Christmas Countdown — Dec. 17

We're spending December enjoying time together with reading and holiday activities. Here's what we made today:

Button garlands!

Boy, talk about easy. Twine, buttons, thread it, done.

Starboy was interested in playing with the bowls of buttons, but I have to say the activity didn't hold his attention to the end. There was a lot of cajoling and a little help from mommy to finish up. I think he wasn't in the zone.

 

Santa's Snow Cat

by Sue Stainton and Anne Mortimer

A long and sweet story about a cat on an adventure, looking for the real Santa.

Yes, once again the activity and book are not really even related. If we had a cat and used the garland as a cat toy, maybe. But. We don't have a cat. Tune in next year for a more educational approach. Or stick around to just have fun with your kid, and not worry about it right now. 

 The buttons came from Oriental Trading, by the way, leftovers from a Christmas Party project last year, with some extras from the dollar bin at Michael's. This would be great fun with vintage buttons from a garage sale. If your neighborhood Martha Stewart didn't get there first.

These look great on the tree, or as ribbon on a gift. Despite this crummy photo.

Christmas Countdown — Dec. 16

We're spending December focusing on holiday books and crafts, to create some family togetherness while we wait for....the day of family togetherness.

Today's project: Snow scenes! Shriek! I'm in love!

So many thanks to Donni of The Magic Onions, who suggested epsom salt for the snow. I'm hoping to find some glass jars for smaller scenes to give as gifts—like I've been seeing in the ornament section in Cost Plus—but today we made a classic centerpiece, to go with the book of the day:

Snow

by Uri Shulevitz

Lovely, calm watercolor illustrations with a simple story about a child's view of a snowstorm.

We started with two trees from Michaels (they have a snow village series—but the deer were all sold out, nuts!), a plastic fawn, an apothecary jar and a leftover box of epsom salts. And a small piece of scrap cardboard, cut into a circle. 

I considered a bunch of other animals: Bears, polar bears, harp seal pup, buck and doe, racoons peeking out of a trash can, and other stuff that's rattling around the house....but the baby deer seemed to have the best vibe, scaled with the trees, and actually fit in the jar.

It looks like we found nearly the same jar as Donni's family did, though I'm sure we paid more — she's a yard-sale wiz and somehow manages to find things I can't even find in the stores. (Like, where did she get those gorgeous tiny deer?)

The cardboard is to keep the figures from toppling easily. Although once the salt is in there, it's probably not too much of an issue, I realized later.

 Add salt freely.

 Voilà! Instant spendy beauty, for a mere fraction of the cost!

Once the materials were assembled, I swear this project took less than five minutes. And so addictive! 

Starboy has been trying to figure out how it can "snow" in there, but I explained to him that this one isn't interactive, and it's just for looking (mostly so the stuff doesn't topple). But if he does play in it, it's no big deal—the deer is a toy, the epsom salt is pretty safe (as long as you're near the potty, ha ha), and it's just the trees from China that would give me any concern. But I'm not too worried about it.

Christmas Countdown — Dec. 15

We kept today quiet. A few Saturday-style obligations, and together time. Our activity was a family lantern walk in the hills, to look for Christmas lights. We saw our city glitter in the distance.

And we discovered the Penguin Man's house. We counted at least 20 penguins in his lights display, and he happened to come outside. He said he was walking by a movie theatre one day, and popped in to see the show—March of the Penguins. And he got hooked. He has 413 penguins throughout his house, he says. Each one different. How random.

Today's book:

One Snowy Night

by M Christina Butler and Tina Macnaughton

A sweet story of gift-giving from the heart, and looking out for strangers, and taking care of friends. It seemed like a pretty good fit for today.

Free Sparkle story and links to help heal after tragedy *

SparkleStories.com has posted a free story to help parents and children cope today, after unfathomable tragedy in Newtown, Conn. The story is advertising-free and copyright-free.

"We wanted a story that addresses loss and tragedy, but that leaves children with a sense that the adults in their world love them, and are keeping them safe, and are doing everything they can to ensure that it never happens again."

You may read their explainer and listen at this link to decide whether the story is right to share with your children, or just listen yourself.

