Day: December 21, 2020

Gingerbread Village

Dear Sis,

It seemed quiet after all our book club friends left. I put Charlotte down for a nap and William and I built a gingerbread village.

I assembled the houses and applied icing wherever he needed it, but William placed all the candy until about halfway through the third house. I couldn’t believe how dedicated and engaged he was by this activity. We worked on it for over two hours!

Afterward, we used all our crafts to decorate the mantel. William has his own tree this year. He was interested in decorating, but it turns out mom didn’t really want to share:) The D.I.Y snow globes and winter landscape paintings were book club crafts and we painted the wooden snowmen over the weekend.

Happy Holidays!

Love,

b

Winter Book Club

Dear Sis,

Today we had a very full house and a lot of fun!

Book

Jenny’s Winter Walk: a kids yoga winter book by Giselle Shardlow

This story follows a mom and daughter on a winter walk. Each page also features a yoga pose. I wasn’t sure how a yoga book would go over, but everyone really enjoyed it!

Craft: Winter Landscape

Materials

  • 8×10 inch canvas
  • light blue acrylic paint
  • sponge brush
  • stick
  • hot glue
  • white acrylic paint
  • cotton swab
  • glitter

Assembly

  1. Paint the entire canvas blue using a sponge brush. Dry fully.
  2. Hot glue stick in place.
  3. With white paint, paint a snow-covered ground at the base of the stick to make it look like a tree.
  4. Dab on more white to create snow flakes.
  5. Dust with glitter. 

These winter scenes turned out great! We had kids between 4 and 9, who were all able to make one with pleasing results.

Craft: Snow Globe

Materials

  • plastic mason jar
  • miniature evergreen figurine
  • hot glue
  • distilled water
  • glycerine
  • glitter

Assembly Instructions

  1. Glue evergreen figurine to inside of jar lid with hot glue.
  2. Fill jar with distilled water, leaving only a small space at the top.
  3. Add a few drops of glycerin. The glycerine helps keep the glitter from sticking to the jar when it settles. Too much makes the glitter clump together, so be careful.
  4. Add an 1/8 t glitter. Too much glitter tends to stick to the bottom when it settles.
  5. Close jar tightly and give it a shake.

The glycerine:glitter ratio will vary based on the size of your jar. I practiced before book club to get the balance just right.

Game: Roll a Snowman

Free Download: Roll a Snowman Preschool Math Game

Posted on Teachers Pay Teachers by Natural Knowledge

Snack: Bagel Snowman

Ingredients

  • half a plain bagel
  • half a plain mini bagel
  • whipped cream cheese
  • pretzel sticks
  • chocolate yogurt covered raisins
  • fruit roll-up

Song

Party Freeze Dance by The Kiboomers

Instead of “freezing” by staying still, we “froze” by wrapping our arms around ourselves and saying “burr.”

Love,

b

P.S. We also did a book exchange. Each family gently used wrapped books and we swapped at the end.