Christmas Fun 2009: Foam Trees and Other Fun

"Welcome to Week 2 of our Christmas Fun 2009 Linky. I can't wait to see all of the fun Christmas things everyone gets up to over the coming weeks. To join in with the linky just link here to this post from your Christmas Fun Blog Post and don't forget to come back and add your link into the McLinky field at the bottom of this post.

Although not required, but it would be nice to see around the place, is the code for the Christmas Fun Button over there in the right side bar."


We didn't actually get in as much crafting this week as I would have liked but we were busy with other things. I guess there's still plenty of time left before Christmas isn't there!

The crafting highlight was definitely these,


Yet again another super simple craft that looks fabulous when finished, Craft Foam Christmas Trees.

Materials:

Craft Foam
Paper (to make template)
Cardboard Rolls
Glitter Glue
Christmas Sparkles/Decorations
Glue/Tape


I just grabbed a piece of white paper and cut it to the size of my craft foam and then hand drew a Christmas Tree on it. I traced around that template onto the craft foam and cut it out so they were ready to decorate for the kids.


The decoration supplies were pretty simple as well, glitter glue in Christmas colours and some sparkle of some description.


And they were off, decorating to their hearts content. Adding a star here, an angel there and a candy cane here.


Once they were all done I just used masking tape to adhere them to a cardboard roll, you could also use glue. Or why not hang them from a garland!


This miniature forest of Christmas Trees looks great on our Christmas display table.



K did this Dot Marker Santa page. This is her first time using dot markers (I know very sad) and she had a ball. I got the page from Making Learning Fun.

I found these "Search For A Santa" activity pages in a book store a couple of weeks ago. Kinda like a Where's Wally type thing but the one page can be used twice, first by the younger kids (pre readers/early readers) and then by the older kids. Brilliant, now that's value for money!

Across the top of the page it has the pictures (with words) of what needs to be found and then down the side it has a long check list of items.


This one has grand plans but I am not sure if it will actually take shape. The kids are pin punching out each letter of MERRY CHRISTMAS, they will then decorate them with sparkles and hang them on a garland. It is a big job though, that pin punching (embossing tool punching in our case hehehe) takes a while so I'm not sure if this one will beat them. Maybe I've printed the letters too large?

We got an area in the dining/family room ready for our Christmas display table, added our Wreaths from last week, our Christmas Trees from this week and set up our Nativity. It's still looking a little bare so we need to get in some good fun crafting this week.


The highlight of or week hands down was K's Nativity Concert at kindy. She's quite shy so we really weren't sure how she would cope with this but she did a wonderful job. It took her a while to smile up on stage but she got the hang of it and thoroughly enjoyed her time in the spotlight.


She's even saying she would like to do some more things on the stage now!

Christmas is quickly approaching, there's always so much to do. Time to check my supplies box for what fun things we'll create this week. We gathered some pine cones from Nan's during the week and are hoping to find some gumnuts at Grandma's so we can also create with nature.





What kinds of Christmas Fun did you have this week?

A Milestone

Albeit a small one.

Woohoo 100 Posts, now that's a little blogging milestone for me.

Nothing huge and exciting but still it is 100 posts, I wonder how long it will take to get 1000!?!

I have a couple of little things lined up for a small but fun giveaway. The posts for these are coming up this week so be on the look out.

Crazy About Construction #1: Spaceships

If you've been reading my blog for awhile now you'll know that we have a devoted Lego fan in this house. In fact I'd probably say that the word devoted doesn't even come close, obssessed may be a better way to describe it.

If I can't find B I always know where he is, down in his room constructing something. He loves to build from the instructions and always enjoys the end product after receiving a new piece but his true love is the actual constructing part, the creating, the thinking, the searching for all of those bits (even though it is frustrating at times). That is where the fun is.

I've had friends tell me over the years that their children just aren't into Lego, I guess for some kids that may very well be the case, but I wholeheartedly feel that Lego is something that needs to be 'taught', 'modelled'. Not in the sit down for a lesson sense of the word, but B's dad literally spent hours upon hours plaiyng Lego with him when he was young. Searching for the right piece to fit here or there. He also ensured when they built from instructions that B was reading the instructions as early as he could (since they are pictures anyway) and that he also had to search for the piece himself.

I think over time all of those hours add up and they begin to see things and can imagine what things will look like and what piece they need to do a certain job all in their head. This is where the real fun in Lego begins. Oh yes and a decent collection helps, they need at least enough pieces to make something quite large and then some handy add ons always help the process. You know some wheels, crocodiles, swords, people and all that jazz.

He really needs no guidance at all now and has been at that stage for quite some time. Although he still enjoys dad to play along every now and then! Spaceships and in particular Star Wars spaceships are the order of the day at the moment and I'd like to try and see him tackle other objects. Maybe he just needs a little inspiration so I have decided to set him a theme peridocially and have him build something within the themes guidelines. The theme will be relatively loose as I still want him to have as much control as possible.

To kick it off I chose the obvious and one that I knew he would get to work on immediately, Spaceships. He worked on this over a few days adding some here and a bit there. It has lots of little ships that can break off and work independently of the mother ship.

Here's a few random images of his Spaceship.






I've already set the next theme, Robots. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next.