Cobweb Christmas December 13-19

I was sick this week so we didn't really accomplish much school. I also didn't care as much for this weeks book selection so I didn't have much motivation to get to it. We did manage to get in a few activities though.

The kids got some fun crafty Christmas gifts from our sweet neighbors this week. Hannah got sock puppets to make and caleb got bobble head monkeys. They had a great time making these!

They made Spider counting books to go along with The Cobweb Christmas book. They put one number on each page and used paint dots to create the coordinating amount of spiders. Hannah made a few extra spiders on each page, but overall they did great with this activity.

Hannah sorted spider pictures by color, size, and pattern. Sorting is a popular activity suggested for this age group, but both of my kids have mastered this so wemay begin skipping this activity for the most part.

We also took our monthly field trip to Reed Creek Park where we learned about seeds and enjoyed a special craft day at library story time. The week ended with some fun play time at a Sunday School Christmas party.

Olive, The Other Reindeer Dec 6-12

The kids loved our book selection this week, Olive, the Other Reindeer. Of course we did lots of reindeer crafts! This week we also attended a great puppet show at the library on Monday evening, attended our regular storytime at the library on Wednesday morning, and enjoyed our annual visit to the Hayride thru the Life of Christ.

The kids made reindeer out of red plastic cups.

I recently taught the kids how to play Uno. It is great color, number, and matching practice. When we finish Hannah likes to sort the cards by color. She loves sorting and matching anything these days!

I read a fun Rudolf poem. Throughout the poem Rudolf kept mixing up what color his nose was. The kids had to find the pom pom that matched the color of Rudolf's nose in each part of the poem.

Rudolf puppets with hand print antlers.

We began something new this week that I call Musical Monday. On Mondays I will play some music, get out the instruments, and let the kids just have a good time singing, dancing, and playing with the instruments. Week one was a success!

Hannah has been enjoying "reading" to me. She picks a book and makes up the story based on the pictures. I don't know where she got that accent from!? :)

The Doorbell Rang

I am just loving the book selections from Itty Bitty Bookworm. This week we read The Doorbell Rang and talked about sharing cookies and did lots of fun math.

This activity didn't relate to our story, but here Hannah is sorting Christmas erasers.

We acted out the story during snack time. We started out with two kids and 12 cookies.

We eventually had 12 kids (okay 10 of them were imaginary). Caleb and Hannah each started with 6 of the twelve cookies, but each time the doorbell rang they had a new friend to share their cookies with.

They each got to cover a golf ball in paint, Hannah chose purple, Caleb used pink. I put a piece of paper inside an empty large metal can. They added their painted balls to the can. We secured the lid and rolled the can back and forth. When they opened the can they found their finished painting. See video at the bottom of this post.

They cut out circles for cookies then decorated them with glitter paint. The next day we used these to shop at the pretend bakery.

I love Hannah's intensity here!

They painted stars white then added glitter (we still have gold glitter all over the tables).

This is Caleb's usual attempt at blocking me from taking his picture.

Videos of the week... Hannah singing our Old St. Nicholas song, the tin can paint project, a raking leaves with Daddy.

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims

This week we read One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims as well as a few other Thanksgiving books, but we didn't really do a lot of school time beyond that. We did make it to our weekly storytime at the library and then just had a fun family week.

Caleb and Hannah got to crush the Oreos for our Thanksgiving dessert.

Thanksgiving Day after eating a wonderful dinner, we went to Euchee Creek Trails and let the kids ride their bikes. We have been walking there before, but have never taken the bikes. They had a blast and tested Mom's nerves! Caleb LOVED pedaling as fast as he could down hill. Sometimes we lost visual of him, but we could still here him screaming, "Whoo, Hoo!" I was surprised by how fast Hannah was willing to go right behind him. The real agenda behind this trip was to keep Ron from taking an after dinner nap and to make the kids good and tired for bed. Well, we kept Dad up, but the kids still hung in there and fought going to sleep on time. Oh, the hours they manage when Granny is around!

Ron's mom joined us for Thanksgiving. Always a treat for us all.

A sweet picture of my munchkins. This is Caleb's pose with Hannah in every picture I take of them lately.

Hannah is in love with the camera. She wants me to video everything! I am thankful though to have moments like these recorded.