Present Wrapping

So the other day, we went to my friend's house to have her take some family photos of us. While we were there, my friend's sister-in-law was wrapping presents. My two kids wanted to help her, and she let them. Things went really well. As I thought about it, I was a bit disappointed with myself that I had never let my kids help with wrapping before! 

We had an activity a couple of days later where we had the kids each buy a present for a sibling. I decided this was a perfect time to let them start helping to wrap presents.

SKILLS DEVELOPED

Wrapping presents is great for fine motor skills. You use scissors and tape. You fold paper. You also get some spacial judgement practice as you figure out how much paper to use for a present.

AGE RANGE

I will defer to your judgement on this, but don't be as off as I was. At age 3, Kaitlyn was more than ready to help. But I didn't let McKenna help as a 1.5 year old. So perhaps consider it with a 2 year old, by 3 I think any child can help. There might be some 1 year olds who can help. I think I could see Brayden doing that at one.

Here is Kaitlyn wrapping the present she chose for McKenna. The photo above is the finished product. She did a great job!

Ordering Objects

For math homework, Brayden was supposed to do some ordering games. The goal here was to teach about sizes and positional words. I decided our three little Christmas trees would work well for this game.

Supplies

Three items of distinct sizes.

Vocabulary to Practice

• biggest
• middle-sized
• smallest
• first
• between
• last
• next to

Activity

Have your child do different activities ordering the objects. Be sure to use your target vocabulary. "Put the trees in a line from biggest to smallest." 

Line the items up. Have your child describe what he sees. "The biggest tree is first. The smallest tree is last. The middle-sized tree is in between the biggest and smallest trees."

Fun and simple math!

A Christmas Sort

A little while back I was at the Dollar Tree when they happened to have just started putting out Christmas decorations. I'm always looking for fun little trinkets for possible learning activities. My find on this particular day was miniature Christmas ornaments. They were 2/$1, so why not? I ended up with 32 items for the girls to sort. Atalie (1) sorted them by item (all the candy canes together, all of the snowflakes together, etc). Charis (3) sorted by attributes, according to her. So she might sorted by color (so the peppermints and candy canes would have been together since they are both red and white), shape, things to eat vs. things you can't eat, purpose. The idea with letting her sort and then tell me how she sorted them is to allow for some creativity. You'd be surprised at the ways they separate the items...ways you may have not considered before.

Christmas Lamb

My version

Playgroup was at our house this week. Our learning area of focus happened to be the letter "L." I wanted to do something Christmas-y and was having a hard time with L. I was stuck on T for trees or R for Rudolph. I have lots of ideas for those! But L...

I did some brainstorming and was a bit disappointed in myself that it took me that long to think of "lights" and "lamb" as well as "Lamb of God." Okay, plenty of L things for Christmas. And thus, this idea was born.

AGE RANGE: Definitely works for 3 and 4 year olds. I also did it with a 5 year old (Brayden). I would guess most 2 year olds could do it. You might be able to get an 18-24 month old to participate, but watch closely because of the glue. If yours is like mine, she might try to eat it.

TIP

I have finally learned to make my own version before asking children to create it. Then they can see what they are doing without trying to see what is in my head.

SKILLS TAUGHT

• Religious discussion of Lamb in Christmas story
• Sensory skills
• Fine motor

SUPPLIES

• Paper to put stuff on
• Cotton balls (I used 10 per picture)
• Black paper for face
• Black marker/crayon for legs
• Glue
• Glitter for star

ACTIVITY

For the younger children, you might want to do the glue/glitter star yourself and let dry a bit before starting the activity. For the older children, you can let them do the star. 

After the star is on the paper, put an oval of glue on the paper and glue in the oval. Then have the child put the cotton balls on the glue. Have the child glue a face on, then draw legs on. Let dry completely before hanging up.

Be sure to talk about the lamb's role in the story as well as the emergence of a new star and what that meant. We also read The Something Wonderful: A Christmas Story by Karen Hill. It stars a little lamb, so it goes perfectly with this activity.

