Monday, December 10, 2012

The Grinch and Some Tinsel

Once a week I what to share what we did with our Tinsel advent study and our Grinch Countdown. I'll try to limit my photos so that the post doesn't get too long!

December 1st:

I decided that I wanted to do the Tinsel advent study in the morning.  It's a nice break before lunch and the ornaments are supposed to be fairly quick.  Day 1- the Study was on the fact that Jesus is the light of the world.  While we talked about how we don't like being in the dark but it's ok when we have a nightlight, the boys made some Stained Glass Candles.
 I've gotten smart in my old age.  Glue and toddlers is one huge mess.  Instead we "painted" with our glue and the boys loved it. 


Now, the book says the entire lesson and craft will take about 30 minutes.  My almost three year old was done in 20 minutes; my four year old perfectionist was done in 90 minutes.  I will say that Josh's ornament took days to dry - he really loved painting with glue.


The Grinch countdown I decided to do in the afternoon because some of the activities, like today's, are fun snacks or they are crafts that may take longer to do.  Today's pocket held the card with just the title of the book and then a small gift for each boy and an unpopped bag of popcorn.
 We made this fun popcorn snack that I shared "HERE"
Then they each got a new ornament for the tree since we were decorating the tree today.

December 2nd:

Tinsel - We did not get to our ornament craft today. I put it off and shouldn't have because then we didn't get to it.  It's ok though, because I can make it up later this week.

Grinch:
Aren't these adorable?  I saw these at Walmart for $2.89 each and couldn't resist - they are Little Sock Monkey Stuffed Animals for Christmas.  The boys loved them.

December 3rd:

Tinsel:

Today's ornament was a crown to remind us that Jesus was the promised king. Now, my kids love paint. To paint two small Toilet paper tube crowns, we went through a whole thing of paint. Oh, and Josh painted . .. the paint bottle too. Due to the high amount of paint use, we had to wait to finish this project :-)

Grinch:
December 4:
Tinsel:
We finished up our crowns by adding Jewels to them.  I've realized that this year, our goal is just to do one thing each day - it may take us two days to finish an ornament and that is ok :-)

Grinch:
We made these (premade) cookies today for our countdown activity.  They are supposed to be Micky Mouse but they look a little like a frog I think HA!

December 5:
Tinsel:
Can you tell what these are?  No?  really? HA! These are supposed to be faces but my boys got a little glue happy with both the wiggle eyes and the yarn for the hair.  Creativity is good, right?

Grinch:  Ok, we are doing our countdown every day but I've discovered that the boys just want a "treat" so I've decided to make it easy for me and instead of trying to do a crafty thing or anything else on some days, I just make sure there is a treat in the pocket - M and M's, Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kats.  That is what makes them happy :-)

December 6:
Today's ornament/lesson was about the Angel who announced that Mary would give birth to the savior.  The craft in the book was a little too hard for my boys so I printed off this picture and had them color it.  Then I glue it to some card stock.  This gave us a break from glue today :-)

December 7th
We did nothing today - well, actually we did lots but it was because we had a couple of guests with us all day so we did not do either our Tinsel or Grinch activities today :-)