Christmas Funschooling

My previous post was more geared towards the little ones in the family, while today's post is more focused on activities the bigger kids would enjoy; but any of the projects can be used for any age group depending on interests and abilities. 

Most years, the two weeks leading up to Christmas, I like to plan a craft, a Christmas food project, and a minute-to-win-it game for each day. Since I was due with Abigail in the middle of December this year I knew I wouldn't be able to handle such a heavy-loaded schedule, so I scaled things back tremendously. Even with a very modified holiday schedule, we still didn't even get to do the ONE minute-to-win-it game I had planned. I'm learning, albeit ever so slowly, that it's okay not to do it all. While I can't get this Christmas back and the opportunity to do 'all the fun seasonal things'; I can more effectively plan for next year by evaluating and adjusting out schedule to fit in the most important activities and projects to our family. 

The above picture was an ornament we made with triangular cut pieces of burlap, a red craft ball, googlie eyes, mini clothes pins, and some twine. This was definitely a big kid project or one where the little folks would need heavy adult help due to the fact that we had to use a hot glue gun to get most of the pieces to stay on the burlap. 

This year's Christmas interactive notebook was a study of the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". We've actually done this study a couple of times before, but I think it's good to rotate my Christmas interactive notebooks throughout the years. This way the children get the lessons multiple times at different ages. 

We made salt dough ornaments. I let the children make the dough, roll out and cut the ornaments, then we cooked them in the oven. The next day the children painted the ornaments.

We typically end of making at least two dozen salt dough ornaments. I make sure the children put their names on the back of the ornaments they paint. This way when it comes time to pack up the ornaments I save save one that each child painted ~ this keeps the amount of keepsakes I have for the children to a minimum. 

As is our custom for every holiday, we made cut out sugar cookies. 

Icing the cookies is the best part. We double the recipe we use for making cut out sugar cookies, so each of the children get to ice at last four. This year mom and dad got in on the fun too and iced a few cookies.

The Christmas season is absolutely the best holiday for food crafitvities. One of our favorite Christmas food projects is to make ice cream cone Christmas trees. 

Another favorite Christmas food craftivity is to make gingerbread houses. even the little ones get serious about making their houses just so, lol.

I loved how creative the children were in designing their gingerbread houses. Everyone had their own unique creation.

I never made a gingerbread house as a child, so I find it great fun to watch my children make theirs. Because we make so many gingerbread houses, we actually make the gingerbread house pieces, which also adds to the element of Christmas fun.

The last project was to make a reindeer self portrait directed drawing. This drawing begins by the drawer tracing an oval around their hand for the head.

This is my absolute favorite directed drawing that we do, and we have been doing it for several years now. This year we had quite the crew who participated in the project. I've kept all our reindeer self portrait drawings from throughout the years ~ and I LOVE to see how all the children have improved on their drawing skills. 

I really enjoyed this Christmas season of funschooling. It was extremely low key (for our family). We read our Christmas storybooks, did our seasonal interactive notebook, did some projects, and created fun holiday edible crafts. Our schedule was just perfect to accommodate the most important fun schooling projects we wanted to do. I think I'll definitely be doing a variation of this schedule next year.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer 

Christmas Totschool

Hey Y'all!! I know It's been about a month since I've shared a post, but can we say Christmas and BABY!! Yes, we welcomed Abby Lou into this world on the 18th of December!! I will be sharing more about her birth in the coming weeks, but for now I'm going to get caught up on all my Christmas posts. 

I know Christmas is over, and what we did for our Christmas projects is a little obsolete, but maybe y'all can reference them for the 2020 Christmas season. Since I was VERY pregnant leading up to Christmas I decided to keep our Christmas tot school low key and super simple. I focused on getting all their projects done the first week of Christmas, except for their countdown to Christmas. 

I found the above Santa countdown calendar on Pinterest a really long time ago and I have a copy of it on my computer, I just print it off every year. It's a super easy countdown, glueing cotton balls onto the appropriate day/number. I don't usually keep up with it on the weekends, we just do three cotton balls on Monday. 

 We made torn paper bulb ornaments. I simply free handed an ornament shape onto card stock that I cut out. Then I cut out a rectangle on black construction paper for the top of the ornament. I had the children glue torn pieces of construction paper to the ornaments. Once the glue dried we whole punched the top and put a piece of twine on them so they could hang them on the tree. 

The children also made fruit loop Christmas trees. I cut out a tree on green construction paper then had the children glue fruit loop cereal to the trees. once the glue was dried we whole punched the trees and strung them with a piece of twine.

My children love to glue, paint, and color so those are the projects we try to do.

I know we've basically done this project multiple times now for different holidays, but it is still one of my little peoples favorite projects to do. There's something soothing about rolling a marble around in paint, lol. 

For this project I cut out a tree on card stock. We placed the trees in a shallow baking pan, put two large dollops of paint on the tree and then allowed the children to roll marbles through the paint by tilting the pan different directions.

 The children made paper plate wreathes. To make these wreathes I cut out the middle of a paper plate. Then I had the children glue torn pieces of green construction paper onto the wreathe as well as a red bow I cut out of red construction paper.

Thumbprint Christmas Light paintings was not one of my favorite tot school projects, and I doubt I do them again. I've since seen a variation of this project which I think is what we'll do next year. It was extremely messy and required a whole lot of adult/big kid help. 

Now, my little kids thought it was grand fun finger painting, I think it was mostly just mama who wasn't having any fun, lol. 

Of course no seasonal tot school is complete without a sensory box. This was not my planned sensory box for the Christmas season, but when I came across these cute hot chocolate wooden toys at Target, I just had to make a sensory box using them. This box had brown gift basket shreds, cotton balls, a toy whisk, and the wooden hot chocolate toys. As usually the sensory box was a huge hit and my children loved playing with it, even if it wasn't Christmas themed.

As you can see it was another holiday tot school with super easy projects and loads of fun for both mama and the kiddos (minus the finger painting, lol). I would have loved to have done a few more projects, but I'm learning sometimes less is more, and not over doing things is sometimes best for all parties involved. I did not over load the children and mama wasn't drowning in too many things to do. Because of our simple no-fuss tot school plan; we all looked forward to doing our daily craft, spending time together, and enjoying the Christmas season.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer