Christmas Sensory Box (Learning Through Play)

by 5 Comments

It's been a while since I did a sensory box for The Boy (our Autumn one went mouldy when Nana put the lid on the wet conkers) so I decided to create an exploratory festive box for him.

Sensory tray

I used:

  • white rice coloured with red food colouring and baked in the oven for 90 minutes on 90°C
  • cinnamon sticks
  • pine cones
  • red and gold glitter
  • red sand
  • orange slices painted gold
  • gold sequins and jewels
  • a variety of shiny gold and red items; straw circles, jingle bells, chocolate coin covers
  • ground ginger sprinkled all over.

The best bit of this is giving The Boy a magnifying glass and encouraging him to explore the 'buried treasure'. Sensory boxes are great for fine motor skills development and encourage exploration and communication. The Imagination Tree is the grand master of sensory trays and exploratory boxes.

Christmas Tree Stained-Glass Window

by 6 Comments

A few months ago I posted about our stained-glass butterfly picture and it proved very popular with both The Boy and people reading my blog. The picture stayed up until a month ago when the tissue paper had faded too much to be effective.

We've made a Christmas tree version for the festivities and I wanted to share it.

Christmas tree

You can find a christmas tree stained glass window template here if interested.

Advent Activity Calendar

by 33 Comments

When I finish work every Friday lunchtime I have great intentions about the craft and play activities I can do with The Boy for the forthcoming four days until I return to work, yet by Wednesday I have failed miserably!

However, tomorrow the festive season starts and I am buggered damned if I am missing out on the opportunity to do great activities with The Boy each day, even more so since I saw this post on Domestic Goddesque the other day. So in pure 'borrowing' style, I have compiled a planner of Advent Activities for us to complete each day which hopefully should see us embrace the seasonal cheer.

What Christmas activities do you have planned?



Home-Made Christmas Tree Decorations

by 10 Comments

Every year since The Boy was born, we buy him his own special Christmas decoration (to help build up a collection for first adult Christmas tree) and write the year on the bottom of it. I always aim to buy traditional style decorations that have a story to them and he's fascinated by them. This year he's old enough to start making his own decorations and I can't wait to see our Christmas tree filled with his home-made decorations in the future.

You'll need:

  • green felt
  • red felt
  • green or red ribbon
  • green, white and red buttons
  • felt holly leaves and berries (I bought these from Baker Ross)
  • PVA glue
  • scissors

felt decorations

  1. Draw two large circles (one red and one green) and then draw a small inner circle in the middle (I used a large coffee mug rim to draw around).
  2. Cut two smaller circles out of the green felt, and two from the red. These will also need an inner circle, but this must be bigger than the inner circle on the large red or green circle.

Holly wreath decoration:

  1. Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large green circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
  2. Glue the red circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large green circle.
  3. Stick holly leaves and berries over the top of the red small circles on both sides and leave to dry.

felt decorations

Button wreath decoration:

  1. Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large red circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
  2. Glue the green circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large red circle.
  3. Glue a selection of red, green and white buttons over the small green circles on both sides.

christmas decorations

–

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ The Fairy and The Frog~ Jennifer’s Little World ~ Making Boys Men ~ Mama Pea Pod

Monday 12th November 2012 – 'Picasso or Monet?' (317/366)

by 21 Comments

This is the first time I've actually asked The Boy to paint something specific rather than let him paint randomly (or exploring brushstrokes as I probably should refer to it!). I said to him, "Could you paint mummy a garden please?" and this was the end result without any prompting!

I particularly love the blades of grass with mud underneath, and the 'petals' on the sun.

Home-Made Christmas Cards

by 14 Comments

Before The Boy was born I used to spend hours looking for the perfect Christmas cards which would complement my chosen wrapping paper and the theme of the year. Then along came a perfect little being who looked incredibly cute dressed up in a Christmas costume, and he would be duely photographed and the image printed onto the front of personalised Christmas cards. This year he's going to be three and a half at Christmas and I just can't do it to him anymore; so in addition to traditional Hallmark cards, he's going to be making cards for family this year.

Here are some very simple cards that your pre-schooler can make within a few minutes.

You'll need:

  • red and green card blanks
  • blue card blanks
  • white paint
  • green felt
  • sequins and stars
  • bauble card blanks
  • glue
  • ribbon
  • felt pens

I'm not going to do a ste-by-step guide because the photos really show how self-explanatory the cards are!

One tip: start making them now because pre-schoolers are not known for their ability to sit down for a few hours and make cards, then write them!

—

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

This week the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men

 This post contains sponsored links. The content is original, honest and uncontrived!

Home-Made Advent Calendar

by 26 Comments

I know it's only the 1st of November, but in about three weeks time you'll be grateful that I started these posts early.

Advent: (n) The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.

For Christians, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day where a candle on an Advent wreath is lit for each week leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

For most families nowadays, the word 'advent' used around the festive season conjures up chocolate calendars printed with their youngster's favourite television character, some may have a gorgeous 'traditional-style' wooden tree with 24 drawers in, allowing it to be reused each year. And yes, I said '24' because 'advent' means the 'approach of'. It's a way of marking the coming of Christmas Day, and as such should not have a 25th window. This practise of counting down each day was started by German Lutherans at the beginning of the 19th century. Not such a new tradition hey?

We've been making our own simple Advent calendar to use in a few weeks time when December starts.

You'll need:

  • coloured foam or card numbers
  • 24 boxes*
  • coloured, shredded tissue paper
  • ribbon*
  • 24 'treats'
  • cardboard
  • glue
  • gold paint
  • sequins*
  • scissors
  • paintbrush

Christmas crafts

Set out the numbers into a numberline up to 24.

Christmas crafts

Assemble the boxes.

Christmas crafts

Stick on the numbers to the front of the box.

christmas crafts

Place the shredded tissue paper and a treat inside each bag. (I've used a mixture of Christmas tree decorations and chocolate coins). Tie the handles together with a length of ribbon, long enough to tie off the hanging circles (30cm).

christmas crafts

Draw four circles with an inner circle in them, creating a hoop shape. Cut them out and stick two together. Once dried, paint both sides with gold and stick gold and silver sequins on.

Tie four lengths of ribbon to the first hoop. Cut four double length strips of ribbon and tie them to the second hoop. Gather all of the eight ends together and tie into a knot. This forms the loop to hang the calendar from. From the first hoop, suspend twelve of the boxes and from the second tie the other twelve. If you arrange this in a random order then it makes it more of a challenge to find the numbers.

christmas crafts

—

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

This week, the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men.