Gingerbread House Party

We were given a stocking full of 'old skool' sweets,

so I was inspired to organise a Gingerbread House decorating party

for the Two Seeds and some friends.

We spent an evening making the houses in half the size of what the recipes stated,

and put the initial of each boy on the houses.

The boys all enjoyed decorating them.

We don't eat sweets in our house ( only chocolate ) but the boys enjoyed picking them off 

and eating the cake.

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Bring Warmth To Your Morning

Breakfast by Advent Candlelight.

Such a heart-warming contrasting way to start our day today.

It really is dark at breakfast isn't it?

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So Simple Scarf !

I haven't got round to knitting him a rainbow scarf this winter

so he made one instead.

Not the best choice of clothing for this shot I know,

but it just goes to prove nothing is planned or set up.

It's a green fleece scarf incase you can't make it out.

Cut out a long piece or fleece,

then fray the edges like this.

So Simple!

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Look What We Won: Gorgeous King Winter!

We are SO lucky to have won this amazing creature

from Ancient Hearth blog.

He is just what we needed.

Jack Frost seems a bit put out now that the Big Man of Winter has arrived.

Here he is all settled in pride of place on our seasonal table.

Big Seed is very proud of him and loves his curly beard.

Thank you so much Ancient Hearth:

He will be treasured and displayed for many years to come.

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Winter Wonderland Activities #2

Here are some other Winter themed activities we have been doing:

Fishing for baubles in bubbles!

I used our plastic sensory box and filled it with bubble bath, baubles ( from our toddler posting activity),

and animals. He used a goldfish net from a pet shop.

I put a couple of towels underneath the box and let him have fun fishing.

He placed his "catch" in a bowl.

Sensory play - polar bears and penguins in cornflour gloop.

I used the lid of the plastic sensory box.

Animal footprints in playdough.

 My Two Little Seeds exploring alongside each other.

Blissful moments.

A lovely felt snowflake game from My Montessori Journey.

The cards can be downloaded from here

You have to cut out shapes from white felt.

The object of this activity is to make the snowflake design on the card with the felt pieces.

They are segregated in an egg box for ease of use.

A lovely matching game.

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Real Snow Sensory Box

When it snowed, Big Seed loved playing in the garden, but then

he got too cold and had to come inside.

So we brought the snow inside for him to play with!

Here are several things he did:

We filled his sensory box with snow and put in his construction vehicles and silver stars.

 He played with wooden spoons and made ice castles out of small bowls.

He learnt how to use a large syringe and sucked up warm water and squirted it on the ice.

I think this was his favourite bit.

 He played with his Polar and Antarctic animals.

He put handfuls on snow into a ball of warm water to make mini floating icebergs.

Then he painted it with watercolours.

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Winter Wonderland Activities

Here's some of what we are doing for the next few weeks on our Winter theme:

Beautiful real snowflake pictures- matching game

I bought an image sheet from this fab Etsy shop called Piddix
Printed two and cut out the most distinctive shapes.
This is great for older children as it can be quite challenging if you want it to.

I laminated and cut out the rest to use for counting activities.

Counting cards.

Spooning/transferring winter sequins

Antarctic Animals 3-part cards from here.

Sorting Wintry beads

Using his iceberg stacker: he had to arrange the pieces in as many
different ways as possible.
He really enjoyed this.

Snowball soap surprises:
grate white soap, stick some "treasure" in the centre,
build the ball up with warm moist hands and let dry.

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Christmas Thank You Cards & Gifts

We finally got it together to send thank you cards to family and friends

who had been generous to the boys at Christmas.

We made these cards from snowflakes that we hung up by the window during Christmas.

They are made from coffee filter papers and painted with watercolours.

Inside we placed a sachet of Hot Chocolate.

Big Seed put some marshmallows and a chocolate chunk in a bag.

We tied it with wool and printed some instructions on a tag.

We thought it would be a nice surprise in this chilly weather.

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Epiphany

I never knew what Epiphany was until I started celebrating all these occasions

with the boys.

It's the Three Kings Day.

Here they are on our nature table with 3 candles

left over from our Advent wreath,

and all the crystals we could find.

Some people believe that the Three Kings visited the Baby Jesus 12 days after his birth.

In Spain this is a huge celebration, and the day when children used to get their gifts, although

it is becoming more common to give gifts on the 25th.

Many people give a house blessing by writing the initials of the 

Three Kings and the date above their door in chalk: CMB2011

If you want to know a bit more read here

If you want ideas click here

If you want to see a small video of the Epiphany Parade in Barcelona see here.

Enjoy

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Winter Sensory Box

Our theme for a while is our own Winter Wonderland:

covering Winter, Antarctica, and The Arctic.

As an introduction I made them a Winter Sensory Box.

It contains:

Polystyrene balls left over from packaging

Shredded paper snow (from Grandma's Christmas Snow Scene)

Clear and blue glass stones

Silver baubles

Blue and silver crystals

White plastic lids

String of pearls

Metal chain

Fake icicles ( tree decoration)

3 Pipe cleaners twisted into a star shape

Blue pompoms

White ribbon

White ping pong ball

Craft maize sticks

White ramekin

Toy metal ladle (Ikea)

Metal spoon

Toy ceramic jug (Ikea)

3 Toy penguins

This was made in 5 minutes from stuff around the home.

(As opposed to the Autumn Box which was planned a month in advance)

There is lots of metal and cold objects in the box to give that Wintry feel.

Little Seed got more out of it than his brother.

It was a joy to watch his expressions as he picked up the different items.

Then I passed him the different objects to transfer to a wooden bowl.

He really loved this.

Here is a simple Winter Playscene ( taken in the evening so it's a bit dark).

We used a blue playsilk, blue and white glass beads,

a wooden Iceburg stacker,

and borrowed plastic animals.

The good thing about this is that you just lift the sides of the scarf, and plonk it out of the way,

 without having to tidy up the beads.

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Happy Winter Solstice!

It's the first time we have celebrated the Winter Solstice.

We sat down for supper and turned off all the lights for a short while to

tell Big Seed a little about the Soltice and he then said...

"Wake up sun, wake up!"

Why do I worry about him understanding things? How we underestimate little beings!

We decorated the table with all the candles we could find in the house.

Big Seed made a needle felted sun which he positioned right next to his plate.

We used a cookie cutter as a template.

It's quite 3D - but he is only 3, a good first attempt.

We hung it up under the door frame after supper.

Happy Solstice to you!

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Feed the birds - they sure need it right now!

The frost is turning to snow,
time to feed the birds.

We sewed monkey nuts and tied garlands to the tree.

Then Big Seed bashed nuts and seeds in a bag with a rolling pin.

Chopped up dried fruit...

Mixed it together...

And placed some strategically in the garden.

Good job...because the next day it snowed!

They needed that food!

We have lots left for them for the next few days.

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Make A Hedgehog Hibernate

We have been reading about hedgehogs and hibernation.

So we made our own:

His hedgehog made from self hardening red clay and cocktail sticks broken in half.

Yes they are prickly but he is sensible, and after all you do need gloves to pick up a real one...ouch!

(And most of all...I have the freedom of home educating...if I want to use dangerous sticks with a 3 year old...I can!)

I gave him a basket of natural materials:

twigs, leaves, teasels, branch blocks...

But instead he spent ages making his 2 toy hedgehogs have a chat. Sweet.

Then taught him how to hide the hedgehog for his winter sleep

so that the foxes can't see him and to keep him safe and warm.

Big Seed made him a winter home.

He did a good job.

Sleep well hedgehogs!