Santa is Coming

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and everyone knows as soon as we are done feasting, our minds instantly switch over to Christmas mode. I mean, before Thanksgiving is even over the Black Friday sales and shopping begin. So before I got too caught up in it all, I made a Christmas Advent Calender with Chase. That way on December 1 it was all ready with no hassle. 

Basically, the advent calender is a special countdown to Christmas and each day of December your kids can open up a little present. The one I made looked similar to this one.

 However, as a background I used green poster board and had Chase decorate the envelopes. He colored them green and red and put Christmas stickers all over. In each envelope I had a little something special for him to open each day leading up to Christmas. Some things included: stickers, candy canes, ring pops, a harmonica, and a Santa wind-up toy.

I really enjoyed making this for many reasons. It was fun and allows the children you babysit to express their unique creativity as they decorate each envelope. It is also a great way to reinforce good behavior. The kids know Santa is coming so they have to be good. If the children are being good or do something nice, they can open their present for that day. 

Here are some other fun ideas:

What other advent calender ideas do you have or any other fun ways to make sure your kids are being good, because you know Santa is watching :)

Turkey Craft: Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving is right around the corner so of course I've been trying to find fun turkey crafts. I chose this particular one to post about because it comes with stencils to trace and can be easily adapted to many ages. Older children can trace and cut themselves, while younger children can glue together pre-cut pieces. All the while (if you're anything like me), you do not need any fancy artistic skills ;)

Instructions: 

1. Pick out your construction paper colors! To make sure it looks like a turkey you probably want brown for the body, orange or yellow for the beak, and red for the mouth. And then fun turkey feather colors. You can paste your turkey to a background as in the photo above, or just leave the turkey free standing!

2. Next cut out the turkey parts including the body, eyes, beak, mouth, feet, and feathers! 

3. Now its time to glue it together :) Glue the facial parts to the top of the turkey and the feet to the bottom.

4. Now it's time to be creative!

- You can have the kids write (or help them write) something they are thankful for on each feather.

-Cut out a circle of lined paper, slightly smaller than the turkey's belly and have the kids write a few sentences of what they are thankful for this year.

-Or "By Guess & By Josh" had a great ideas! "Each day during November have your child add a feather to the turkey. [...] By the time Thanksgiving arrives, your turkey will have a full set of colorful feathers! Another option... instead of cutting feathers out of colored paper, you can buy colored feathers from the craft store."

I found this idea from the blog 'By Guess & By Gosh!' Here is their November Kid Activity and be sure to check out the rest of their blog :)

Happy Turkey Day!

Octopus Buddy Craft!