Brayden's version

Gingerbread Fun

This week the girls and I have been reading The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby and other versions of the story.

I decided to let the girls practice decorating on paper before we got to the actual cookies to decorate. Add glitter and glue to anything and my girls are happy. :) It's a super easy activity, a chance for them to show lots of creativity, and just plain fun! Using glue provided lots of practice with fine motor skills, too. I simply cut out a bunch of gingerbread shapes, and then provided decorating supplies for them to go crazy with. For the glue, I put some Elmer's in a small container and gave them cotton swabs to use. Much easier than handling a glue bottle, especially for my 1 year old.

They turned out adorable, and they spent (willingly) at least an hour working on them.

Tree Decorating: A Fine Motor Activity

Decorating the Christmas tree is more than fun tradition. It provides some great learning along with it! The most obvious is fine motor practice. If you try to have things spaced as well as a child can space things, you will also be focusing on some spacial awareness and pre-planning. 

But allowing a child to help decorate isn't always as precious as those greeting cards and images in your head would lead you to believe. You can end up with broken ornaments and time outs...so I have a few tips to make decorating fun.

1-Set the tree up ahead of time. Don't expect children to wait patiently while you get the tree ready to decorate. Whether your tree is real or fake, small or large, you will need some prep time. Unless you plan to have the children help with lights, I would include stringing lights in your list of things to do before hand.

2-Pre-hang breakable ornaments, OR set them aside for later. Some children do great around breakable ornaments. Last year, Kaitlyn accidently dropped a few ornaments and broke them. She wasn't being crazy or doing anything she shouldn't; she was simply a two year old carrying something. So don't be like me; just because it is Christmas it does not mean your little toddler no longer toddles. 

3-Have piles for what the child can put up. This year, we had certain ornaments that each child could put on the tree. We organized these before the decorating started. 

4-Forget perfect. Don't stress out about where the ornament is compared to all the other ornaments. If you are allowing a child to help decorate, expect it to look like a child decorated.

When I was growing up, we had our family tree and a kid tree. We could decorate our tree with our ornaments however we wanted to. We also got to help with the family tree, but my mom was allowed to tell us where to put things or to ask us to move something somewhere else. 

I am actually not particular about where things are on the tree (this is surprising I am sure; it surprises even me), but even so, I think a kid tree would be fun. Maybe we will watch after-Christmas sales this year for a small tree they can use next year. 

Christmas Round Up

I am so excited for the Christmas Round Up because that means it is Christmas time!

Christmas Books and Recommendations

Get our 2009 Christmas Book Recommendations

Straw Bed for Jesus

Help your children focus on the reason for the season.

Making the Holidays Memorable

Ideas for getting the most out of your holidays.

Christmas Symbols Poem

A poem for reminding us what all of our decorations symbolize.

Christmas Symbols and Meanings

A list of all of the Christmas Symbols and what they mean.

Gingerbread Tips

Making gingerbread items can turn into no fun for everyone if you don't do it right. Find tips for making this a fun tradition rather than a point of contention.

Candy Train

Make a yummy candy train.

Snowmen Ornaments

A darling keepsake ornament to make with your children.

Homemade Ornaments

More ideas for homemade ornaments.

Reindeer Week

Enough reindeer activities to more than fill a week up. They will leave you with your head spinning.

More Reindeer Activities

Just in case your head was not spinning fast enough, we added a few more reindeer activities.

Christmas Tree Art

A great fine motor activity that results in a very cute decoration.

Christmas Tree Rice Krispy Treats

Yummy, festive treats.

Time Capsule

A fun tradition to do each year.

Pumpkin Turkey

I have these Jack-Be-Little pumpkins all over my house, serving as a nice decoration. I kept looking at them wanting to do something unique with them, and came up with this. I think they make darling decorations! This is a great activity for fine motor skills practice.

AGE RANGE
If you assemble the turkey, 12 months and up. The child will need to be older for assembling.

