all morning we observed only two magpies and a robin in a tree.  This could have something to do with the fact that whenever a bird flew anywhere near the conservatory, Wugs and Dooey would rush to the window and holler “BIRD!!” at the top of their voices so the birds ran away!  I tried to make a game out of being quiet and walking slowly, but this inevitably failed.

                              

Well, as the birds wouldn't come to us, we created our own.  I opened up some air-drying clay and a couple of packets of feathers (new sensory materials for Wugs and Dooey) and helped mould their birds’ bodies and faces with Wugs adding the eyes and feathers (strengthening his fine motor skills).  The birds didn’t look quite like the birds I’ve seen in our garden or seen anywhere else for that matter, but the boys recognised them as such. 

What we used:

Bird feeder

Bird seed and nuts

Air-drying clay

Feathers

Peppercorns (eyes)   

It seems the lonely robin in the tree made quite an impression on Wugs.  This evening, he was asking about the robin, so we looked up a couple of videos on You Tube of robins singing before he went to sleep.  Hopefully the robin will be back in the garden tomorrow so he can see the real thing.  

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 24: A Christmas Tot Book

Recently I have been a little obsessed with tot books.  I love the compactness of the tot book, the way all the little activities fit within a simple filing folder.  I found the print-outs for this tot book on this website and decided to try it out on Wugs.  It was a bit advanced for Wugs.  He has just turned two and doesn't yet understand prepositions or matching, so this one may need to wait until next year.

What we used:
File
Paper
Printer
Glue
Old Plastic CD sleeves (for pockets)

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 23: A Christmas-Themed Bath

After the huge hit that was the coral reef-themed bath back in May, I felt inspired to create a Christmas-themed one as part of our advent activities.  The tree scene was made from coloured foam sheets. On the side of the bath, I included some interactive play in the form of a snowman bath bomb and a tray and bucket of "snow" (shaving cream). On the opposite side of the bathroom, I had a cinnamon-scented candle burning away.




What we used:
Coloured foam sheets
Coloured glittered foam sheets (baubles)
Foam letters
Snowman bath bomb (I cheated and bought mine from Lush)
Bucket, tray and spade
Shaving cream
Scented candle

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 22: The Story of the Nativity in Felt

Shortly before Dooey was born we made a little investment into a bible teaching resource called "Betty Lukens Bible in Felt" because it illustrated so vividly the stories from the bible and it was something Wugs could interact with as a toddler. Whilst some aspects of it are not entirely accurate (most of the felt people, for example, are Caucasian), the felt set certainly brings the bible stories alive.  Today we read the story of the nativity whilst Wugs added and played with the felt pieces.

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 21: An "I Spy" and Discovery Bottles

Admittedly not the most challenging of "I spy" bottles, but a bottle with Christmas-themed objects partially hidden among the rice nonetheless.  I had planned to make the "I spy" bottle bigger, but the bottle I had set aside for the task left a sticky mess when I removed the label, whereas the small bottle's label could be removed easily.  "I spy" bottles can be a good way to expand a child's vocabulary.  If I had chosen a bigger bottle, I would have taken a picture of all the items I had hidden in it and then set Wugs the challenge of finding them all.


The bottle on the right is a Christmas discovery bottle for Dooey.

What we used:
Christmas tinselled pom poms
Christmas figurines
Strips of tinselled pipe cleaners
Money

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 20: Christmas Coffee Shop Treat

Today we took a break from crafting and went to our local Costa coffee shop for a treat of chocolate cake and hot cinnamon chocolate with the sound of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" playing in the background.

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 19: Make Christmas Playdough

Trying to convey the idea of snow to a two year old who has only ever known temperatures of 30 degrees is a little hard going.  There is a Baby TV programme over here that features two snowmen, so I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the idea of snow by making playdough in the shape of a snowman.  The recipe I used came from the crafting blog site Nurturestore.  I created a batch of the dough and then separated half which I dyed green and red (although the food colouring I used for red always produces a pink instead!).   I added three pots of spices (cinnamon sticks, cloves and star anise) to use to decorate our snowman.  If Wugs learned nothing else from this activity, he learned the word "snowman".

What we used:
Corn flour/starch
Salt
Cream of tartar
Vegetable oil
Silver glitter
Green and red food colouring
Cinnamon sticks
Cloves
Star anise

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 18: Coffee Filter Hand Wreath

Dying coffee filter paper is one of Wugs' favourite activities and the process of watching the colours bleeding into each other is always amazing.  Please refer to my post here on how we do this.  For today's activity I let Wugs go wild, dying as many coffee filter papers as he wished.   Whilst they were drying out, I drew around Wugs' and Dooey's hands onto card, cut them out and used them as templates for drawing and cutting out the hand outlines on the coffee filter paper. As I wanted to preserve the hand wreath, I laminated the coffee filter paper, cut around it and arranged it into a circle before gluing the edge of each of the laminated hand outlines to the next.  The wreath now brightens up a rather dull area of our lounge and as it's not Christmas-themed, I can keep it there the whole year round if I wish to.

What we used:

Coffee filter paper (large enough to draw around the child's hand)

Washable markers

Laminator

Laminating sheets

Glue

Hole punch

String

Advent Calendar 2013 Activity - Day 17: Playing in the "Snow" at Tanglin Mall

You've got to hand it to the Singaporeans - if they don't have something naturally, they go right ahead and create it!  Tonight we went to Tanglin Mall to play in the "snow".  That has to be a first - snow in 30 degrees (or thereabouts)!

At 7.30pm we were surrounded by hundreds of people, some decked out in bathing suits, swimming trunks and goggles waiting for the snow foam machine to start up.  At first it looked tame, only covering a small, overcrowded area, but once we moved further away, we got a better view. Some daring teenagers had their faces literally pressed up against the snow machine, before pulling away and sloping off like ghosts in the night.  I caught a glimpse of a bride dressed in a pink satin dress and her groom in a black suit posing in front of the tree.  The younger children joined in towards the end, some lying on the ground making snow angels, others scooping up the snow in their hands and patting it on their faces. Wugs fell into the latter category, a little uncertain at first and then he got caught up in the excitement.  Even Dooey from his buggy looked intrigued as white blobs of foam landed on his curly black hair.