I cut out strips of colored paper to act as "candles" and numbered them 1-8, then divided them up between the girls and let them ut them in order. They needed a little reminding to go left to right but other than that, they did great. I put this activity in the folder with the rest of the daily materials so we can do it again next time we go through this theme.
I cut out eight more strips of colored "candles" and they used them to make letters. M was a little difficult to figure out at first but they eventually got it. Along with doing X, V and M (our letters this month), we also did W, T and L. L caused some confusion as to which direction it should face and Miss M could not be convinced that I was right so we moved on and will tackle that later. Littlest had a great idea and used the letter flags as a model, laying the strips on top to create her copy.
We made the star wands, which were an instant hit with their yellow cellophane centers. I had them decorate with markers and then we traced around it and added glittery green sand that was left over from a previous project (I have quite the craft collection now, primarily utilizing materials left over from our Mother Goose Time crafts). Miss M called it her starifying glass and used it to search for items around the house.
Since we had a leftover star from the middle of the wands, I quickly created a more Christmas-y craft utilizing the wonderful materials available freely on the internet. I found a poem called "A Christmas Star" by Tom Krause on Allpoetry.com and a free coloring picture of a manger scene and used Photoshop to put them in one document. The girls colored the picture and added their star to the page to act as the star that led the shepherds and wise men to the baby Jesus. I thought it turned out pretty cute. I'd post a copy but I'm not sure about copyright laws.
The girls enjoyed playing "Jack Be Nimble" and building a block candle higher and higher to try jumping over. It gave them good counting practice and they had the poem memorized by the last time they "jumped" (mostly they just lifted their legs and walked over it). It would be a good game for making predictions ("I think I can jump over 6 blocks without knocking it over, how many do you think you can jump over?").
Our last activity was using the glow in the dark star counters. They liked matching them up to the card by size to copy the pattern printed there. We sorted them by size (large, medium and small), counted how many were in each group, then counted them all together. The only place dark enough for them to see them glow was my under the stairs closet and they weren't too keen on staying in there very long.
I plan on doing some more school this week and will let you know what fun we have after the presents have been opened and the kitchen is finally cleaned up. Have a wonderful Christmas!
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