More Book Advent Activities

This past week was busy with wedding fun (more on that in a later post), so it has been nice to have the book advent to remind us to take time to have some fun.

This book as letters you can pull out and read.  (Although, since it was from the library a couple of them were missing, we had to re-create)

We practiced letter writing to write letters to each other

And got out the mailboxes to practice reading (or recognizing the names) and delivering the mail

Our version from the library had a cd included and about 10 pages of activities to do.  We had lots of fun with that.    

One activity we did was making our own glitter ornaments.  I had the kids practice tracing the cookie cutters (I had to help with this).  

We then covered them in glitter.

We also had a snowball fight (using crumpled paper balls)

We used some activity pages made by Homeschool Creations for this book

http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/2011/12/mr-willowbys-christmas-tree-printable.html

The kids really enjoyed doing some actual 'school' stuff.  Apparently we're doing too much play and the keep asking what we are going to learn about.

And, my kids always like their muffins decorated.

Advent Book Activities

By the way.  I have the books wrapped and in the closet, but don't actually put the number on until the day of.  Since our plans often change, I wrote on the outside of the package what the book is, so I can pick one out depending on what we are doing that day.

The kids all love the original Tacky book, so I picked out Tacky's Christmas.  It was a fun story.  In the book Tacky gives all the other penguins shaving cream, so that is what we used for our project time that day.

It has been a while since we have done shaving cream finger painting around here.  The kids didn't remember it, and it was fun all over again!

Next, it was time to write our letters for Santa.  So we read this fun appropriately named book.  I made up a scripted fill-in-the-blank letter to get the kids started.

 

Ethan was very specific about which colors he wanted to use.  He helped me hold the pencils to write.  He has seen Santa 4 times now this season and has asked for money every time.  I hope Santa is rich.

 

Brielle wrote hers on her own.  (I helped with the spelling of cleaned, helped, bike and cookies.)  She was SO excited to find out that bike has a 'magic e'.  She loves reading words that have a silent e on the end.  Usually when we are reading chapter books together, she tells me to read all the other words and let her read any word that ends in and 'e'. 

The kids wanted to make cookies for Santa.  

Our activity Saturday night was going to the Ward Christmas Party, and Southern California Mormon Choir Christmas Concert.

Brielle and Gavin played Mary and Joseph for the acting of the nativity.

Advent Book Days 3, 4, 5 & 6

I accidentally deleted all my pictures of our activities from Days 4-6.  Ugg.  I thought I had transfered them to the computer, so cleared the camera.  I noticed a second too late.  At least it wasn't a big event, and it was only a few pictures.  I should still be able to get some picture of the kids projects, just not the in process of making them.  Oh well.

Day 3-How Santa Gets His Job

Activity-Breakfast with Santa!  Our ward had a primary activity.  They read the Christmas Orange book, so Santa gave the kids each an orange.  

 The kids were very excited to eat them.

Day 4-The Night Before Christmas

I know, it should be saved for Christmas Eve, but it's a classic story/poem that I wanted shared this month.  I can't save all the books until Christmas Eve...so they just have to come out earlier.

Day 5-Snowmen At Christmas

This book has hidden objects to find in each picture.  My kids LOVE doing those things.  It is an activity all in itself.
We also made snowman out of the packing bubbles.  We cut out circles and painted them white. (Well, except Gavin, he really wanted a red and black snowman).  After letting them dry we then used markers to color arms/eyes/hat, etc.

(I went back to take pictures of these, since I deleted my first pictures)

For a treat we made snowmen out of marshmallows.  I used food-safe markers to make a decorate, and we put them on a kabab stick.

Day 6-The Hawaiian Snowman

We continued our Snowman theme. Too bad (or is it good?) we don't have snow here in California to build our own snowman.  It is still fun to enjoy them. We still have some more snowman activities for later this month.
We made different snowmen with felt.  I have circles cut out of white, and then various colors and shapes for designing clothes and body parts.

Advent Day 2

The Polar Express is a favorite, so I wanted to open it so we could have it out for the rest of the month. We simply had a train-themed day, playing with trains,

we used ranch dressing to draw train track under the carrots. We also had hotdogs for lunch that became trains with ketchup as steam. The kids did spend time playing with their food, but ended up eating it, eventually.

I pulled out all of our train activities that we've done before. It has been a while, so the kids were excited about doing them again. It was a fun way to review.

Adventures in Utah

My sister Ashlie and her family came out for a visit.  Ashlie and I then made the road trip to Utah together with all our kids.  We started our trip to Utah by wearing out the kids at Disneyland for the day.  We didn't mean for it to be that way exactly, but we were trying to get to Utah before the a snow storm, so left a day earlier than we had planned.  We spent the day at Disneyland, and then left straight from there and drove to Mesquite for the night and got to South Jordan safely before the snow hit.  

 Ethan was just barely tall enough for the 40 inch rides this time.  Here is is on Thunder Mountain Railroad.  To say that he Loved it is an understatement.  He also enjoyed Splash Mountain.  He thought it was funny that he got wet.  Brielle was doing 'they potty dance,' so after going on Splash Mountain once I told her we needed to run to get to the bathroom.  She told me. "I'm just want to skip going potty and go on the ride again!"  Thanks to my brother-in-law who works for Disney.  We had a great time.

The Aquarium is growing and the kids loved it.  We ended up going twice while we were there.  I was surprised by how active the penguins were.  Brielle was the most excited about touching the sting rays, and also loved the glow-in-the-dark scorpions.  Ethan talked about the crabs and the sharks.  I'm excited they are getting a new exhibit in January with Otters.  We'll have to make a trip back to Utah.   

We decorated gingerbread houses.  Or, ate a lot of candy while getting some on the house.  Either way, it was fun.

The snow was a BIG hit!  We were glad that we made it to Utah before the storm so we could be safely inside the house.  We went out Friday night and the kids were standing on the benches at the restaurant trying to see out the window to watch it snow.  And when we left the restaurant they went running outside and were surprised by how slippery it was.  Saturday morning they made good use of Grandma's sleds and the hill.

We were able to see my brother, Jared, play Gaston in his High School Musical.  We weren't allowed to take pictures, so this is after he had changed.  It was a very impressive show.

The swimming pool had a small waterslide that kept the kids occupied for a good hour before they even thought to venture to any other part of the pool.  They could have stayed much longer if we didn't have family and more fun waiting back at Grandma's house.

Fishing at the Church History Museum.  The exhibit has so many fun hands-on activities for the kids.  We had to drag them out at closing time.  We also on a different day went to the Gale Center in South Jordan, another free museum with fun hands-on play for the kids.  They Gale Center had a gingerbread contest with all the houses on display.  My sister's house won 2nd place, and it was amazing to see.

We went to temple square to enjoy the 700,000 lights that decorate the trees.

We had such a great time with all of our Utah family.  We will cherish the memories made.

Christmas Book Advent

I've seen lots of other people do the same idea, so it is nothing new, but a fun tradition to start.  I wanted to do the book advent last year, but we were moving and traveling during Christmas.
Anyway, today we started our Christmas Book Advent.  Each day the kids have a book to open, and then we will do an activity to go along with the book.  They are not new books; some are ones we already have, others will be library books.  We are doing it in the morning after our calendar time.  So we know what day it is and which number to open.

We started today with Henry Bear's Christmas by David Mcphail.  The book starts with it being the 1st day of December, which made it a good fit for today.

In the book Henry Bear makes a chain to decorate his tree.

The kids were very excited about making a pattern with green and red.

And they chose to decorate the dining room rather than the tree.

I got the numbers for the presents from here.  They are supposed to be red and green, but apparently my ink is running low.