This is a free story about a young girl named Lee, who loves her little black dog Prince.  But one day, Prince is suddenly killed by a speeding car.  The girl not only has to come to grips with the abrupt loss of her dog, but she also manages questions like “Who was it?  Why didn’t they stop? How could they do it?” And the ultimate message from her loving parents is this:  "We love you.  It is OK to be sad.  We are holding you.  And we will do everything we can to prevent this from happening again."

Attachment Parenting International sent out an email blast with links to help parents. "What do I say to my children?" Here are some of the articles they recommend:

Helping Children with Scary News, PBS Parents

Helping Children Heal, Attachment Parenting International (lots of tips for families with very young children)

How to Talk with Kids about Tragedy, Aha! Parenting

Talking with Children about Upsetting News Events, Massachusetts General Hospital

Helping Your Children Manage Distress in the Aftermath of a Shooting, American Psychological Association

*This article was updated to include article sourcing and fix text viewing issues.

Christmas Countdown — Dec. 14

We're counting down to Christmas with a book and a winter / holiday activity every day.

Today we got an assist in the activity from Miss Molly. I was saving this exact activity for another day, to pair with Snowflake Bentley, but as they say, great minds think alike. So instead we paired with another wonderful seasonal book:

Grandmother Winter

by Phyllis Root, illos by Beth Krommes

Miss Molly, of course, told another story altogether, that was even more magical. She brings stories to life with "puppets," and, as Starboy says, she tells them "from her head." 

This one was about some Native Americans who lived in a land called South Dakota, where it was autumn, with their dog.

 But across the river, it already had gotten cold. Ice crystals formed. The ground was covered with frost, and it was beginning to snow.

 

Mr. Frost, the oldest man alive, paid a visit, and brought some ice crystals with him. The woman from the fall land was amazed and stared at the beautiful land in wonderment, and then brought the news back to her husband.

And then the children painted ice crystals, each picture as unique and beautiful as the next.

We spent the afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and Rye gave his cousins each an I-spy game. I finally made the contact sheets for the games so the kids can match pictures, and I'll update that post this weekend.

Reading Roundup 12.14.12

Some things I found interesting this week:

They Know What You're Shopping For, Wall State Journal (Dec. 10, 2010)

America's next education 'crisis' — and who benefits, Washington Post Answer Sheet (Dec. 11, 2010)

How the Media Missed Jenni Rivera, Part Two, LA Observed, (Dec. 13, 2012)
and related links

Jenni Rivera had ovaries of Steel, Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly (Dec. 13, 2012)

Christmas Countdown — Bonus activity

 We've been crafting like crazy in anticipation of the holidays.

This activity wasn't designed to go along with any story, although The Polar Express or Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer are obvious go-to's that come to mind. Starboy made jingle necklaces as gifts for his buddies in his art class. Miss Molly thought it best to share them right before going home, during the snack, so the kids really could enjoy them without taking time away from their art experience. New things can distracting, and I was glad she mentioned that. It's easy to forget that kids don't process things in the same way that we would as adults.

The ingredients are as simple as can be: A bell or two, skinny ribbon, and pony beads in the shape of stars. Or not. We happened to have star beads lying around. The sound is so joyful, it's a real spirit-builder, especially here in Southern California without the crisp weather and snow. (Cold and rainy, which we've had lately, isn't exactly a holiday mood-builder for this Midwesterner, but maybe I'd feel differently if I were from the Pacific Northwest.)

The kids loved them!

Christmas Countdown — Dec. 13

We're reading a special winter / holiday book throughout December, and promoting some family together time with activities and crafts.

Another stellar crafting day—I Spy jars! As gifts!

Starboy has seen the stacks of over-designed cutesy buttons and he has been dying to get his hands on them. After putting him off for three days, I couldn't say no any longer. 

And maybe that's only partially because I didn't have much else planned—I had too many snowman ideas to match today's book and I couldn't decide on one. So Starboy decided for me.

The Snowman

by Raymond Briggs

A wonderful no-words story about a boy's adventure with a real snowman.

Now if I had been smart, I would have stretched these little gems out for two or three days...offering a sensory bin like the incredible ones on Counting Coconuts, then switching it up, like: Same items on the light table, or a tweezer game or something, and then making the I Spy jars.

But no. That would have required at least minimal planning.

So we went straight into the crafting and gifting. Shrug.

