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
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.
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.
Let me start with THE song, the small pebble that started the avalanche:
(Around Halloween it is quite relevant)
E. got crazy about bones and the skeleton itself. So it's time for us, parents, to learn a little too.
I didn't have the faintest idea about the names of the bones. I used to have problems with them in my native language, not to mention English. However, I did everything to satisfy my little one's hunger for knowledge.
Flashcards
I made skeleton cards for her. I found a blog (montessoriworkjobs) where there are black and white skeletons with the major bones highlighted in red. So I printed them and made flashcards.
Cotton bud skeleton - craft Cotton bud skeleton craft can bee reached in another post in more details.
gluing
sticking and pushing
finished
Child size skeleton puzzle
I found a child-size printable skeleton on a colouring site. You need to print about 8 A/4 pages. You do not need much colouring ;) I laminated the bones as I want to use them next year too.
the skeleton puzzle
after mixing the puzzle E. put the bones in place
"I'm a skeleton"
The book - The skeleton inside you
It's a funny book with a lot of information on bones. When it says "your skeleton helps you run, jump and stand", I added some more actions (squat, walk slowly, sit, roll, make a bridge, kick, clap etc.)
and E. needed to do what I said. She enjoyed it a lot.
You have 32 bones in your arm
the rib cage and the skull protect important organs
Halloween costume skeleton
"Look Daddy, this is the femur"
Skeleton as food
E. was absolutely amazed when she saw this snack on her plate. Since then I need to cut skeletons out of everything.
Last but not least: Skeleton costume for Halloween
These are H&M skeleton pyjamas and gloves
I do not need to comment this. Or if you wish you can read about our MEC Halloween party we had.
I hope you found some ideas useful if your little one is also obsessed with bones and skeletons.
As I said before I love autumn. Not only is it beautiful but also gives us a lot to talk about and plenty of opportunities to be creative.
Here come our new projects concerning autumn:
Very Hungry Caterpillar out of conkers and dried orange slices (googly eyes, pipe cleaners and glue sticks).
I made holes in the conkers with a screwdriver
threading the conker
then the orange slice
gluing the eyes on
caterpillar heads
caterpillar bodies
Let's make them friends
Autumn Nature Hunt - one day when we came home from the nursery I'd packed a bucket for E. to be able to collect whatever she found on the way home. (More simple picking and collecting whatever we find; not as directed and focused as the Tray Nature Hunt we did in the spring)
The next day we were sorting, grouping and naming them:
We covered a great number of autumn vocabulary (leaves, trees, berries, colours - just to list few topics), and also the process of sticking, gluing, sprinkling, threading. I've just realised that E. is more and more interested in short craft projects and it means a lot of language input. We won't stop. I'll come back with more.
