Advent Calendar Activities Days 14-20

I know we are past Christmas time but I was busy with giving birth ;) So here come some more Advent activities we did with E. waiting for Christmas (2015) to come:

1. Snowflake out of popsicle sticks (Day 14)
   
   I decided to give some Christmas presents to the nursery teachers (2), the dinner lady (1) and the afternoon nurse (1). In the gift there was a bath bomb, a box of chocolates and something that E. made for them. You can see in the earlier advent post the Christmas baubles she made with pompoms and jingle bells.
   
   For the other two presents we prepared 2 snowflake ornaments that could be a great decoration for the Christmas tree.
   
   What you need (for 1 snowflake):
   - 3 popsicle sticks or spatulas (you can buy them in a box of 100 at the chemist's or in crafts shops but the latter is more expensive)
   - blue and white paint
   - paint brush
   - shiny sprinkle (I had tiny, blue and silver stars)
   - sliver snowflakes (optional)
   - gray ribbon
   
   How to do it:
   
   Before she started I glued 3 popsicle sticks together in the shape of a snowflake.
   
   
   
   
   
   E. painted the popsicle sticks white and blue. She also experimented to mix the 2 colours to get a light blue hue. She painted both sides of the 2 snowflakes.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   While the paint was wet she scattered some sprinkle on them. This was the time she had enough. She did a great and thorough job with the painting and the sprinkling.
   
   
   
   
   
   We needed to wait for the paint to dry, so I put the snowflakes aside to return to them later when they're dry. She didn't want to do anything else with them later on, so I needed to finish them. I added the sparkly, silver snowflakes at the end of the stick and also attached a silver ribbon on top so that they can be hung on the Christmas tree.
   
   Unfortunately, the photo I took of the final result is blurry.
   
   She helped me put the presents together. She also made a Christmas card to each little packet with stickers and she traced my letters inside but signed them all by herself. This is what they looked:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Roll and Count Christmas (Day 15)
   
   After the crafty day we played a counting game. I found this activity in the Christmas Tot pack by 3dinosaur. I printed pages 37/38.  I laminated the counting sheet and added green marbles for the counting.
   
   

   

   Opening the activity pack

   
   I didn't make the die but cut out the pictures and stuck them on a big Styrofoam die we have at home.
   
   
   
   The whole family played. At the very beginning we all guessed which picture will have 5 counters for the first time. Then we rolled the die and placed the marbles on the mat.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Window stickers (Day 16)
   
   I didn't need to prepare much for this activity and still, it was fun. What's more, this one also involved the whole family.
   
   I bought (at KIK) winter and Christmas themed window stickers. I just presented to E. and she did the job. Actually she did a great job decorating her windows.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Christmas tree decoration with play dough (Day 17)
   
   I printed a Christmas tree and coloured it, then laminated it. I put out some play dough, and Christmas related moulds like a candle, a bell, a circle shape for the baubles, a star etc.
   
   
   
   
   The fun began. E. decorated the Christmas tree and was really proud of the final product.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Christmas patterning  (Day 18)
   
   I made the Christmas pattern activity back in 2014. We hadn't got to play with it then but a year later. The set needs retouching and after that I'll add it as a free printable.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Decorate the Christmas trees with pompoms - counting activity (Day 19)
   
   I found this counting activity on one of my fav blogs: Welcome to Mommyhood.
   
   I printed and laminated the tree cards and provided E. with small, colourful pompoms.
   
   She ordered the number cards then placed the pompoms on them accordingly.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   She wasn't too fascinated by this activity. It wasn't too challenging for her, though she liked the pompoms, which she grouped according to colours at the end of the activity.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Roll and build a snowman (Day 20)
   
   Here is the link to the printable: roll and build a snowman. (ateachingmommy has a Snow and ice pack, which is more than worth downloading including a lot of winter activities for preschoolers)
   
   You just need to print the snowman parts. It is optional to laminate them but I did as I want to play with it more and probably next year two kids will test its durability.
   
   
   
   E. selected the different shapes and grouped them before the game.
   
   
    The hat suited the dog too :)
   
   
   
   
   I presented them with a big die then we could start playing. E. called her Daddy to play:
   - Daddy, come. A lot of people have to play this game.
   
   So the three of us played.
   
   We rolled the die and got a body part, a hat or a scarf depending on the number we threw. The first person to finish the snowman was the winner.
   
   
   
   If your little one doesn't like it if he or she is not the winner, you can build the snowman as a group.
   
   
   I'll be back with 4 more Advent activities you might like and wish to try next Christmas time.

Christmas tree fail - or success?

