Activities countdown to Christmas - Day 1 & 2

So I have been inspired by The Imagination Tree to:
a) do crafts and activities on a daily basis in the run-up to Christmas
b) blog about it (eeek!)

And so, yesterday, 1st December, Ju and I made our activities garland, which we have hung in the kitchen. Ju cut out the green Christmas tree shapes and I cut out the rest (angel and gingerbread man shapes in rainbow colours); we punched holes through the top of the shapes and threaded them on a pretty ribbon. Then we thought of lots of different activities we can do every day.

Our activities garland hanging in our kitchen

Activities include:

• Make a nativity scene
• Go and see  the Christmas lights in town
• Bake Christmas cookies
• Make salt dough tree decorations
• Have a Christmas meal with friends
• Build a snowman
• Make and send Christmas cards
• Learn a Christmas carol

(you get the general idea)

A close-up of our activities garland

We wrote one activity on each of the shapes. We didn't number the activities, so we can be flexible with what we do every day.

Day 1

So yesterday was Day 1 and we made a string and glue ornament inspired by Mary-Ann Kohl's Pre-School Art book. 

We used an empty round see-through yogurt pot, some string and PVA glue. Ju enjoyed winding the gluey string around the pot, but his favourite part of this activity was sprinkling red glitter on top at the end. We let the ornament dry overnight and it is really quite sturdy. 

String and glue ornament

We enjoyed hanging it in the tree today and looking at the lights shine through it.

Day 2 
Indeed, today was Day 2 and our activity of the day was to get and decorate a Christmas tree. We got our tree from our local city farm and Ju was very excited to go and choose it.

After much sucking of baubles by Lilo and frantically frustrated attempts at hanging of decorations by Ju, the lights were switched on to the sound of Holy Night, Silent Night played on the piano by Darling Him.

Here is a time lapse video of us decorating our tree.

We have left lots of space on the branches as we are going to add our own homemade decorations as the days go by.

Our Christmas tree

Just finished kneading the gingerbread dough, after a recipe from the BBC Good Food website and chilled it, all ready to make the gingerbread house tomorrow... Watch this space.