Creating New Traditions

Ok, so I have Christmas on the brain.  I have some exciting new things that I will be doing with the kiddos next month, but first to let you know what we have been reeeeeeeading!

First is Titch.

Titch by Pat Hutchins

Juli was completely engrossed by this short story.  I think it is because the main character of the tale is the youngest of three children (sound familiar?)  His older siblings had everything bigger and faster and stronger than whatever he had.  Except the one thing that he had that was the smallest was the most important of all.  I will not spoil it for you, but this is fabulous for those of you who have youngsters who are jealous of the things that their older brothers and sisters have and that they get to do.  Moral of the story:  sometimes the smallest things are just as necessary, if not more so, than the bigger ones.

To tie in to the story, Abby, Juli and I did a little gardening (just like Titch) with this fun thing from Fat Brain Toys.

Fairy Triad Dome Terrarium from Fat Brain Toys

Abby got this for her birthday and we finally planted it.  Should be interesting.  I really like Fat Brain Toys.  You should check it out.

We finished reading Genesis in this book:

Family Time Bible in Pictures

Now we are on to Exodus.  Starting, of course, with an introduction to Moses, the baby who was rescued by a princess.  Now, tell a child you are going to read her a Bible story may get one reaction, but tell her that you are going to read her a story about a baby who was going to be killed by an evil king but was then rescued by a princess - you get a whole 'nother reaction, people.  I'm just saying...

And we re-read this book, just for good measure

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault

This one will never.get.old.

On to the fun Christmasy things we will be doing! 


The first thing is a Christmas Book Advent, which I picked up from Elle Keeps Moving.  What you do is take 25 Christmas/Holiday/Winter themed books and wrap them up individually.  Put them under your tree and then let the kiddos pick one out each day to unwrap.  Then you read it to them.  This is easy and cheap!  Use books you already have.  If you don't have 25 books that meet the criteria, reserve some from the library and just make sure that they are opened and read before they are due back.  I always put away the holiday (Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, etc.) books right after the holiday is over so that they are exciting again the next year.  This should be a lot of fun.  Yippeee!  I am excited to see how this turns out.

The next thing we are doing is this:

This is from Creative With Kids.  Each night leading up to the 25th, the kids and I (and hopefully Dan) will be doing a different Christmas craft.  The supply lists and activity names are emailed out ahead of time, but you don't really find out what you are doing until that day when you receive your email.  So kind of like a Christmas Craft Advent, if you will.  I, in all of my craft amateurishness, will be blogging our efforts.  Yegads!  We have already made a trip to Michaels to pick up our supplies for the first week.  Most of them we already had in the house.  Nothing exotic here, people.  Just glue and glitter and some other stuff.

Laters.

Mindi