Parent Presents

I am totally obsessed with my kids art work, and I'm not ashamed to admit I decorate my house with it! What's not to love?!? Handmade with love? Yes please!!! I always look forward to seeing what little presents the kids bring home from school. The last two years, at Oakwood, the boys brought home little photo ornaments of some sort. But this year, we scored big!!! Grant brought home a hand colored pot holder, a piece of word art with our family names and this magnificent canvas! They made these the morning of their party and I love love love LOVE it!! I love that I can have it up all winter long! Obviously the only thing he actually did on their were the footprints and writing his name- the other room mom decorated them all. But its a pricless work of art in my book!

And Wyatt- well, he brought his present home in early December and barely made it to the driveway before opening it up for him. He used some self-constraint and waited til after we got Grant and as soon as we walked through the door, he had me sit in front of the Christmas tree and open it up. I was blown away by his little masterpiece! He explained how he painted all of it, down to the last little detail- even the swirly snowflake. Apparently, he thought it was glitter glue he was putting on there, so once he dotted it, he swirled it around, only to find out it was just white paint. So he calls it the blowing snowflake. I think its quite VanGogh-esque! I just love this little thing so much!!  

Two priceless works of art I will proudly display each and every year from now until forever!!!

Christmas Learning

(You'll notice a lack of Grant in most of these pictures! Try as I might, crafting and learning are just two things he saves only for school. I'll get lucky and snag a few minutes here and there with him, but Wyatt is really the one that enjoys these!!)

Holiday themes were always my favorite part of teaching!! And while I've been out of the classroom for a good 9 years now, the love of holiday themed schoolwork is still alive and kickin! I knew Christmas games would be a must after Wyatt so enjoyed the Halloween and Thanksgiving games, so I worked all November long to get these ready to go!

I use this table to hold all our school games! It's right off the kitchen, into the living room and is prime real estate for learning opportunities! Wyatt and I usually enjoy these after we take Grant to school, before we take him to school. We usually have about 20 minutes each  morning and that's some of my favorite time with him! I also have some coloring and activity books to choose from- Wyatt loves a good maze or dot-to-dot!!

 I got Grant to stop for a second and do some Math Monday homework working on ten frames up to 30! Way more fun than worksheets, or at least that's I tell him! I think he secretly enjoyed it too!

 Word Wednesday is sight word practice days. You would think this "snow writing" would've been a hit, but not so much- too messy for my pretty boys. 

 I made this one for Grant and he hasn't touched it! Wyatt will sure be prepared for Kindergarten math topics!

 Grant brought this sight word game home and Wyatt loves it! He says, "It's a board game, but its also a reading game. Isn't that cool?"

 This is our sensory bin activities! They love filling these little boxes up and playing Santa!!

 My little reading boy loves this game!

 Number ordering and ten frame matching in the pocket chart keep him busy too!

We've gotten alot of use out of these centers and there are quite a few more I haven't even taken pictures of!! We will enjoy them a few more weeks and move onto Winter!! I'm so happy I have at least one kid who lets me be a teacher still!!

Christmas Crafting Up a Storm

It's no secret I love a good holiday craft project! Especially when hands and feet are involved!! And Wyatt is just like so we make a pretty good team! Grant tolerates my projects and will get involved every now and again, so the masterpieces I do get from him, I cherish greatly!! We've had a couple of specific activities in our Advent pockets, but many of these were just "for fun" projects! And, because I'm just "that" type of mom, most of these I took to Mardel to have laminated so I can treasure them forever (along with a handful of other old art projects I have saved from 2012 and 2013- ya, I'm "that" mom!) .25//ft,  you can't beat that for memory keeping!!

I took a variety of screenshots of some ideas I saw on Pinterest and let the boys choose which ones they wanted to do. Wyatt chose Santa and the reindeer, and of course Grant chose the mouse!! 

Grant made an angel too, should've taken a picture! Oh well, I have the real deal ready for the scrapbook! 

Wyatt had this idea all on his own! He wanted to make a wreath for the front door, so I made the white circle, he used my circle punch to make all the green circles and glued them on. He also used red glitter glue for berries. I made the bow, although it looks more like a pair of scissors, but eh, it works! And now its hanging on the back of our front door so we can see it all day long!

