Wordless Wednesday: Snoopy Ornaments

 

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Wordless Wednesday: Star Wars-Themed Christmas Ornaments Part 2

 

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Be sure to check out my other Wordless Wednesday posts to see more ornaments on our tree including Star Wars-Themed Ornaments Part 1 and Favorite Ornaments. 

Wordless Wednesday: Star Wars-Themed Ornaments

 

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Be sure to check out my other Wordless Wednesday posts to see more ornaments on our tree including The Nutcracker Ballet Ornaments and some of our favorites. 

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Ornaments

 

Sharing a few of my favorite Christmas Ornaments this week. 

Wordless Wednesday: The Nutcracker Ballet Ornaments

 

These ornaments are favorites from my childhood! 

  

Book Club: The Gingerbread Pirates

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I love reading children's Christmas books. There is a great deal of excellent choices and so many retellings of famous stories, too. Our library usually puts out books for each holiday on top of the children's bookshelves but for Christmas they have so many that they displayed them in a book rack. How exciting to pick through the books to find new ones to read with our children!

Our son picked out The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup and illustrated by Matt Tavares. This story is about Jim and his Pirate cookie captain that he creates with his mom. Jim and his mom bake cookies for Santa but instead of regular Gingerbread Men, they make pirate cookies!

During the night, on Christmas Eve, Jim's favorite Pirate cookie captain goes on an adventure and meets Santa. In the morning, Jim finds a wonderful new Pirate ship with a wooden captain with a cutlass and a peg leg to pilot the ship.

There are number of fun ways to expand upon the reading of the story with your children.

Baking

This year why not be creative with your cookie decorations? You can make unique characters instead of just regular Gingerbread men. Make pirates, ninjas, astronauts, cowboys and cowgirls, and all kinds of "people" using your cookie cutters.

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Crafts

Using the same basic Gingerbread cookie cutter, you can create your very own pirate salt dough ornaments.

We made our own ornaments using:

• 1 cup flour
• a little more than 1/2 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of salt 

We stirred the mixture till it formed a dough and then used a rolling pin to roll out the dough on wax paper. I recommend sprinkling a little extra flour so that the dough doesn't stick to the wax paper or the rolling pin.

I didn't bake the ornaments right away but let them air dry for a day. I finally baked them at the lowest setting on my oven checking them every half hour. I let them bake for about 2 hours.

One of the characters in the story is called Dots. 

The next day we painted them and finally added the ribbon so we can hang them from the tree! 

Family Discussion Time

After reading The Gingerbread Pirates, use the following questions to spur conversation with your children:

• What was your favorite toy or present to find under the Christmas tree? 
• What adventure would your Gingerbread men go on? 
• What type(s) of cookie(s) do you leave for Santa? 
• What are your favorite type of cookies? 

Do you have a favorite Christmas story to read with your little ones?

Crafts: Christmas Tree Ornaments

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Each year, my children have been making ornaments as presents for their godparents and grandparents.  This year, we made Christmas Trees.

Materials 

• Craft sticks
• Glue 
• Small pom-poms
• Sequins 
• Holiday themed foam shapes 
• Construction paper 
• Scissors
• String or ribbon 

Steps 

1. Gather all materials.

2. Distribute materials.  We have these trays that were perfect to hold the kids' pieces.

3. I let my children pick out a certain number of pieces to attach to their trees. 

4. Glue three Popsicle sticks together in a triangle/tree shape.

 

5. After the glue has dried, glue on your decorations.

6. After the glue dries for your decorations, attach strings to the back so you can hang your trees.  If you want them to look more like trees than ours turned out, don't forget to add the trunks!

Resources 

Fun Craft Kids' Popsicle Tree Ornaments 
One Little Project's Glittering Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees 
Frogs and Fairies' Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree Ornaments
Housing a Forest's Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree Magnet