Afternoon Advent Activities
Hello Everyone! We are three days into advent and the kids seem to be enjoying the activities. There is some resistance on Peter's part (my 6 going on 16 year old - angst and attitude aplenty), but so far he has gone along with things and even enjoyed himself. Here's what our calendar looks like:
We have clothespinned the mini manilla envelopes to a piece of twill tape pinned to the wall above some windows in the sunroom. Each envelope contains a slip of paper with an activity and a chocolate coin (fair trade chocolate purchased at Ten Thousand Villages). The kids are rotating through opening the envelopes and, thus, eating the chocolate coins.
The first day of Advent, we made hot chocolate with whipped cream. Hot chocolate is a rare treat in our house - our stance being that picky eaters do not get to eat as many sweets as non-picky eaters.
As you might have noticed in the collage above, the second day of Advent we played Uno. None of the kids can manage to hold their cards, so it's a very open game. We also keep playing even after the first person runs out of cards. It's just friendlier that way.
Today, the third day of Advent, we made paper snowflakes. We made some traditional square-paper-folded-in-triangles snowflakes, but we also tried something new. The December 2009 issue of Burda included instructions for making the large curly snowflake you see in the upper left corner. (We will hang it in Peter's room tomorrow.)
And just in case I am not able to keep up with photographing our advent activities, here is our official list. (We omitted stringing anything edible to hang on trees outside due to a very present raccoon population.)
We have clothespinned the mini manilla envelopes to a piece of twill tape pinned to the wall above some windows in the sunroom. Each envelope contains a slip of paper with an activity and a chocolate coin (fair trade chocolate purchased at Ten Thousand Villages). The kids are rotating through opening the envelopes and, thus, eating the chocolate coins.
The first day of Advent, we made hot chocolate with whipped cream. Hot chocolate is a rare treat in our house - our stance being that picky eaters do not get to eat as many sweets as non-picky eaters.
As you might have noticed in the collage above, the second day of Advent we played Uno. None of the kids can manage to hold their cards, so it's a very open game. We also keep playing even after the first person runs out of cards. It's just friendlier that way.
Today, the third day of Advent, we made paper snowflakes. We made some traditional square-paper-folded-in-triangles snowflakes, but we also tried something new. The December 2009 issue of Burda included instructions for making the large curly snowflake you see in the upper left corner. (We will hang it in Peter's room tomorrow.)And just in case I am not able to keep up with photographing our advent activities, here is our official list. (We omitted stringing anything edible to hang on trees outside due to a very present raccoon population.)
- Make hot chocolate with whipped cream
- Play Uno
- Make paper snowflakes
- Begin a giant picture
- Have a play bath
- Build a fort
- Have pancakes for dinner
- Make a windboat
- Make fingerprint people and animals
- Make paper chains
- Donate old towels to an animal shelter
- Bake cookies
- Go for a walk in the woods
- Take pictures of each other
- Thank someone for being nice
- Dress fancy for dinner
- Give everyone a wild hairstyle
- Write letters to far away friends
- Play soccer
- Look at Christmas lights after dinner
- Make silhouette portraits
- Paint everyone's toenails
- Sing Christmas carols
- Make a shining star
Comments
Oh well. So much for togetherness. (They did still have something to do while they wait for Christmas and that's the point, really.)
Peter loves nail polish and has discovered that now that he is in school, the only way he can acceptably dabble with polish is to have it on his toes.
I did check with David to see if he would allow us to paint his toes. He is a good sport and is willing to try lots of different things - particularly around the kids. We limit them enough in many other ways (table manners come immediately to mind), why fuss over something that is neither permanent, immoral, nor life-threatening?