The Mom I Want to Be

Scholastic.com

This company has been around for generations and you don’t have to wait until your kids are in school to access all that this company has to offer, including Reading ideas for every age group and book lists to help you get started!

The Mailbox Magazine (and companion website)

I just subscribed to this incredible resource! It is an amazing monthly magazine design for teachers (but perfect for parents too!). It’s full of wonderful ideas to help you teach your children in a fun and creative way. The website is a companion to the magazine subscription that is free when you subscribe!

Brightly Beaming Resources- Home of the Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum

Great for both seasoned homeschoolers and first timers. This website breaks down the alphabet into daily and weekly activities and there is even a booklist to go along with each week! They cover vocabulary, shapes, colors, and much more!

Lakeshore Learning Materials

I’ve talked a lot about this company, but it’s because I truly believe in the quality of their products. They are a great resource for parents (and teachers of course) for ages infant to sixth grade. They also have a bunch of free resources including free clip art and craft ideas!

Discount School Supply.

Low on price, but not low on quality. They carry everything from teacher resources, arts and crafts, room equipment to so much more! Check them out today and request a free copy of their most recent catalog. Like Lakeshore, they also have a free resource to parents and educators called My Community.

Keep it safe. Make sure supplies are labeled nontoxic and are not choking hazards. Discourage kids from putting supplies in their mouths.
Set it up. Designate an art area in your home with an easel or a low table where young artists can stand to work (this is usually easier for them).

Don’t rush. Make sure you allow plenty of time for setup, exploration, and cleanup.

Don’t stress over mess. Set things up so cleanup is easier for you, then try to relax and let your child have fun.

Write it down. Before you forget, write the date on your child’s creation and, if she’s talking, what she said about it.

This project is one that came to me after we were left with an overabundance of packing material from some Christmas deliveries. I hate to throw that stuff away when I know I can use it for something else. So here is our recycled snowman.

Cut out the silhouette of a snowman from a piece of cardboard. I used an empty cereal box. Have your child paint the snowman white. Allow it to dry. When it’s dry, cover it with glue. Cover the snowman with the packing material. Glue on a face and add some arms. I taped pipe cleaner arms to the back of the snowman. He’s finished!

Make an ornament, and then give it away to a neighbor

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?  frostbite

Create a snowscape with shaving cream and action figures

Decorate every door in the house

Go to the Library and pick a new holiday book to read

What do snowmen eat for breakfast?  Snowflakes

Blindfold kids and have them guess holiday scents – pine, gingerbread, holly, mistletoe and cinnamon

Write letter to santa

Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Watch Frosty the Snowman

Look in your lunch for a special treat

Sing Christmas carols

Write a job description for santa’s helpers

Make a gift for your teacher

Write a story together, have each person add a line, round robin

Write a holiday greeting for someone in the armed forces

Go Christmas shopping.  Buy an extra gift and donate it to charity

Create a Christmas drawing, add glitter to make the snow glisten

Put on some holiday music and bake cookies

Create homemade cards for friends and family

What do santa’s elves learn in North Pole school?  The elfabet

Make Christmas puppets and put on a play.

At dinner, describe what you love best about each family member.

Read a Christmas book

Secretly do something nice for someone

Make cinnamon Christmas tree ornaments

Create a Christmas tree from craft sticks, paint and sequins

Have hot chocolate or apple cider and drive around to look at Christmas lights

Make Peppermint Marshmallows

Go Ice Skating

Pack a sack of  non perishable food stuffs and donate to food bank

Make popcorn / cranberry garland for tree

Make or buy a holiday treat for Quincy

Single Jingle Bells, and then try and sing it backwards

Write / Illustrate a holiday story featuring your family

Ring in the season – attach bells to your sneakers, hat, coat or other article of clothing

Convince your family that you’ve been nice, not naughty

Name all 9 reindeer, without singing Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

Wear one red sock and one green sock and see if anyone notices

Is there snow?  Go for a walk in the snow.  Make a snowball and save it in the freezer until next July.

Make a wreath (handprint, edible, floral – whatever you want!)

Watch “The Polar Express”

Make Cardboard Tube Carolers

Create a Pringle Can Nutcracker

Make a snowman votive holder from baby food, olive or mayo jars

Make a felt mitten or gingerbread man garland

Grow a snowflake in a jar with Borax

Design Q-Tip Snowflakes for a window display

Create snow scenes with salt paint or Epsom salts.

What do you call an old snowman?  Water!