Materials:

•Buttons and geegaws from craft store relating to a theme, OR

•Junk from around the house (a paperclip, penny, button, earrings, game pieces, whatever)

     (about 16-20 items)

•Snippers to cut the button loop off the back

•Camera, to photograph buttons

•Clean juice or PB jar (one per child—this is a hard game to share)

     or use a spice jar, with teeny tiny buttons

•Silicone glue to glue lid onto jar

•Sticky label to write items outside of jar, for readers

•Filler: glitter, pony beads, glitter stars, seed beeds, bugle beads, extra buttons

•Rice, beans or lentils

•Food coloring, hand gel, zipper bags, cookie sheet for dying rice (optional)

Tips:

•Check out Etsy and Google for a billion ideas on this project

•The commercial version is called Find It. It's $20, and the thing is huge.

•Shop ahead for sale prices on the little buttons

•The alphabet beads packets are usually "light" on vowels, so over-buy if you have a lot of words to spell.

•Get the right kind of snippers so the whole loop comes off when you cut

•Dye your rice several days in advance

•Don't forget to photograph the buttons before they go in the jar

•Plan ahead a couple of weeks to save your jars

•Wash your hands when you finish the project. Buttons aren't "toys," so who knows what's in the paint, etc.

This project was easy for us because we already had all the stuff: The buttons, the bottles, and I'd even saved some colored rice from another project. If you are starting from scratch, you'll need to actually plan ahead a bit. 

The rice is what takes the longest. You can Google "dye rice" to learn how, but it's basically about a tablespoon or less of hand gel, about 20-30 drops of food coloring and however-much rice in a zipper bag. Mix it up, then lay it al out for a few days on newspaper on a cookie sheet, to dry it. Or you can try dying it with Kool-Aid, which may or may not be a more granola approach, depending on how you look at it.

The next thing is, you have to cut the little loops off of the backs of the buttons. If you don't do this, the button will "surf" the rice face-down and you won't be able to see what it looks like. You can buy buttons without the loop on the back if you're savvy (I think they're sold with the scrapbooking stuff), but, I just bought the snippers instead.

The rest is as you'd expect. Choose your gems/buttons. If you want a photo key, then shoot your picture now. I like the photo key for non-readers and early readers. If you laminate the photo of the gems, then the child can play his own game finding the gems then marking them off on the key with pawn, dry-erase marker or grease pencil. I like having photos on one side, and words + photos on the other side, to further the learning, but that all depends on how OCD you are. (I haven't done mine yet. Grandma and Grandpa have a good printer and a laminator, so I hope to finish up this week.)

By they way, I've done a spice-jar version of these for the car, with teeny tiny buttons. So. Fun. I want to try the alphabet one that Counting Coconuts did. Such a great idea! In Starboy's jar, above, the letters spell "Christmas" and his first name.

Add a little rice to your jar, then some gems, then some glitter and filler. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you layer it a bit, the buttons distribute a little more easily than if you dump them all together.

When you think you are finished, put the lid on and try to "find" stuff. This is a test to see whether the amount of rice is satisfactory. Make adjustments as necessary.

If you are sure you are finished, glue the cap on.  Allow to cure according to directions on packaging. That's it! 

There are tons of games you can play with these jars, like:

• I find a thing, then you find a thing

• Identify the letter

• Match the letter to flashcards

• Find the letters of a word

• Find them in order (for car trips, ha!)

• Find all the things that are red..or round... (etc.)

Christmas Countdown - Dec 12 *

We're reading a special winter or holiday book through December and also creating a special activity. Today was my favorite day so far.

Isn't it magical!?! And a perfect match with today's book:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost, illos by Susan Jeffers

Sigh. This is the most satisfying project ever. And quick!

 Materials:
• Sea glass (Michaels $3)
• small jars (Ikea, ~$5 for four—these held about 1 cup of liquid)
• glycerine (Michaels, ~$6 for a small bottle from baking section)
• extra fine glitter (Michaels $3)
• tiny star confetti/glitter (Michaels ~$2 in gift wrap section)
• silicone glue
• and small bottle brush trees (Michaels ~$4 for six, in Missions section)
or small plastic animals, such as in a Toob
• glue gun with glue sticks (I like the glitter ones for this project)
• water in a glass measuring cup or something that helps you pour easily. Use distilled water for longevity—it should not change color over time.

