Christmas Tree Week

Chalk it up to the holidays, visitors, or perhaps I just didn’t have the mother doing it correctly thing on point this week (or two) but finally, I’ve gotten around to our Mr. Willowby’s Tree Week!

The Christmas season offers so many different areas to focus learning and activity around.  It just so happens that both kiddos are wild over Christmas trees, and after our trip to the Big Apple and seeing the tree at Rockafeller Center, I thought this lesson would be a great follow up.

Our learning activities were the following:

How many stockings around the fireplace - - Using a printable from http://homeschoolcreations.com, I placed a number (1 – 15) on the fireplace and H had to count the corresponding number of stockings. 

Clip and learn beginning sounds – Using another printable from http://homeschoolcreations.com, H identified the picture on the wheel; I had glued the letters that each picture started with on clothespins, and H clipped the letters to the correct picture.  He was encouraged to sound out each word to help identify what letter the picture started with.

The letter T and G – We used letters from http://homeschoolcreations.com H traced the letters.  H was provided words starting with each letter to trace as well.

Identify the Letter – H was provided pictures with letters.  He sounded out the words and circled the letter the word started with. 

Size Sorting – H was provided different sized trees and asked to order them by size.

Games and Activities:

Mr. Willowby’s Tree Puzzle – Pretty self-explanatory, but H loves puzzles.  

Christmas Tree Slime – Some (many) of the activities are very repetitive.  There are reasons behind this: A) if I know the kids love them and they require “moderate” supervision, I can use those activities for my “Mommy Busy Days”.  B) Letters, Numbers – true learning activities I repeat pretty often.  I look for new mediums, but for the most part, we do those over, and over, and over… you get the idea. 

 

For our slime: 

In the first bowl:

-       1 cup of clear school glue

-       ¾ cup of very warm water

-       Green food coloring

In the second bowl:

-       ½ tsp of borax

-       ¾ cup of warm water

Mix both bowls together using your fingers!  You have to have a little fun too!

The kids added sequins, bells, small ornaments and glitter to create a truly Christmas-y, Christmas Tree slime.  

Christmas Tree Cookie and Decorating – In preparation for the big man, H and my brother helped make cookies. Inasmuch, he helped me make and bake the cookies.  Both kiddos frosted (Ness tasted) the cookies and decorated them.

Christmas Tree Rice Crispies – Using the traditional rice crispy treat recipe, we added a little green food coloring and my brother and I shaped the rice crispy treats into tree forms (of which H noted one looked very “sad”).  The kids were able to decorate the trees too.  Since we had admired one special house (the owner really went all out on their decorations), we dropped off a batch of Crispy Trees at their house as a special thank you!

Rice Crispy Treats:

¼ cup butter

1 – 10 oz bag of small marshmallows

Green food coloring

4 cups of Rice Crispies

Melt the butter and marshmellows in a pot on low heat.  Stir in food coloring to your desired darkness.  Off heat, stir in the rice crispies.  A trick to forming these puppies is use Pam on your hands.  Without it, you’ll have sticky crispy hands. 

Fizzy Christmas Trees – H helped me create these especially fun trees.  We used four cups of baking soda, food coloring, sequins, and just enough water to form a thick, moist powder.  I used half of a paper plate to form the mold of a cone.  We pushed the moist powder into the mold and placed it in the freezer over night.  The next day, the kids used droppers full of vinegar to fizz the Christmas Trees away.  Both kids really enjoyed this.  Ness loved using her hands – a large, but lovable mess ensued.

Fine Motor Trees/Star– Both kids had trees men that they used tweezers and fingers to put pom-poms, bells, and small ornaments on the tree and star.

Art Projects

Yarn Trees– Truthfully, this project is probably more appropriate for older children; lesson learned.  Regardless, I made the yarn tree for Ness who was able to decorate the tree with sequins.  She promptly pulled the sequins and yarn tree off.  H was able to help create the yarn tree and subsequently decorate it with sequins as well.

Glitter, Sequin, Trees - I created an outline of a tree and the kids filled the entire tree in with glitter and sequins.  They were pretty neat at the end!

Books:

Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree

The Smells of Christmas

Trips:

The City Light Display – Kids + Christmas Lights = Super Fun! 

Basketball Game – Going to see our local college team is my favorite.  I. Love. College. Basketball.  The kids WILL love it too.  It was just a special trip for all of us.  Go team. 

Insert family visiting, ugly sweater parties, and the week before Christmas and you have one tree-intense learning week… or was it just a week of fun?  I think you could argue both!