Saturday, December 7, 2013

Our Book Advent - Week 1

We started our Book Advent this past week - beginning on December 2nd.  This year, I picked only 15 books (not 24) in hopes we can actually do them all.  Weekends tend to have other activities so my goal is just Monday-Friday :-)  With that in mind, we do our book Advent in the mornings as our "Lesson" for the day.  This allows all three boys to take part in whatever activity we do that morning. 

December 2nd:
I found a cute Camel Craft on Pinterest (Just a photo) and thought it would be fun to start out with - a simple Envelope Camel.  Here is our Finished Product:



December 3rd:
To go along with "Dream Snow" we did a cute Snowy Windowpane  craft.  Here is our finished product:

I have to be honest, this was my favorite project this week.  They took more prep work on my part so that the boys could complete them but the whole "snow in the window" effect is perfect.  Also, the boys have asked to read Dream Snow every single night before bed. 


December 4th:
To go along with Mortimer's Christmas Manger we made Letter J Ornaments that looked fun.


So this was by far the favorite craft for the boys.  Glitter Glue rocks their world and we went through 6 bottles today ;-)  Through in some gems and life is good.  Ready?  This was a last minute change.  I had a totally different project picked out but just wasn't "feeling" it and didn't think the boys would get into it so I went searching for something else, came across this idea and ran with it . .. so glad I did.  Granted, I'm not sure the "J"'s will ever dry!

December 5th:
For this craft, I used my own imagination.  I had the kids draw a simple picture of a house and then we glued "snowballs" on the paper (cotton balls) to make our own Blizzard.
Lets keep it real - this project didn't go over nearly as well as I thought it would.  Josh just wanted to connect the dots he had made (while disobeying and drawing when I told him not to HA) and did NOT want it covered up with "snow".  Nate drew his picture and said, "I want snow but you glue it on mom" and the munchkin, well he loved it :-) LOL Oh well, they can't all be winners BUT Nate picked this book to read before bed so he at least liked the story.


December 6:
Today we made Christmas cookies.  I had the dough ready and the boys each cut out a few cookies of their choice; we baked them and then frosted them with decorations.

----We interrupt this week of book Advent due to the stomach flu----
Yep, I got hit with the stomach flu on Thursday afternoon and was done until Friday evening so we didn't read this book nor did we make cookies.  I have two "slots" to fill on our Grinch countdown so I'm going to add "Decorate Christmas Cookie's in one of those slots  . ..