 We used the seaglass to create a platform for the trees, so that they could be seen well. We glued them with a hot glue gun and engineered it so it was a little flat on the top.

We did have one "mountain" fail after the whole thing was built. If you have concerns about things being perfect, I'd recommend using silicone waterproof glue instead. But this means you have to wait overnight for it to dry.

 Next we hot-glued the tree to the ice mountain. Starboy does the gluing with supervision—control is difficult for him because the grip is large for his tiny hands.

This tree was not designed to live underwater, so I'm hoping that it doesn't rust too soon. There is a Toob of trees, but we couldn't find one within our timeframe, and those look really plastic-y. Michaels also had a great Christmas scene with various pieces that would have been fun in a snow globe, but I was worried that the paint would soak off. They were 60% off though, so I wish I'd grabbed a piece or two to try.

 Next, we filled the jars almost to the top with water, leaving space for an air bubble and glycerine. The snow flies better if there is a little air bubble, we discovered after over-filling one of the globes. We added about a tablespoon or less of glycerine, so that tiny jar was plenty for four snow globes.

 Glitter! We used about 1/2 tsp or less of superfine glitter, with a pinch of stars. Then I layed a line of silicone glue around the neck of the jar, to glue the lid on. My son is very curious and he is good at puzzles, so I don't want him to have the idea that the lid ever would come off. We screwed the lid with the tree on, and I tightened it.

 Voilà!

Now, we also tried mixing in some regular clear glitter with the superfine silver. We found that it makes larger flakes, and clumps up a bit. The superfine leaves a more delicate, magical effect. But that's purely subjective.

Makes a lovely gift, though!

Do you have any snow globe memories you'd like to share? Leave them in the comments below.

*I later found out you are supposed to use distilled water, rather than tap water, in the snow globe to keep the water from going "bad" and turning colors over time. I guess we'll try that next time!

Join us at some linky parties! The Magic Onions and Natural Suburbia. Both have really awesome Friday linkups with about a gazillion ideas each week.

Christmas Countdown — Dec. 11

I'm building Christmas excitement and family memories with a book and a craft throughout December.

Owl Moon

by Jane Yolen

A quiet and touching story about a child looking for owls in the winter night with Pa.

I especially wanted Starboy and Techman to have this story, since they enjoy evening walks together, and since Owl is Starboy's totem. So, of course, Starboy ripped the book out of Techman's hands, wanting me to read it. Of all the days.

I blew it on today's activity. We had to bring Snack to school, which is almost a light lunch for 9 kids and 10 adults, and I over-thought it, made too much stuff and ended up killing myself in the kitchen all morning and late into last night. At least one of the salads was great, and the cookies were a big hit. 

But I ended up feeling "cooked" on crafting or dreaming up another bonding activity (unless you count a dramatic emotional meltdown in the craft store as I tried to explain why we're not taking home a random new thing, two weeks before Christmas, when we're doing all kinds of (better) great things nearly every day. Took about thirty minutes to calm him down. Serves me right for trying to fit in "one more stop" before dinner...)

Anyway, something with owls would have been better. Like flying with our wings. Or making felt ornaments like these or this one. But, alas.

So, at least we had snowflake eggs this morning, like birds-in-a-nest, but with a snowflake cutter, rather than round. Starboy liked them fine, even though you barely could see the shape. It barely counts as an activity, more of a bonus round. But that's all I've got today.

Christmas Countdown — Dec 10

We're reading a holiday / winter story every day and doing a special activity, to really stretch out the season.

We celebrated a Christmas afternoon tea today, like the dog and crocodile in Melrose and Croc, a Christmas to Remember, by Emma Chichester Clark.

Unfortunately, our house is not well lit, and I haven't found a replacement for Photoshop Elements since upgrading to Mountain Lion, so these underexposed images aren't presenting that well.

We used the good china and the Christmas cups.

Starboy enjoyed his warm spiced cider hot tea. We had hoped a friend or two would join us, but alas, we extended our invitations without enough notice.

Cream cheese and cucumber crustless sandwiches, snowball christmas cookies, grapes and "tea." Starboy insisted on removing the cucumbers—sliced wafer thin—from his sandwiches.

Melrose and Croc, a Christmas to Remember
by Emma Chichester Clark
A sad, then sweet, story about wanting to spend time with friends.