2010 Favorites

As we're wrapping up 2010, I've been looking through my blog posts from the past year. I started this blog on January 8, 2010. I cannot believe it has almost been a year! There will be a fun giveaway next week in honor of our blog anniversary! I have especially loved collaborating on this blog with one of my favorite friends- EJ. She is always coming up with fun things to do with her kids and has been an inspiration to me over the past 10+ years! I have also loved networking with so many other bloggers through this blog and meeting so many talented people!

In honor of the approaching new year, I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of 2010's most popular posts. If you haven't checked out some of these yet... I'd definitely recommend it.

Unity Wreath

Don't Eat Pete

Ocean Animal Movements

Mom Project: Big Movers Matching File Folder

Plant and Animal Classification

Mom Project: Shape Town

We hope you all have fun this weekend ringing in the new year! I am looking forward to snuggling with this little crazy haired cutie as the clock strikes 12... I cannot believe she is already a month old and definitely not this small anymore!

Happy New Year!

Mini M&M Wreath

I realized through one of your comments that the M&M wreath requires a lot of M&Ms (104 - 78 green and 16 red). I also know that some of you are teaching preschool, and that doing a project like this would not be economical - so I created a smaller version (only 38 M&Ms required - 27 green and 11 red) just for you!

You can find the template here at Scribd.

mini M&M Wreath Template

M&M Wreath

Looking for an excuse to buy those Christmas Colored M&M's?  I thought it would be fun to create a Christmas themed M&M sorting project for my daughter.

First, she separated the colors (I didn't realize that there were two shades of green in the mix but she didn't seem to notice). 

I color coded the circles on the wreath so that she would know where to place the M&M's.

This project took a little longer than I thought it would, perhaps because there were plenty of extra M&M's to eat!  I've made the wreath template available for your use here at Scribd.

M&M Christmas Wreath Template

Stained Glass Cookies/Ornaments

I was inspired by this recipe from Simply Recipes to make some Stained Glass Cookies with my daughter -  however, I didn't want to go through all of the effort of making the dough - so opted for the easy way out and started with the ready made Pillsbury Gingerbread Cookie Dough! 

The hardest and longest part of the process was cutting out the insides of our shapes (as I do not own any nesting cookie cutters).  While I was attempting to make "clean" cut outs, I let my daughter play with the scraps, rolling pin and flour (I am still finding pieces of cookie dough in random places around the house).

Next we crushed up Christmas colored lifesavers by placing the unwrapped candies in a plastic bag and pounding them with the back of a spoon.  I'm not sure who had more fun doing this - my daughter or husband?!  The last thing you'll need to do prior to placing the cookies in the oven, is to fill the cutouts with the crushed candy.  Dad tried mixing a few colors together and they ended up turning a really nasty brown (apparently tasted pretty gross too - Candy Cane and Sour Apple flavorings don't mix).

I followed the baking temperature and time from the back of the cookie dough package.  You'll also want to be sure to use parchment paper on your cookie sheets!

The recipe author also suggests poking a hole in the dough so that you can use these as edible ornaments for the tree!

Cinnamon Ornaments

Kristina has inspired us to make ornaments for our Christmas Tree.  We followed this recipe from McCormick to make these easy baked ornaments.

My daughter thought it was so much fun to shake an entire jar of cinnamon into the mixture . . .

 . . . and to use her hands to mix the dough together!

We decided to make Gingerbread Men, Stars & Airplanes.  If you decide to make these, be sure to make a hole large a little larger than you might think (as toddler fingers have a hard time getting ribbon through a small hole). 

This is a good project to do right before nap time - as they take TWO HOURS to bake (at a very low temperature).  Our house smelled amazing!

Wrap it up!

Foam Present Ornament

Continuing with the homemade ornament trend... here is another ornament we came up with today. We wanted to use photos of our family. This ornament was simple and my son LOVED choosing paper and ribbon for each family member and seeing everyone's photo. He also LOVED choosing where everyone got to go on his tree.

Materials Needed: scrapbook paper, holiday ribbon, foam sheets, pipe cleaners, Elmers glue, tape, scissors, black marker, photos of your family, something circular to trace.

Directions:

1. Print out pictures of family members. We traced a circular lid onto the photo paper and then cut out the pictures so that each picture was round.

2. Cut the foam sheets and scrapbook paper into square shapes.

3. Add glue to the foam sheet

4. Press the scrapbook paper square onto the top of the gluey foam.

5. Tape or glue ribbon onto the scrapbook paper.

6. Glue the photo onto the center of the present.

7. Add a bow at the top of the present and tape or glue it down.

8. Poke a hole through the top of the present using your scissors and then stick a pipe cleaner through the hole and make a loop.

9. Hang the ornament onto the tree! We made these for each family member and it was hysterical to see where each person wound up on the tree. My husband and son were at the top (they're "tall")... our new little baby found herself on the bottom of the tree ("she's the smallest") and I was somewhere in the middle.

Along with this activity, we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and talked about how the Grinch stole presents from the little children... and then gave them back!

You Can't Catch Me...

I'm the Gingerbread Man!

Here's another simple foam ornament we made today using materials from around our house.

Materials Needed: Elmers glue, star stickers, brown foam sheet, white construction paper, black marker, red pipe cleaner, and scissors.

Directions:

1. Draw a gingerbread outline on the brown foam.

2. Cut out the gingerbread men

3. Decorate! We used star stickers for buttons and then glued white construction paper circles on as eyes.

4. Poke holes in the top of the gingerbread men using scissors and then thread the pipe cleaners through and twist them to make a circle.

5. Add eyeballs with a black marker.

6. Hang them on the tree!

My favorite Gingerbread themed story is Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby... so this would be fun to read after you make these ornaments!!

Foam Santa Ornament

This is my own little spin off this Spoon Santa Ornament from Family Fun... just using materials we had around the house.

Materials Needed: foam sheet (we used light pink), scissors, googly eyes, Elmers glue, white tissue paper, red construction paper, and a pipe cleaner (we used white).

Directions:

1. Cut the pink foam into a rectangle.

2. Trim the ends so that one goes into a semi point and the other curves to make Santa's face.

3. Trace the Santa hat end of the foam onto the red construction paper and cut it out.

4. Glue the construction paper onto the foam to make the Santa hat.

5. Add glue to the bottom of Santa's face for his beard... and to his face for the googly eyes.

6. Add googly eyes.

7. Rip up tissue paper, scrunch it up, and glue it to the bottom of Santa's face for a beard... and also to the bottom of the hat.

8. Make a hole at the top of the hat with the point of your scissors and then stick a small piece of pipe cleaner through the hole.

9. Tie it into a loop so that you can hang it on your tree.

10. Let it dry and then hang it up!

My son's favorite part of this project was adding the googly eyes. Scrunching and ripping the tissue paper was a great fine motor activity for him. It was hard for him... but we worked at it. I was in charge of making the hole and adding the pipe cleaner.

Our next few posts will include other homemade ornament ideas since we will be spending the next few days decorating my son's mini Christmas tree. Please send along any other homemade ornament ideas that you love!