Thankful in November: Day 15 to 18

Day 15: Chocolate covered pretzels for our friends, teachers and neighbors - delicious and so simple! Dipping the ends of pretzel rods is so much easier than dipping entire pretzels and I think they are just as pretty. I bought white, yellow and orange chocolate pieces and fall themed sprinkles and the end result was so pretty!

Day 16: Dylan's footprint turkey. I painted the boys hands to turn into turkeys too, but I haven't been able to convince them to decorate them yet. Guess that's for another day!

Day 17: Sorting people vs. food cutting and gluing activity from Mama's Monkeys. I can't believe how much better the boys are at cutting since they started preschool this year.

Day 18: Delivering the Thanksgiving bags that our church collected and distributing them to families in need (not pictured)

Thankful in November: Day 11 to 14

Day 11: Kool-aid coloring pages! We used a cornucopia coloring page and outlined it with glue, then sprinkled different colors of kool-aid over the different fruits. They smelled so good!

Day 12: Color by number cornucopias from 3dinosaurs.com. She has a ton of great printables (many of which we'll be doing in the coming days). We turned it into a dice game and they colored in the items that matched the number they rolled. They aren't great at staying in the lines, but at least they are getting better at staying on task the whole time.

Day 13:  Follow the directions Thanksgiving coloring page. It was a 'find the circle with the pilgrim hat and color it green' kind of game and they seemed to like it. We had to change it up a little towards the end and only do outlines (it took almost an hour to do this game!) but we made it to the end!

Day 14: We made treat bags for their preschool friends (found the idea on Pinterest). They are filled with bugles and Runts and look like tiny cornucopias!

Almost halfway through the month and it's been great so far! Lots more to come : )

Thankful in November: Day 7 to 10

Day 7: Scarecrow dice game (not pictured). 1+1+1=1 has a great Fall Tot Pack with tons of cute scarecrow and leaf activities. We had already done many of her coloring games a couple days ago so we tried out the dice-and-graphing game and they loved it.

Day 8: Paint StripTurkeys (idea from here)! How cute are these little guys?! I was at Walmart and grabbed a selection of paint strips for the boys to choose from, rounded the tops, cut out a beak and a gobble and let them go to work creating their turkey heads. After that part was finished we asked them what they are thankful for and wrote each person/thing on a strip and drew a little picture to go along with it. It's held together with a brad and a bent in half pipecleaner is the legs. These might be my favorite craft so far : )

Day 9: Number puzzles. These are from here, here and here. I cut all the strips out and mixed them up, then the boys had to find their pieces and put them in the right order. I helped with the glue, but the big boys did the rest and I helped Garrett to finish.

Day 10: Filling Thanksgiving bags for families at our church (not pictured). We wrote a little note and filled the bags with all the goodies needed for a yummy Thanksgiving meal!

The fun continues!

Thankful in November: Day 5 & 6

Day 5: Color by Number turkeys and a peanut butter turkey snack!

Color by Number pages are becoming increasingly more popular with the boys these days, especially Owen. I have to get a little more creative with Eli, letting him use the easel, or pretending to race him to color a certain space or rolling dice to decide what color to use next, but the end products turn out great and they are so proud of their work.

Day 6: Scarecrows! We used a Color by Number page, a leaf coloring page and a 1-20 maze today, all from here. There are so many cute resources available!

Thankful in November: Day 3 & 4

Our theme this weekend was Apples! 

Day 3: Homemade applesauce and Apple Cider Caramel Cookies. The boys were excellent caramel unwrappers and cookie stuffers! (Great fine motor skill practice ; ))

Day 4: Painted apple cores and a roll-an-apple game from Mama Jenn's blog. We play this game in so many different ways - each person chooses a row and tries to fill it first, everyone gets four caramels and we all try to roll the same color, everyone works together to try to fill the whole page and the person who rolls the last apple color wins. So simple, and they love it!

Thankful in November: Day 1 & 2

I'm so excited to get back into daily activities with the boys - especially Thanksgiving activities! I found so many great things to do, treats to make and games to play on Pinterest, and then came up with a few of my own to fill in the blanks. We have the next 28 days planned and the first 2 already under our belts - and some super cute art to show for it. Play along with us this month, and be sure to leave a comment if you're doing something fun too!

Day 1: T is for Turkey (added bonus, T is the letter of the week at preschool this week)

Day 2: Tie Dye Turkeys. You can't mess this up! No matter how much or little the kids colored the coffee filter, they all turned out beautiful! The water ran the colors together quickly and they were practically dry by the time we were done assembling the turkey bodies. I think I'll tweak this later in the month and use their footprints for the turkey bodies.