What do you have in December that you don’t have in any other month?  The letter D

What goes “Oh, Oh, OH?”  Santa, walking backwards

What do Monkeys sing at Christmas?  Jungle Bells, Jungle Bells

Sample different Christmas Candies, rate and journal them

Go to the zoo – Zoo Lights!

Make a Birdfeeder

Watch Happy Feet, Make a penguin from an old bottle

Visit northpole.com

The Night Before Christmas Pop-up by Clement Clarke Moore and Robert Sabuda

Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Seven Candles For Kwanzaa by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Inside-Out Grandma by Joan Rothenberg

A Snowman Named Just Bob by Mark Kimball Moulton
How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

Winter’s Gift by Jane Monroe Donovan
The Twelve Cats Of Christmas by Kandy Radzinski

A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe

The Snowman Storybook (Pictureback(R)) by Raymond Briggs

The Sweet Smell of Christmas (Scented Storybook) by Patricia M. Scarry and J.P. Miller

Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas by Jane O’connor and Robin Preiss Glasser

Mater Saves Christmas (Disney Pixar Cars) by Kiel Murray and Disney Storybook Artists

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck and Mark Buehner

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert

Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree (Picture Yearling Book) by Robert Barry

Olive, the Other Reindeer Book and Doll by Vivian Walsh and J.otto Seibold

Are You Grumpy, Santa? by Gregg Spiridellis and Evan Spiridellis

Why Christmas Trees Aren’t Perfect by Richard H. Schneider and Elizabeth J. Miles

The Snowman: Touch and Feel Book by Raymond Briggs

It’S Winter (Celebrate the Seasons) by Linda Glaser

Reindeer Moon by Mark Kimball Moulton

 

For independant Readers:

From whimsical encounters with St. Nick to enthralling and enduring folktales, these books invite your students to celebrate diverse festivals of light.

The Bells of Christmas by Virginia Hamilton
Enjoy a season of love and anticipation with this 1890’s tale of an African-American family Christmas in Ohio.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Laugh along with this favorite about a poor family who terrorizes then triumphs in their town.

Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift by Kathryn Lasky
Witness how hope keeps a struggling Midwestern family together.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Reflect on the past, present, and future with this holiday classic.

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
Drift back in time for a semi-autobiographical tale of fruitcake, friendship, and Christmas in Alabama.

The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate by Janice Cohn
Read the true story of how a Montana town banded together to battle prejudice.

Hallelujah Handel by Douglas Cowling
Don’t miss this moving look at holiday charity.

The Hanukkah Ghosts by Malka Pen
A suspenseful time-travel novel about a girl who helps right her family’s past wrongdoings.

How I Saved Hanukkah by Amy Goldman Koss
The only Jewish kid in her 4th grade class, Marla discovers this year her holiday promises more than a broken dreidel.

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Show your students the meaning of Christmas with this tale of sacrifice and love.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by Julie Lane
Learn how Santa became Father Christmas in this 1932 classic.

New Year by Michele Spirn
Explore diverse celebrations across the globe in this inviting and informative book.

One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham
This lyrical story-within-a-story retells the Christmas tale from Creation to Resurrection accompanied by sweeping illustrations.

Sam I Am by Ilene Cooper
Can a grade schooler sort out his identity when his own interfaith family can’t agree how to celebrate the holidays?

Santa Paws by Nicholas Edwards
A stray dog finds a home during the holidays then spreads cheer all year in this favorite series.

Seven Spools of Thread by Angela Shelf Medearis
Learn the seven principles of Kwanzaa with this gorgeous folktale.

The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories of Hanukkah Through History by Karen Hesse
This moving collection of eight poems features one for each night of the holiday and spans centuries of Jewish history.

The Uninvited Guest and Other Jewish Holiday Tales by Nina Jaffe
Celebrate seven Jewish holidays with stories for each occasion.

A Very Special Kwanzaa by Deborah Chocolate
Follow 4th grader Charlie as he learns the true meaning of Kwanzaa

Christmas Trees (A Christmas Circular Letter)

 

The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods–the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.

I doubt if I was tempted for a moment

To sell them off their feet to go in cars

And leave the slope behind the house all bare,

Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.

I’d hate to have them know it if I was.

Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except

As others hold theirs or refuse for them,

Beyond the time of profitable growth,

The trial by market everything must come to.

I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

Then whether from mistaken courtesy

And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether

From hope of hearing good of what was mine,

I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”

“I could soon tell how many they would cut,

You let me look them over.”