When E. asked for the Christmas tree set (construction paper cut-out Christmas trees and decorations, like tinsel, buttons, stars, cotton wool balls etc.) I was more than happy. It took me a while to prepare this Christmas tree activity but at first it seemed to be a failure.

nicely prepared set

E.'s choice instead

But at the second time it was a hit. E. was chatting away (in Hungarian this time), sticking and encouraged me to decorate my tree too. I did as she told me and didn't take many photos. We just enjoyed being creative, being together, being full of Christmas spirit.

busy with decorating

Our final results (done in Hungarian)

Our first try (done in English)

In both cases E. made the light green trees.

If you give it a try you can widen your little one's vocabulary in the field of

• Christmas: tinsel, bauble, star, snowflake, beads
• colours: light green, dark green, silver, gold, shiny
• shapes and sizes: round, star-shaped, snowflake-shaped, long, tiny
• texture: prickly=stingy, soft, fluffy, hard, velvety, silky, rough, sticky

Christmas tree - fail

I had another Christmas tree craft on mind through which we could have practised some English and had fun. Well, E. wasn't in the mood. At first...

Earlier I read about a Jen's Christmas tree decorating creative table and I thought it would have been great fun with E, too. I was wrong...

I found a Christmas tree template online and I cut 4 pine trees out of green construction paper. I also prepared different kinds of decorations: cotton wool balls, beads, mosaics, stars, buttons, pipe cleaners, tinsel etc.

This scene welcomed E.:

I thought she'll be over the moon if she can use the glue and stick like millions of shiny decorations onto the Christmas tree.

At the beginning she enjoyed it, but wasn't so much interested. I was trying to talk about the cotton wool balls and the shiny starts of two kinds; silver and gold. But, very unlike her, she was speechless.

She did a little gluing...

The dark green tree is what I made

but she ended up like this:

Well, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. I should have come up with a snowmen or a snowflake art project. She might have had enough of Christmassy crafts. But I loved the idea about talking about how the angels decorate the Christmas tree, what the texture of different decorations feels like, what shapes they have (round, square, star-shaped), counting bead and button baubles and sticking on tinsel...

I still love this activity... she doesn't. At first I was disappointed, then I just needed to accept this is not so much fun for her. So I packed everything away and I've already started to think about some snowy projects.

Then much to my surprise, the next day she was looking for the blank Christmas trees: - Where are the Christmas trees we made? Where are the empty ones?

I was more than happy to serve her with the set... but you need to wait for the next blog post to find out about its outcome.

Christmas tree crafts and some more ABC

As Christmas is getting closer we are doing a lot of Christmassy crafts. They give us the chance to talk about a lot of things in English, like colours, decorations, presents and E. has already learnt plenty of Christmas vocabulary (like candy cane, gingerbread man, angels, advent, wreath, candles, sparklers, baubles, tinsel, gifts etc.)

Here I'd like to present you 2 ideas in connection with decorating a Christmas tree.

1. Sticker decorations and letter recognition:

I searched for a Christmas tree colouring sheet and I copied it in WORD, then I added the letters and a little table at the bottom. In the table I put the letters and above them you can see a Christmas related word. (We didn't read them I just wanted her to see the words written down.)

I had some Christmas stickers from last year (I'd bought this sheet in KIK for 300 HUF) and I added an angel, a star, a candle, a bauble and a gingerbread man. These stickers are really cool. They easily come off the paper, so I took off the candle and the gingerbread man, just for fun. Later, E. put them back.

One afternoon after her nap this was the scene waiting for her.
She needed to search for a figure and stick the right sticker on the starting letter of the word.

But first she coloured the tree green, the star on the top yellow and the trunk brown. A little more colour talk.

artist at work

Then searching and sticking started:

peeling

sticking

 I had to add some more letters as she wanted more baubles and stars.

When she'd finished we displayed it on the door of our living-room.

            2.     Dot marker decoration

We got a box of DO-A-DOT markers for E.'s birthday in May and ever since we've had so much fun with them. Actually, I saw this dot the letter Christmas tree activity online, though we've done a similar dot marker activity at Halloween with a pumpkin.

This time I drew a Christmas tree with some presents below it. I wrote the beginning letter of the colours, like G for green (a lot of them, though I should have written even more), R for red, Y for yellow, P for purple, B for blue.

I prepared all the dot markers well in advance. I took off the lids so E. didn't need to although it could be a nice fine motor skill practice. There were quite a lot to do with the Christmas tree and I didn't want her to get bored with the opening of the markers.

First, she tried almost all of the colours, then she stuck to one colour and finished dotting all of them on the sheet. As I'd always been telling her to put the lid back on the markers she decided to put it back and pack away the marker when she'd finished with a colour.

packing away

red baubles

She mentioned that she was putting red and purple baubles on the tree. When she was doing the yellow decoration she said they were candles. I asked quite a lot of questions to make her talk while she was working. We even sang the "Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree" song:

Then we put the finished Christmas tree next to the other. 

I have some more Christmas tree ideas from paper plate with some painting and sticking, however some snowy crafts are on the way too. We'll see what we have time for.

Also, I'd be happy if you let me know in the comments what Christmas tree projects you have with your little one.