Mini Felt Christmas Trees

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I love this easy cut and paste craft to start off December. Mom cuts out 8 felt circles and small holes in the center of each one, and the kids stack and glue them to a toilet paper roll before decorating.

Templates for the rounds and all directions are here.

Apple Prints

I feel like I need to throw this up here today before we move onto all things WINTER and CHRISTMAS!

My kids (and do you see an extra in the pic?!) loved finding the star in the apple. Cut the sides off the apple, so you have only the core remaining. Holding the core the "tall way", cut it in half
horizontally. Ta-DA - there's your star. Add paint, paper, and enjoy.

Fruit Gobbler

Family Fun is the best. I just love them. Check this out:
We are SO making this on Thanksgiving! I don't know what you all do, but we eat a big breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, juice and omelets, and then just snack here and then before we eat the big mid-afternoon meal. Wouldn't this be fun to make in the morning and snack on through the day? The body calls for a melon, but I'm going to use one of the pumpkins we already have that will just be getting tossed "the day after".

Link to all the directions here.

EDIT: We did it! Not as involved while still being cute, it was the perfect activity to do while hitting "pause" on the Macy's parade to build up "Tivo juice".

teepee cupcakes

A cupcake inside an upside-down ice cream cone? Love it. Directions here.

turkey art projects

Cute, huh? From just for fun

Thanksgiving Poems

Five Fat Turkeys Are We

Five fat turkeys are we.

We spent the night in a tree.

When the cook came around,

We couldn't be found,

And that's why we're here you see -

gobble, gobble!

Oh, five fat turkeys are we.

We spent the night in a tree.

It sure does pay

On Thanksgiving Day

To sleep in the tallest tree -

gobble, gobble!

*

*

Mighty Fine Turkey

(strut like a turkey to help get the wiggles out!)

I'm a mighty fine turkey

And I sing a fine song - gobble, gobble, gobble.

I strut around the barnyard all day long

My head goes - bobble, bobble, bobble.

On Thanksgiving Day

I run away with a - waddle, waddle, waddle

So on the day after

My head will still - bobble, bobble, bobble!

*

*

Our Turkey is a Big Fat Bird

(with movements!)

Our turkey is a big fat bird.

(hold hands out to indicate large)

He gobbles when he talks.

(move hand, thumb to fingers, like talking)

Our turkey is a big fat bird.

(hold hands out ot indicate large)

We waddles when he walks.

(wiggle hand side to side)

Our turkey is a big fat bird.

(hold hands out to indicate large)

He spreads his tail this way.

(spread fingers on hand like a fan)

On Thanksgiving Day our fat bird...

(hold hands out to indicate large)

Lifts his wings and flies away!

(flap arms to fly)

*

*

When I teach my kids new poems, I write them down on our chalkboard or on easel paper, highlighting "important" words (in this case Thankgiving words) to help with their word recognition. Plus, they love taking turns pointing to the poem and leading the rest of us as we practice saying the poems together. And then on the holiday we do our best to recite the poems to Daddy, or whoever happens to be celebrating with us.

Turkey Cookies

We made these a year or two ago. This isn't our picture, I just found it on the internet, but this is exactly what they looked like. Candy corn, mini m&m's, and a sugar cookie. Voila!

oreo turkey cookies

I don't think we'll make these this year but you should - and take a picture to show us!

What you need:

7 Candy Corn

2 Oreo Cookies

1 Whopper

1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

1 Tube of Black piping gel

1 tube of White Icing

Red & Yellow Food coloring (to make orange feet)

(from living locurto)

(almost) homemade bowl

1 white ceramic serving bowl
+
porcelein markers
+
2 eager girls
=
(almost) homemade to the max

.

(forgive the color palette, I didn't have it in me to argue with 2 preschoolers)

bow holder

My girls have bows, bows, and more bows. It's not their fault, it's mine. I get on Etsy and go to town, buying the cutest little bows. (Gals with Girls is by far my favorite). But when you have this bow addiction, as I obviously do, you start to run out of space in the drawer(s) and find them all over the house. I love the litte bow holders you can buy, but instead of spending $10/$15 to buy one, I decided to make my own.

I bought a wooden butterfly thing at Michael's for $1.50, then a yard of ribbon at JoAnn's for $1. I painted the butterfly with some paints I had, stapled the ribbon to the butterfly, and wah-lah! Our very own bow holder...

.

turkey placecards

In need for an art project this afternoon, the girls and I thought it would be fun to make some placecards for Thanksgiving. It was simple, they worked on some small motor skills, and it took a good hour to complete. Perfect!
.

Supplies: construction paper, index cards, scissors, glue, marker

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handprint turkeys

source

some Thanksgiving Songs and Rhymes

Click here!

And here!

The second link has the song that's been my favorite since the first year I taught first grade, Albuquerque Turkey. My kids look at me like I'm a loon whenever I sing it, but it's not going to stop me!

Learning songs and rhymes is a fabulous (and fun) pre-reading skill for little ones.

sock turkey

Another easy one from Parents.com.

yarn thankful turkey

We've done ours in paper in the past. Shanelle was going to do one this year in styrofoam and found that it wasn't too cheap. Ta-DA! They suggest putting the yarn over a ball, but why not just roll up a thing of cheap yarn?

More directions at parents.com

Read Kiddo, Read!

This website, http://www.readkiddoread.com/home, was created by author James Patterson. It helps parents and teachers develop a kid-friendly library. James' son, Jack, "scoffed at the printed word," even though his father is a best-selling author and his parents read to him every night. "As Jack, 10, puts it, the problem was the product. 'With lots of books for kids, their parents want them to read.' he says. 'But it's not something the kid wants to read.'" Thus James put together this website.


It's also really important for parents to remember that many adult books are written at a 6th grade level, meaning the content is not appropriate. Just something to remember for parents with elementary kids!

http://www.readkiddoread.com/home

hurdles for kids

GOOD ONES, I promise!I was so excited to find this post, on a new-to-me blog this morning. It's raining today, and we've already had 2 good snow storms. Being cooped up for the winter with 2 lively preschoolers and a baby is already weighing me down, and I can use any good idea I can find for indoor physical activities that won't break windows, bones and don't take tons of room. If you have any more ideas along those lines, will you please PLEASE share?

paper plate turkeys

Cute, easy, and not even that messy.

turkey treats

Hello, Turkey! You could make these as chocolate rice krispy treats, or with carmel popcorn.

I couldn't figure out the head on the top picture, here's a close-up: Candy corn beak, gummy worm waddle and m&m eyes. Cute!

More detailed directions at alphamom.

crayon leaves

This was fun, but the kids did a lot of doing their own thing by me as I did this. They helped grate the crayons on the smallest hole of the cheese grater, picked what color shavings to put into the wax paper when, and fold the towel over the wax paper (put the towel on the top AND bottom!). I cut out the construction paper outlines, and they "helped" with glue dots. Anyway, we have a bunch of pretty leaves in our window now.

Fall Tree

My girls absolutely love collecting leaves that have fallen from the trees. Needless to say, we have a plethora of leaves just waiting to be used!

To start this project we read "Autumn's First Leaf" and talked about how leaves change color in the fall. Then we painted a bare tree (trunk & branches) on a large piece of paper, let dry, and glued the fall leaves on.

Fall & Thanksgiving Bookshelf

Alrighty, I'm working on a bookshelf for Fall and Thanksgiving books for children, and as you can see (above), I'm having a difficult time. Please comment with some of your favorites!