SUPPLIES

• Pumpkin (you could also use a pear, apple...whatever)
• Crayons
• Feathers
• Toothpick
• Scissors
• Tape
• Nail
• Turkey head printed out

ACTIVITY

1. Have your child color the turkey head.
2. If your child is able, have him cut out the turkey head.
3. Tape the turkey head to the toothpick.
4. You can either slide the toothpick into the turkey or poke a hole in the turkey with a nail and have your child slide it in.
5. Poke holes for the feathers. Either you put them in, or have your child do it if he is able.
6. Done!

Apple Turkey

(Here's the super-cute healthy version)

Of course I went to take a picture of our cute apple turkeys, and my camera battery ran out of juice.

I got this idea from the Disney Family Fun website, an idea by Tiffany Yang. She has a cute website called Cute Food For Kids with a few other turkey ideas you should check out, like handprint cookie turkeys. So cute!! (Which makes sense, given the site name). :)

I precut the head and beak. The stand for the turkey is just the bottom of the apple cut off and flipped over, then toothpicked (is that a word?) on. Toothpicks, marshmallows, some sort of gummy snacks/Dots type candy and an apple. Easy! If you don't have marshmallows, you can use all gummy snacks.

Thanksgiving Round-Up

Here is the round-up for our previous Thanksgiving posts:

Thankful Basket

For teaching Gratitude.











Involving Young Children on Thanksgiving Day
Tips for getting your young children involved in this holiday that can seem ambiguous to them.

Making a Menu
Have your children make a menu for the big meal.

Thankful Place Mat
Have your children make a place mat to eat off of that shows the things they are thankful for.

Positional Words: A Thanksgiving Game
A game for all ages.

Turkey Table Toppers

Make some center pieces for your meal.










Thankful Drawing

Get the whole family involved in drawing a picture of the things you are thankful for.






Thanksgiving Books
Last years Thanksgiving books.

Thanksgiving Books 2010

Here are some books for you to consider for Thanksgiving!

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson

This story is very funny and is sure to get giggles out of your children. This is a fun Thanksgiving Read.







The Pilgrims Thanksgiving from A to Z by Laura Crawford

This book is full of infomration about Thanksgiving. It isn't just a picture book with "P is for Pilgrim". It has the letter, what it stands for, then at least a full paragraph elaborating on the item. So you could focus on the letters with your little ones (young toddlers, pretoddlers, and babies), but also go into much more historical detail with your older children (toddlers, preschoolers, an children). I really like this book.




Thanksgiving Day by Anne Rockwell

This is about chilren recounting what they learned about Thanksgiving Day. It has good information while still being interesting.







Thanksgiving Mice! by Bethany Roberts

A group of mice put on a play about the first Thanksgiving.








The Thanksgiving Surprise by Peggy Archer

Two brothers go looking for a turkey to eat on Thanksgiving. They end up coming home with a giant pumpkin instead. This is a fun story.






I'm A Turkey by Jim Arnosky
This is a fun turkey book to read. I would get this from the library, but probably not buy it.





A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman

Raegan mentioned this last year, but it is so good it must be mentioned again. This is our favorite turkey book this year, and really is worth it to own this one. I like it so much I found myself a little taken aback when the librarian didn't read this for story time to the Kindergarteners today--she read a different turkey book! Then I had to laugh at myself. So it is a good one.

Blast from the Past: No Bake Turkey Cookies {plus Spinoff}

We recently made Raegan's no-bake turkey cookies and of course the kids loved them. A whole lot. What's not to love? Sugar, sugar, sugar.

We also recently went to story time at the library, where they made something similar:

I thought that was a great way to lessen the sugar impact if desired. Yes, I was a weird mom squeezing in there to get a picture of the turkey with my phone :) All for you people! All for you. 

This cookie is one half of an oreo, candy corn, and a Hershey's Kiss. You could do a malt ball instead of the kiss. The kiss is stuck on using white frosting (when we made our turkey cookies, I had some green frosting already made so we used that instead! Kids don't care).