St Nicholas and Christmas cards

We enjoyed reading the story of Saint Nicholas and then put together a little scene, using the paper fir trees we made earlier. L loved spending time making up stories with the figures and then adding in new characters to go with them.

Christmas cards for the parents made, hand print Robbins, the older ones created there's all on their own, I made the younger ones so parents have a keepsake.

When we were making our list of things to make for Christmas, M was desperate to make Chocolate Christmas pudding cakes again, simple but very effective, or at least I think so. The cup cakes are any chocolate cake you like, then topped with some white rolled out icing and then some green and red icing to make to the holly.

Paper chain making, M has been busy making loads, enough to decorate the tree and to put hang up as well, for L I found a pack with sticky tabs, rather than cutting out paper and gluing them, so she could make some on her own, she does like to be independent. Damp sponge in a pot, makes the sticking so much nicer, than licking them and being left with that horrible taste in your mouth.

Not Christmas at all but L asked me the other day to make her a special doughnut, as in one that didn't have her allergens in it. I said "I thought that might be a bit difficult", she looked at me as if I was being very sill and said "No there not Mum, you just need one of my bagels, some icing and sprinkles." So that is what she did :)

Hopefully will catch up on the rest of the things we have been creating this week, we are a little bit behind as we have all been battling horrible coughs and colds to say the least.

Angels and Mince Pies

We started of the weekend in between gymnastics and dance lessons making some, in L's words, yummy scrummy mince pies.

Mince Pie filling

10ml cornflour

175ml water

5ml vanilla essence

175g currants and raisins

50g mixed peel

70g sugar

5ml ground cinnamon

5ml mixed spice

2.5ml ground ginger

1. Mix together cornflour, water and vanilla essence and place in a saucepan.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan.
3. Bring to the boil and then simmer until thick.
4. Spoon into pastry cases and cook at Gas 4 for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden.

M still loves to do some scrape art and she loved these ones from baker Ross.

Paper plate angels made by L and my minded children, note to self, next time need to make the heads a bit bigger so it's easier for the children to draw the faces!

M and I had a go at some origami angels, tried different tutorials on you tube, the yellow and white ones were fairly easy to do and instructions can be found here and the pink one I found rather fiddly is here.

We have taken down our Autumn window decorations and now making some Christmas ones. I am hoping to find time to make a scene with the Kings in and then one with Mary and Joseph but need to do some Christmas present sewing first. 

I came across the lovely fox pattern last year on Cutesy Crafts, the pattern is free to download, the embroidery came from a Christmas cross stitch magazine the design was originally on a heart shape but changed to to circle and backed with some felt, now just need to put the tree up.

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The Little Fir Tree

The first two days of our advent activities are based around the lovely story The Little Fir Tree. It is a lovely story taking us through the different seasons, seeing the tree grow etc. A story we have already read more than once and probably read again and again.

The girls enjoyed creating these pictures, it took more than one step and then creating a collage from all the pieces. First they painted some paper in a mixture of greens for the grass, then a piece in brown for the trunk, when dry, they cut out a trunk shape and ripped up the green paper and then stuck it together. Then they used small sponges to sponge paint the tree and add snow if they wanted too.

Day two activity was origami fir tree my 4 year managed these with help, so a craft for the older children but they have enjoyed using them in their games and I think they look great on our seasonal display.

1st Day of Advent

First day of Advent, the first doors of the calendars have been opened, tonight we will light our candle and read the first story from our Advent Storybook

Our first advent craft has been created, I spotted this craft, alpine trees a while ago and thought it would be perfect for a Christmas craft, maybe should of got the silver glitter out to give a more festive feel, perfect to go with the Little Fir Tree story.

Not Christmas linked at all but time for a science experiment, M has been going back over the different states of matter and the changes they go through and L has been very interested in this and loves to go round saying whether something is a solid, liquid or gas!. So thought it would be nice to do this simple experiment to show how gas will take up more space than a liquid or solid. The little ones love the fact that I can blow up a balloon without touching it! You need a bottle, a balloon, some vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.

 Put some vinegar into the bottle, then put some bicarbonate of soda into the balloon, then carefully stretch the balloon over the top of the bottle. Then gently shake the contents of the balloon out and watch what happens. Hopefully a chemical reaction between the vinegar and bicarb, resulting in lots of fizzing and then the balloon should inflate, if enough gas is produced. 

St Andrew's Day

Yesterday was St Andrew's day and I got together with a good friend of mine for days activities exploring the story of St Andrew and Scotland. We read The Story of St Andrew and they then drew and coloured in their own Scottish flag.

We listened to some bagpipes being played and watched some Scottish Dancing. We found Scotland in our Maps book, looking at the mountains, rivers and the other wonderful pictures. This is a nice power point presentation on Scotland if you want some more info. We did some paper weaving, did think of doing it with wool but as we had a wide age range thought paper would be better, luckily the older ones hadn't wove with paper, so it was something different for them as well.

We looked at the Scottish emblem, the thistle and brought up lots of images on the computer and asked if they would like to try and paint some, which they did except L who wanted to use felt tip pens.

We later on read Katie in Scotland and talked about the Loch Ness Monster,

they used play dough to create their own Nessie.

Advent calendars

 Our advent calendars made, the minded children's ones, just have a loop to remove each day, our one for home has a loop to remove and inside each loop is a craft or activity to do each day.

Our list of planned Christmas crafts, for our advent calendar. Our craft, activity calendar has become a bit of family tradition, we have done it for several years now and they love to talk about what they did last year and find ideas for this year.

Frosty Walk

We had some lovely but very cold mornings here and L has thoroughly enjoyed exploring all the frosty leaves and ice that we have found. She loves walking through the frosty grass, hearing it crunch under her feet and then looking to see the trail she had left behind. Then looking at all the leaves on the ground with lots of frost on them, she picked up one that she liked and said she was going to take it to toddlers. After a little while, I asked her what had happened to the leaf under her thumb, when she lifted it, she realised the ice had melted because her thumb was warm, she found some other leaves and tried to draw patterns on them, using the warmth of her fingers to melt the ice. Then spent time looking at the different patterns that frost made on the benches and fences etc that we walked past.

Home and time to warm and do some painting, I have been saving some cardboard for various activities, the children are really into playing with the animals and fairies and I suggested they painted a play scene for them. This went down really well and they set about painting, lots of chatter about what they wanted and they co-operated really well over what they needed and where.