One of our Advent pocket activities was for a Christmas Craft Day. It just so happened to fall on the day that Grant was sick with some virus and was holed up watching movies all day, which gave Wyatt and I plenty of time to work on lots of projects! I went on to learncreatelove.com and he picked out a handful of different activites. We painted them all first, and once they were dry, I cut them out and he glued them together. They turned out pretty darn cute!! Wyatt chose his verse for the nativity, made me smile!

This idea was all Grant's, surprisingly!! We set out to make our own wrapping paper with green and red handprints, but when I realized I didn't have any more red paint, Grant suggested making a Christmas tree! So we did!! Lots of handprint brances and fingerprint lights and glitter glue ornaments! I love this one!!

We did some cookie cutter tracing and make ornaments!

We made a Christmas mural, which is proudly displayed in our dining room because the boys felt that all our holiday guests would enjoy seeing it!

And since we still have 7 days left til Christmas, who knows what other amazing creations we will have!! 

Grant's Winter Party

I knew this time of year in Grant's school would be kind of hard on me. This was my first holiday with Grant going to a public school. While it doesn't sound like a big deal, it kind of is to me. It was hard for him to never come home with things about Jesus, the real Christmas story, or anything of the like. One day, he did come home with an easy reader about how all people celebrate the holidays. Other than my brief stint student teaching, I have ZERO experience with public schools! Luckily, I feel like I covered all our bases at home, so whatever was done at school was just extras! And I'd say the party we did to kick off Winter Break turned out to be pretty darn fun! Especially because Levi was back in town and got to help celebrate with Grant! It was his first time coming to Grant's school, so it was a big deal to Grant! 

I'm co-room mom for his class, so I was able help coordinate some of the fun activities! 45 minutes isn't a whole lot of time to do much, but we squeezed in quite a few activities! We always try to do class pictures, snack, and 4 games/activities! I was busy leading activities, so I got no pictures of those fun things! We started with a snack- they made snowmen with powdered donuts and fruit by the foot. For their activities, they did snowman bowling, photo booth, footprint snowmen, and snowball on a spoon races! Good times had by all the kids! His class is just wonderful- such sweet kids! It really is a joy to be a part of their class!! And Mrs. R is a great teacher! We are so lucky to have her as Grant's first "big school" experience. 

Gingerbread House Making

Shed gave us a friendly reminder to get to work on our gingerbread house one morning. I was totally expecting to work on it after school, or later in the day, but no- they wanted to do it right then and there! So at 7:07, we were decorating our gingerbread house! The boys each took one side of the roof and got busy! They worked together on the front and backs and the little extra cookies it came with!

 This is Grant's side- he used his licorice sticks for a chimney!

 And this was Wyatt's side- kind of a mish mash of everything! But he used all his pieces!

 They did a great job on the front! Of course, Grant was controlling the choices so it was all very symmetrical! I love that about him! Wyatt liked the wreath in the middle! They said, "It looks like a real gingerbread house!" 

 I love this little tradition! Whether they're homemade ingredients, or store bought sets, Christmas just isn't Christmas without decorating a gingerbread house!!

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

The day after Levi got home for Christmas, we had our first official snow of the season! It was only about 2" but it was the perfect snow for a snowman! After Grant's school party and a trip to Five Guys, we came home and bundled up to play in the snow!! We knew it was the PERFECT snow for a snowman so we set out to make the biggest one we could! Levi built the bottom, Grant built the middle, and Wyatt built the top. I worked on accessories!

  

And after a few more tweaks, he looked like this!!

Such a fun snowy day!!!

Snow Playing

When we woke up on the 18th to some beautiful snow, the boys could not wait to throw their snow clothes on and head outside! So we finally got our chance that afternoon! We tried to let Levi take a nap (jet lag hadn't worn off yet), so we bundled up and headed outside! I found our mini show shovels and the boys got busy shoveling the deck- the driveway had already melted off. And then Daddy decided he couldn't miss out on the snow play, so he came out and began a snowball fight, which turned into a wrestling match!! Good times for sure! We are so happy that our one snowfall we've had this year was when Levi was home! Made it that more fun and special!!