Christmas Books Countdown Activity

We love books in this family.  I noticed we had more than enough Christmas/Holiday books to count down to Christmas with last year, so when I saw this fun activity on Pinterest, I knew we would have to do it. 

I think we've got ourselves a new holiday tradition!

 

We simply went through our bookshelves and pulled out all of the books that had Christmas or holiday stories. We counted them out, and since we had more than enough, we put either 1 or 2 books in stack to count down for 23 days. We left The Night Before Christmas unwrapped for the 24th day (and of course we looked at it more often than just that 24th day, my girls LOVE the poem and even at their young ages have it mostly memorized).

 

I chose two rolls of wrapping paper that coordinated well with my family room, and we got to wrapping. The girls loved helping, and it was fun for us. The girls were able to practice their wrapping skills. :)

 

It was also a great way to make sure we didn't end up reading the same two or three Christmas books that the girls happened to see on their bookshelves first every night of December.  This way we were sure to go through all of the books and have some variety. 

 

The girls were so excited to unwrap their book every night!

 

 

Thankful Tree - Thanksgiving Craft for Kids

For one of our Thanksgiving crafts last year, we made a Thankful Tree.  It was a big hit with our daughters and really got them thinking about the things in their life that they were thankful for.  And not only that, but it was great writing/spelling practice for my girls, given their ages.

 

I made a tree trunk out of a roll of brown craft paper, just a freehand sketch and cut it out. 

 

I used Scotch tape to tape it to the wall, and even rolled a few branches around a bit to make a bit of a 3-D effect. 

 

Then, the girls and I cut out leaves of various colors and filled a basket of them, along with a marker. 

 

Then we sat down and thought of things we were thankful for. 

 

It was so funny some of the things the girls would think of!

 

 

Yep, that says Ava is thankful for "Toylit Papr" (read: toilet paper).  Yeah, I'm thankful for that too, kiddo...haha!

 

 

We left the basket out all month long so the girls could add to it, and mommy even added some too :)

 

This was fun, and easy, and we already had all the supplies on hand, though a roll of brown paper and a pack of construction paper don't cost much.