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
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