The nineteenth day of Advent

This morning the boys woke up basically right after I did.  I woke up because I had to finish some last minute Christmas shopping for my family and had to get it done before a certain time.  But I heard the boys get up and go into the bathroom.  Where they discovered that the Cat in the Hat made a big mess in their bathroom.  He had tried to brush his teeth but ended up smearing most of it on the sink.  So I heard the boys say "OH no....the Cat in the Hat tried to brush his teeth."  What was even more amusing was that later on Little M took the Cat in the Hat and put him in time out.  Little M told the Cat -- "No, no! You don't touch the toothpaste." I was pretty impressed that Little M knew that what Cat in the Hat was wrong and that Cat in the Hat needed to go in time out.
Wow...I have done pretty good for the most part always keep on track with the activities that we do every day.  I think I have missed one day.  I think the thing I wanted to do the most in doing the 25 days of Advent was make Christmas memories.  So that even though Christmas over in Taiwan is very commercial my boys know that the real mean of Christmas isn't about the Christmas presents, or Santa Claus but it's about Jesus coming down to earth being born in a stable and sleeping in a manger.  Today because most of our activities and crafts have been about Jesus and the manger, I wanted to introduce to them something that they haven't seen in a long time.  So we made Snowman shakers.  Originally I was going to have them do a craft with pine cones but decided that it was going to be way to hard for them and so I tried to think of something fun.  We had lots of toilet paper rolls and they enjoy making noise so I thought making snowman shakers would be something they would enjoy.

This is the simplest craft that you can do with your kids.

Supplies -
Toilet paper Rolls (as many as you want to make)
white paper
dried beans, nuts or seeds
markers
tape
scissors
marker

Step 1 - Trace a circle of the bottom of the Toilet paper roll (you need to do 2 per toilet paper roll)
Step 2 - Cut out the circles
Step 3 - Place circle on one end of the toilet paper roll and tape the white paper to the toilet paper roll.
Step 4 - Place small beads, dried nuts or seeds into the toilet paper roll and then place the circle on the toilet paper roll hole so you have a shaker.  Tape the circle to the toilet paper roll (warning if you have small children be generous with the tape because they could take off the tape then you have a big mess all over the place)
Step 5 - Measure your toilet paper roll against your white paper and cut the paper to the size of the toilet paper roll.
Step 6 - Tape the white paper to the Toilet paper roll.
Step 7 - Decorate the white paper so it looks like a snowman. (You could add black paper to the top to make a top hat, googly eyes, black dot stickers for the coal smile or just let the kids decorate the snowman with markers.
Step 8 - I taped the white paper so that way I felt that the beans would not fall out of the shakers.
Step 9 - My boys wanted to put pom poms on top of their shakers so I let them.  Just be careful to let it dry.
Step 10 - Let your kids play with their shakers and have a blast!
Your toilet paper rolls
 Drawing your circles
 Little N's finished product
 Almost Little M's finished project - he put the pom-poms on top of his shaker after I took this picture.
 My finished snowman shaker.

Originally I was going to have the boys make 2 shakers each.  But by the time they had made their first shaker they were done with trying to make the shakers.  Little M still is at the scribbling stage so with his snowman we had scribble markers all over his shaker but he had fun and enjoyed making his shaker.  Little N didn't get that it was just the face that we were making on the snowman so he made a whole scene with the snowman's body and people around the snowman.  It was very cute.  Little H took my shaker and had fun both tasting the shaker and shaking it.

Our Scripture verse for today was - Luke 2:14 – Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Comments

Popular Posts