5 Days of Christmas Books #1

I remember my favorite Christmas book when I was a child. My brother and I would fight take turns scratching the smelly sticker on the page. Anyone remember which book I'm talking about?

The Sweet Smell of Christmas is a cute book that brings back many memories for me as a child. Though it doesn't focus on the real reason for Christmas (aka Santa is in there), many of things the little bears did were things our family did to get ready for Christmas. Plus we thought the scratch-and-sniff stickers were cool!

A couple years ago I adopted the tradition of purchasing at least one new-to-us Christmas book to be read in December. This year we're up to 15 books. Many people who have this tradition in their homes wrap each book up and place under the tree (or special box) so that the children pick one book out a day. It is used like a book count-down calendar.

I'll admit it-- I hate wrapping presents so wrapping each book just wasn't going to happen. I store all our Christmas books in a wrapped box. This is last year's picture, but the box survived the packing and still looks the same. My kids and I enjoy looking at the books all through the month. I like the "surprise" element of individually wrapped books though, so I thought about how I could add the surprise while still knowing what books we would be doing. Makes sense right? Plus I wanted a way to document the book-making memories we were creating and find a way to include books we read or listened to on the iPad. So I came up with a new system that we are going to try out this year.

Which I'll show you in detail tomorrow... :)

But while you are here, I'd love to know what were some of your favorite Christmas books as a child?

Please stop by and visit my other 5 Days of Christmas friends!

A Slob Comes Clean - Getting Your Home Company Ready
Feels Like Home - Christmas Traditions
Somewhat Crunchy - Christmas with Dairy Allergies
Spell Outloud - Children's Books
Mama's Learning Corner - Children's Crafts
Many Little Blessings - Edible Gifts
Sunflower Schoolhouse - Decorations
An Oregon Cottage - Christmas Cookies
Catholic Icing - Wishing Jesus Happy Birthday
The Traveling Praters - Traveling
The Homeschool Classroom - Gifts Kids Can Make
Mama's Laundry Talk - Laundry Gifts

Tot School: 12/6-11

We did a hodge-podge of Christmas and learning activities this week and had lots of fun. Grandma came over and brought cookies for the kids to decorate.  More frosting made it into her tummy than onto the cookies {grin}. The little ones used craft sticks to spread the frosting on their cookies.

And this is how you put sprinkles on your cookie…

All done!  Here, want some?

We ate some  cookies and froze some for Christmas Eve. While eating the Christmas tree cookies, I was reminded of the The Pine Tree Parable, so we read that book together.


This week we also had fun doing these activities:

*Snowy Day Yuck
*Played with the Nativity Sensory Box
*Went to Grandma’s church for an Imagine Christmas party
*Made some gingerbread crafts (mom didn’t take pictures)
*Painted a Happy Birthday Jesus Banner
For More Tot School Ideas Check Out:

Birthday Party for Jesus

My Birthday, Jesus’ Birthday by Holly Davis

Summary:  This book shows children how Jesus’ birth was very similar to theirs—and yet very different.  Children are drawn to the colorful illustrations as they see why Jesus birthday is so special.

This week we made a "Happy Birthday Jesus" banner to hang on our wall. It will be one of our decorations for our birthday party for Jesus on Christmas day.

Items needed:
Foam nativity stamps (I picked mine up at Hobby Lobby)
paper plates
paint
banner paper

Spread one color paint on each plate. We picked certain stamps to go with each color so that I wouldn't have to wash them while we were working.


After the paint dried, I printed out the letters onto colored paper and we cut then glued them onto the banner. Right before Christmas we'll decorate the banner with streamers and balloons.  We’ll make our special birthday cake for Jesus and eat that for breakfast (yes, breakfast!) on Christmas day. You can find the recipe and other Jesus birthday party ideas here:


For more Christmas ideas check out:



For More Book/Craft ideas see:
stART : A Mommy's Adventures
Read. Learn. Explore.

Opening the Gift

 

Book Read Today:  Baby Jesus by McGraw Hill
Songs we learned:  Away in the Manger and Luke 2:11 from Songs for Saplings

I told the girls that they could open a gift today. Inside the green gift-box were mini nativity figurines (See myCHRISTmas Toddler Nativity Box for more details.)

I ended up putting two mini-nativity sets in the box.  The girls had fun rummaging around in the straw, finding the figures.  I read them the Christmas story board book and they held up the figurine we were reading about.

My 2yr. old was excited to find baby Jesus. We talked about how Jesus is God’s gift to us.

And we are the gift God wants.

CHRISTmas Tot School: More Preparation

I've been printing, cutting, laminating and organizing toddler and preschool CHRISTmas activities to start next week. I thought I'd share some of my prep. work just in case you'd like to get some of these activities ready too.

I laminated these print-outs from Confessions of a Homeschooler with my Xyron 900. I have found that dry-erase crayons work great with the Xyron lamination (dry erase and wet erase markers tend to bead up the first couple times.)

Cut and laminated the star sequence activity found on my blog.

I printed out this cute counting activity from Musings of Me. I made it into a magnet activity with my Xyron 900. The number magnets I picked up at the Dollar Store.

These were a couple of things I picked up at Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree. The ice-cube tray, bells and mini-gifts will be used for sorting, patterning and counting. The nativity foam stamps will be used for patterning and crafting, and the nativity die-cut ornaments will be colored and added to our tree.

Then I found some of our Christmas books (I don't know why they were left out this year--I usually pack them up).  Here are my top 10 favorite Christian Christmas books (in no particular order):

1. My Birthday, Jesus' Birthday by Holly Davis (ours went AWOL--if you find it send it back--lol)
2. God's Christmas Gift by Nell Navillus
3. A Christmas Prayer by Amy Parker
4. Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck
5. God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa T. Bergren
6. Humphrey's First Christmas by Carol Heyer 
7. The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs
8. The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
9. The Legend of the Three Trees
10. The Story of Christmas by Patricia Pingry

Related Posts: CHRISTmas Toddler Nativity Box

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CHRISTmas Tot Activities: Nativity Box

I mentioned in a previous post that I was thinking about how I wanted to share the meaning of Christmas with my toddler and preschooler this year. I've decided to do CHRISTmas Tot school and have our own CHRISTmas Tot school box of activities (actually it will be several boxes!) I put together our nativity sensory/I spy box for the unit (everything is on sale right now at Hobby Lobby).

I placed everything in a decorative shoe box with some straw from the hobby section.

Other things I plan on adding:

piece of silk fabric to help us remember the wise men
something gold

piece of wool to represent the sheep
muslin to represent the swaddling cloth

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