Thanksgiving Craftivities

Whoop Whoop super excited that I'm getting this post on here before Thanksgiving! The last few weeks of pregnancy I literally feel like a ticking time bomb and always preface my list of to-dos with "if the baby doesn't come today". Well as y'all can see the baby hasn't come yet and I got all our fun Thanksgiving craftitvities done and documented!! Yes, I am one happy mama. And to make it all even better, every day of our projects went off without a hitch except the last day ~ sigh! Well, you can't win them all I guess. 

We kicked off our Thanksgiving craftivities with baking homemade cut-out sugar cookies. 

Making cut-out sugar cookies is one of my favorite holiday traditions, so much so that the kids learn real quick and at a super young age the cookie making process, lol.

Of course we can't make cut-out cookies without icing them. The day was so full with activities that it was well after dinner before we could get to icing our cookies. Mama almost made a major booboo!! When we went looking for our sprinkles, we discovered most of our fall sprinkles were empty ~ Yikes! You can't ice cut-out sugar cookies without sprinkles!! Thankfully we made it work, but I will be urgently restocking our sprinkle stash.

Our first art project was a turkey directed drawing. 

I absolutely love how the kids get into creating their own personalized directed drawings.

Our next craftivity went along with watching our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie. 

The children made mini pumpkin pies.

 My eldest daughter decided to add chopped pecans to her little pie, and I think it turned out so pretty.

Next we made 'Thankful Turkeys'.

I free-handed a turkey body, beak, gobbler, and feathers onto construction paper for the children to glue together. On each of the turkey's feathers the children wrote what they were thankful for.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to make mini loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread for our neighbors and a couple family members. 

I'm one of those weird mamas who loves having my babies in the kitchen with me AND when I see extra big cheeky grins like this one on Lydia, it makes all the extra work and chaos worth it to have them bake and cook with me! 

I almost love these mini loaves as much as muffins. They're so cute and perfect for gift-giving. 

Last we had a Thanksgiving minute-to-win-it. The goal was for the children to blow faux turkey feathers across the room. The first one to reach the other side of the room was the winner.

During our seasonal fun schooling weeks we do 'light duty' in regards to the nitty gritty of our normal core homeschooling regime. This week we did do a Thanksgiving interactive notebook (which I did not take any pictures of~ sorry). For the most part the children's lessons consisted of whatever they could do independently. It gives us all a much needed break from our normal homeschool routine.

Scheduling these fun school weeks has been a lifesaver for this mama and I wish it hadn't taken me so many years to figure out how to incorporate them into our homeschool schedule. Trust me though, they will forever more be a common reoccurrence in planning all our future homeschool years.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Thanksgiving Fun School

I can't believe I'm actually getting this seasonal post up before the actual holiday, lol. Mercy, it's been a whirlwind lately of trying to do all the things! I've got two Thanksgiving homeschool posts coming your way; one for the little ones and one for the bigger kiddos, but both can really be used for any age bracket if you so choose. This first post is more for the younger crew.

I love doing the fun crafts and unschooling projects, but fitting them into our already busy schedule can be a struggle. This year I think I have finally figured out the perfect system for incorporating crafts and projects. I planned in great detail every week of our homeschool, including all those awesome projects I want to do with my children. This way, I can fit the fun seasonal activities into our days without feeling guilty. It's all about balance and I'm convinced us homeschooling mamas can find the right balance for each of our own unique families.

I know I haven't shared in great detail about our sensory boxes, but they are apart of our homeschool. Each week we have a new themed sensory box, especially on our fun schooling weeks. This week's sensory box included orange and yellow dyed white beans, faux turkey feathers, brown cotton balls, a small metal tin, and some pinchers.

 We have collected hundreds of books over the years, especially children's books. Our Thanksgiving stash is fairly large. These are the storybooks I read for our Thanksgiving fun school week. 

We read my absolute all-time favorite storybook this week ~ Louisa May Alcott's, An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving. This book is about a large family and their Thanksgiving celebration. When I first started reading this book to my children we only had a few kiddos, and now we have more than the family in the book. It's a very touching story of the selflessness of a house full of children who choose to serve their family with cheerful spirits. It melts my heart every year!

Our first craft was sponge painted turkeys. I let the children sponge paint assorted fall colored paint onto a white paper plate and then I cut out and glued a turkey body and face to the plate once the paint had dried.

No, the little ones didn't get much hands-on with this project, but my littles love to paint and were content with that part, and of course they were delighted with their turkeys once we got their bodies and faces glued on the plates.

Our second project was to make corn on the cob with construction paper and oat cereal. 

Our third craft was to make construction paper pumpkin pies. I cut a paper plate into quarters and tore orange and brown construction paper for the littles to glue onto their 'slice' of the pie. Then they glued a cotton ball in the middle to represent whip cream.

Our last craft was to make 'turkey tracks' with chenille stems bent like a turkey foot stamped into paint and then onto construction paper. 

Our snacktivity for the week was pilgrim hats made with fudge bottom cookies, mini Reece cups, and Reece's Pieces. The little ones had to have some extra help with this activity, but I can assure you they did not need any help gobbling up their treats!

Many years ago, I would have majorly stressed about their imperfect little cookies, but now I just want my children to do as much as they can on their own and know the feeling of personal pride in doing their very best, regardless of how whatever they're doing actually looks. There's so much more to life than striving for perfection. Doing your best is far more important.

I feel like at the end of each one of these 'fun school' posts I have to put in a disclaimer. For the most part doing projects with children is like trying to catch a muddy hog. You're going to get messy and they're going to fight you ~ FACT! But, every once in a while they do the projects without fussing, everyone has fun, and the craft turns out somewhat like you had envisioned. 

This week we did have those rare moments, where it was actually 'fun' doing our crafts, but truthfully they were not all the 'warm and fuzzy' family bonding time I had hoped them to be. And dear sweet friends, it's in those struggles that we learn and grow as mothers. Yes, we could give up and never do these elective projects again, but that would be such a terrible travesty. Don't let Satan get the last laugh ~ keep on keeping on, doing the best you can to make those treasured memories with your babies.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer