Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Gingerbread house and Christmas Tree Forest

We decorated our Gingerbread house on Tuesday this week. It was just one of those kits from Walmart, but the kids loved it. The two older kiddos decorated the front and the back, and Little Guy helped me with the roof since it is far easier to make stuff stick on the roof. He was a little resistant to getting frosting on his fingers, but in the end peer pressure won out over his sensory issues and he joined right in.

As far as school goes, we have been doing lots of seasonal folder games in addition to our online programs. We will be doing mostly fun crafts and activities next week of course. One of my favorite things to do for the different holidays is to have "seasonal bins" that can be played with in different ways. Right now, we have a bin with small ornaments that look like wrapped presents that I got from the dollar store and some small stockings. The kids like to play with them with their dolls and stuffed animals. I assembled that bin last year and pulled it out again this year. This year, I added a bin of the small fake decorative pine trees that are meant to be used with the porcelain villages. The kids have so far enjoyed making Christmas tree forests for their farm animals and their fisher price people. The trees haven't made it as far as the dollhouse or the playmobil sets, but my guess is that is what will happen to them next. :) Either that or spiderman and Batman will have a nice holiday!

Little Guy's Speech Progress!!!

Well little guy has come a long way as far as speech development goes. You can't understand a lot of what he says, but he tries to carry on little mini conversations now which is so awesome. He went from about a month ago, having a jump in words he was trying to say on his own to really using those words to communicate more. Here's an example of him actually negotiating with me. He comes over to me wanting a cookie. He says, "Tootie?". I say, "No, no cookies right now, Baby". He says "Yeah, tootie!" I said no again, and he looks at me putting up one finger and says, "one?" (he usually asks for two, so he was negotiating lol) This was the longest back and forth conversation we had ever had and I was so impressed with his attempt at negotiating instead of screaming that I gave in and let him have one. He has really come a long way in just the last month and I am so proud of my little guy.

Craft Foam Christmas Tree

Well I can't take credit for this craft in any way. It is just a craft foam tree kit that the kids saw and just had to try from Walmart, but the point is we had a blast putting it together this afternoon. I am sure it would be pretty easy to make a DIY one out of craft foam as well, but hey the kit was only five dollars and we couldn't pass it up.

First Snow Day 2011

This collage customized with Smilebox

Holiday Freebee

We get a lot of printable units from CurrClick and this week they have an awesome holiday freebee unit.  It is called "LBC Christmas Holiday Helper", and it has printables, recipes, and copy-work in a PDF book.  Here is a link if anyone is interested LBC Christmas Holiday Helper.  I think it is only free this week so hurry!  I am sure we will be using bits and pieces from it.