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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Family Pictures 2015

I was late in getting a photographer this year so we just got a Living Social deal for JC Penny. We weren't sure how they were going to turn out because we had never gone to a place before for pics. But $25 for sitting fee, photographs, and 60 Christmas cards...we thought we'd give it a shot. They did get some cute ones of the girls! 












Christmas School Activities

 We have actually fallen behind in school because of so many extra activities going on but we have squeezed in some fun school lessons!
 We took the girls to Pump it Up just so I could get some lesson planning done. ha!

 She ordered the candy bags into the correct order and then added the correct amount of candy to each bag. The blank bag I tried to "trick" her by calling out a number and she had to fill it with that amount. But she was too smart...I couldn't trick her. ;o)
 We love those little dollar spot erasers! We use them for so many math activities. Here Marin is making an ABB pattern.
 She did some addition problems using mini Christmas lights I found at a yard sale last summer!
 Marin is a beginner reader. We are working on sight words and blending/segmenting CVC words. She's not a fan of blending to read the words but she loves breaking them apart and segmenting the sounds in each words. Marin is a math/science girl so taking the sounds apart is much more fun for her during reading lessons.
 Here she picked a card. Read the picture. Then broke the sounds down and put them in the box to spell each word.
 I love her sweet handwriting.

We read Christmas books and did a few activities with some of them....



They played a tree/ornament game where they had to look for letters or sight words that I called out. it was a good review game. This is actually a freebie in my teacher store.  

 This center was to help practice middle sounds. Marin picked a card. Read the picture in Santa's belly. Listened for the middle sound and wrote it in the correct box.
Another math game to practice early addition....

 We started some language lessons and the first lesson was on nouns. So I made this little stocking noun sort to give them a visual for each type of noun.

This was a cute little game where Hollis looked at the letter ornaments on the tree, Once she found one, she wrote it on her recording sheet. Hollis loves to write!

We did Count the Room as a center pocket game this month. She counted the pictures and then recorded their amount the sheet.

We use Saxon Math Kindergarten as our math curriculum. I really love it. It is very relaxed and hands on. But the number line below is a part of that curriculum. Hollis is working on recognizing and putting the numbers 1-10 in order.
 Another Saxon activity was to graph the eye color in our family....

Jolly challenged the girls to send their friends Christmas cards this year. Marin worked so hard coloring and addressing her envelopes to her friends!


 Hot chocoloate marshmellow number order!  Marin really likes math so I try to supplement activities with our Saxon curriculum.

And there you have it...a few of our holiday school activities!

Christmas Festivities Part 2

Heading out to our family pictures....



Santa 2015

 The only way we got out of Alabama at Thanksgiving without tears was by telling the girls we had to decorate our tree. :o)

My favorite ornaments from my Mother in Law. 

All of our Santa pictures through the year.
The boxes are the girls countdown to Christmas. I fill them with candy or other little trinkets. They love it! 


Marin helped made the banner!

 Burke decorated our house this year and the girls were so very HAPPY!!! 

 Our North Pole breakfast this year where Jolly (our elf) came and started the season off with new Christmas pajamas. She also left the breakfast supplies for Christmas tree pancakes and strawberry Santa hats. :o)


 We don't do the Elf on the Shelf the normal way. Jolly just comes and plays hide and seek with the girls. They look for her each morning and then she leaves them a note with a challenge for the day. This note was to "brighten" someone's day today by giving them a compliment. Marin loves looking for Jolly. She even drew her a picture and wanted to put it right next to her "so when she comes alive, she will see it." She asked, "how old is Jolly?" She is definitely a believer in all things Christmas.

 Burke and I got roped into being childcare workers for the adult Christmas party at church. It was definitely an experience. But look at that sweet Hollis helping with the babies!

Gingerbread House making party! 

 We were in charge of the preschool Christmas party at church too. They made a Christmas tree craft....
 and played a scavenger hunt game.....
 and received a sweet gift from Mrs. Dondi in honor of son Trey who passed away last year...his favorite childhood book. It was a sweet tribute.

This day Jolly was found in a mixing bowl and she challenged the girls to make cookies for our favorite neighbors and deliver them! It took a few days to get them made and delivered because of colds but when it happened, they loved driving their pink car. Hollis LOVES this car.
 Mrs. June even let them pick some lemons from her lemon tree after cookie deliveries!

We love our neighbors!