 

“You could look.

But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”

Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close

That lop each other of boughs, but not a few

Quite solitary and having equal boughs

All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,

Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,

With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”

I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.

We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,

And came down on the north.

He said, “A thousand.”

 

“A thousand Christmas trees!–at what apiece?”

 

He felt some need of softening that to me:

“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

 

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.

I can’t help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

 

Robert Frost

 

 

Tempera paint and paintbrushes

1 toilet paper tube

1 paper towel tube, cut into two different lengths

Colored paper (for faces and mittens)

Black marker and pink pencil

Glue

Sheet music (from a songbook or gift wrap)

3 child’s socks

String or raffia

 

Paint the tubes and set them aside to dry. From the colored paper, cut out oval face shapes and draw on eyes and mouths with the marker. Use the pink pencil to color rosy cheeks. Cut out paper mittens for each caroler too. From the sheet music, trim two small rectangles and fold each in half to resemble a mini songbook. Glue the faces onto the tubes. Then glue a songbook between each pair of mittens and glue the mittens to the tubes. For hats, trim the feet off the socks and discard them. Fold an end of each sock tube into a cuff and stretch it onto a caroler’s head. Tie the hat closed with string or raffia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tree a Tree

 

Strong scissors

Craft sticks (including 1 wide craft stick)

Tacky glue

Green and brown acrylic paint

Sequins

Small wooden star or other tree-topping ornament

String

 

Use strong scissors to trim several craft sticks to lengths ranging from around 1 1/2 to 3 3/4 inches (a parent’s job). Have your child choose six pieces, including one full-sized stick, and help her arrange them from shortest to longest on a wide craft stick. Adhere the pieces with tacky glue, then let the stick tree dry. Have your child paint the tree green and brown with acrylic paints. After the paint is dry, she can add sequin ornaments with glue. Our tree’s topper is a small wooden star from a craft store, painted yellow. Tie a loop of string around the top of the tree for hanging.

 

 

 

Blown Egg Christmas Trees

 

Carefully wash and dry an egg. Use a pushpin to make a hole in the top and bottom of the egg.  Stick a toothpick into the top hole and wiggle it around to break the yolk.  Hold the egg over a bowl and blow into the top hole until the egg is empty, being careful not to ingest any raw egg. Rinse the egg under running water, then let it dry.  Color a small cork with brown marker. Glue the cork to the bottom of the egg and tape it in place while the glue dries.  Paint the shell green. Let the paint dry, then decorate the tree with paint, markers, and stickers. To add a tree topper, sandwich the end of a toothpick between 2 star stickers and slide the toothpick into the hole at the top of the egg.

 

 

Ice Cream Christmas Trees

 

Chill 4 small plates and a baking sheet lined with waxed paper in the freezer for 10 minutes. Then set each pint of ice cream on its side and slice it in half without removing the container (a parent’s job). Transfer each disk (with the carton still attached) to a chilled plate and quickly place it in the freezer until you’re ready for the next step. Tip: To slice a pint of ice cream in half, use a serrated knife to lightly score the container around the middle. Then warm the knife under hot water and slice through the ice cream. Working with one ice-cream disk at a time, cut or peel away the container and insert a Popsicle stick halfway in on one side. If the ice cream is too solid, use a butter knife that’s been dipped in warm water to start a hole for the Popsicle stick.  Using a warmed butter knife, your child can now trim the disk into a tree shape with the stick as the trunk. As soon as she’s done, she should transfer each tree to the baking sheet and keep it in the freezer until the ice cream is very firm. Tip: To make smooth cuts when trimming the ice cream into a tree shape, use a butter knife dipped in hot water. Freeze the cut-away portions in an airtight container to serve on another occasion. Now your child can use the assorted candies to decorate the trees any way she likes, again placing them on individual cold plates and keeping them in the freezer until serving time. Makes 4.

 

Variations: The best part about making our ice-cream Christmas Trees is decorating them any way you like. Here are a few ideas for inspiration:

 

Shimmery Stripes: Sprinkle on colored sugar to create broad stripes and use the back of a wooden spoon to lightly press the granules against the ice cream until they stick.

 

Starry Topper: Cut a star shape out of a flattened gumdrop and attach it to the tree with a wooden toothpick (don’t forget to remove the toothpick before eating the tree!).

 

Chocolate Garlands: Drizzle on thin lines of melted chocolate, then press on M&M’s Minis for lights.