2012 Halloween Activities

Our Halloween in pictures! We had a themed breakfast, lunch and dinner, painted jack-o-lantern paper plates, played a roll-a-bat game and pumpkin bowling and made Halloween funfetti cupcakes for a snack. It was a full but fun day! 

I'm really going to try to get back to posting more frequently (and not taking another 5 months off!), so I'm planning a month full of turkey/fall/thankful activities for November. Stay tuned! For now, here are my little guys all dressed up (and dressed down!) for Halloween!

Countdown to Christmas: Days 16-25

This week's focus is on the Nativity and the main characters in the story of Christ's birth. I found a great document with little summaries of each character that we use as a jumping off point, and I spent the last few naptimes creating a paper Nativity scene (similar to one that I found online that I can't find again to link back to!) that I'm going to frame when it's all put together. I LOVE how it turned out!

Day 16: Building our Nativity: Mary is visited by the Angel
The angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she would be the mommy to Jesus, the Son of God. Mary loved God very much and was the perfect person to be Jesus' mommy.

Day 17: Take the boys shopping to pick out Christmas presents for each other and wrap them.

Day 18: Make Christmas cookies!

Day 19: Mary, Joseph and the Donkey are on their way to Bethlehem

The donkey carries Mary the long distance to Bethlehem where Jesus will be born.

Day 20: The Star, the Wise Men and the Camel
The star leads the way to the birth site of Jesus. The wise men knew that the star meant that someone very important was born, so they followed it to Jesus to bring him gifts and to meet the Son of God.

Day 21: The Angel, the Shepherds and the Sheep
The angel visits the shepherds to tell them where they could find Jesus, the Son of God, now that he was born. He was born in a stable and slept in a manger because there were so many people in the city of Bethlehem and there was no room at the inn. 

Day 22: Baby Jesus is born!! Jesus, the Stable and Manger, and all characters
Sing Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem and O Come O Come Emmanuel and talk about why it's so exciting that Jesus came to Earth as a little baby.

Day 23: Make chocolate covered pretzels

Day 24: Pick up our family from the airport!! 
Play with cousins, show them our tree and go to Christmas Eve service

Day 25: CHRISTMAS DAY!
Sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have a scavenger hunt to find the baby Jesus' from our Nativity sets. Have a special Christmas breakfast and open Christmas presents.

I love this Christmas countdown! It is so much fun teaching the boys more about Jesus and incorporating Him into our daily conversations. I saw Owen today, holding an angel, and saying "Mary, you are going to have a baby on Christmas. And Baby Jesus is God's only Son." Precious!

Countdown to Christmas: Days 8-15

Our first week of activities was great! It really added to the structure of the day and the boys were so excited to find the hidden Christmas books and tear off the next link on the paper chain.

I found a printable countdown Christmas tree that we've been adding an ornament to every day to mark the days too. It's really cute - and free!

Here's what's up this week:

Day 8: Paper Plate Snowman

Craft: I added silver glitter to white paint and the boys painted a paper plate. As it was drying, they sprinkled more silver glitter to contact paper and I cut out the inner circle of the plate, which became the snowman's head. We used buttons for the eyes and foam paper for the nose, mouth, top hat and scarf. After assembling, we used glitter glue on the paper for the snow. So cute!

Day 9: Drive around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights

Field trip as a family

Day 10: Attend the Live Nativity Hayride in Flower Mound

Field trip as a family

Day 11: Make footprint gifts to mail to the Grandparents

Craft: Christmas trees and snowmen and potential ideas for this project

Day 12: Nativity Pre-K Pack and Nativity Tot Pack

Preschool learning

Day 13: Make homemade Christmas ornaments

Craft: Salt dough ornaments with the boys' handprints or footprints

Day 14: Have a Nativity Lunch!

Edible craft using baby hot dogs and crescent rolls, cheese, animal crackers, pretzel rods and a few other goodies

Day 15: Building our Nativity: Mary, the Angel and Joseph

Craft: While explaining each of the characters of the Nativity story, we will add the people to a Bethlehem/manger scene leading up to the birth of Jesus

I might add a few other crafts or recipes if we're having a down day - Pinterest is so full of great ideas that I can't really choose!

Hope your Christmas preparations are going great and keeping you focused on the true meaning of Christmas!