Book(s) of the week - Christmas

Since we had a unplanned extra stay at my parent’s for Christmas our Christmas books where the best of what was left in the local library. Both these titles were fun to read but nothing outstanding. There was a beautifully illustrated third book but I have forgotten it’s title. 

Kipper’s Christmas Eve by Mick Inkpen
Kipper is a dog we know already.  He is trying to decide at the beginning if Christmas Eve or Christmas Day is better.  He is off to find a Christmas tree from the woods.  We follow the rest of his Christmas Eve, joined by some of his friends.  A little mouse features and it was fun to follow his adventures in the illustrations before he was mentioned in the story.

Tickly Christmas Wibbly Pig by Mick Inkpen
A new character to us but he is on TV.  WIbbly pig each year gets a hand knitted but itchy/tickly garment from his Aunt.  This year she is coming to stay and what will he get, especially as she has bought more wool than normal.  Daddy enjoyed this book. 

(Luath is 23 months)

Book of the Week – My Granny went to Market by Stella Blackstone Illustrations by Christopher Corr

My mum got this book last Christmas from my nephew (well brother really!). My mum keeps it on the living room bookshelf separate from the other children’s books my parents have.  Luath frequently requested it. A picture counting book, with vibrant and detailed illustrations.  Granny takes a trip around the world gathering different items.  Each double page spread highlights the different country and there are lots of things to spot.  The rhyming text makes it a flowing tale.

Great as a counting book and to look at different cultures.

(Luath is 23 months)

Book of the week – Peely Wally by Kali Stileman

This was a favourite book from earlier in the year and so when Luath spied it in the library she quickly put it on the “to check out” pile.  The title makes me smile as in Scotland “peely wally” means pale/ill-looking.

It is a brightly illustrated picture book.  The story is of Peely Wally who has an egg, “which is small, yes, spotty, yes, but absolutely perfect in every way”.  The egg rolls off the branch and you follow it’s adventure (by tracing the lines) as it is helped back to Peely Wally. 

Luath especially loved helping the egg hatch and joining in with the line “small, yes……”
(Luath is 22 months)

Toddler kitchen - Festive baking

Luath and I enjoy cooking and baking together so Christmas is a great excuse to do some more.

Ginger, banana and oat bars


Clementine cupcakes


Shortbread


Gingerbread biscuits
No photo but these were delicious.

(Luath is 22/3 months)

Salt dough decorations

We made some more decorations for our tree.

Salt dough Recipe
 Mix half a cup salt and whole cup flour. Slowly add a whole cup water.  Mix then knead until pliable.  Add more flour if too sticky or more water if too dry.

Once it was mixed I split the dough into five portions.  I kneaded each portion separately.  One ball I kept plain, one I added cinnamon and the others food colouring.

Next Luath and I rolled out some dough and used some cookie cutters to make Christmas shapes. I used a straw to make holes in the shapes so we could hang the decorations.

We cut some plain circles so we could decorate these later. Last year we tried air drying and also microwaving and it didn't work well.  This year we decided to oven bake them on low, except daddy being helpful out them in the oven while we was cooking and the temperature was high so they turn rather brown and slightly burnt.

A few days later we decorated the plain baubles by covering them in glue and sprinkling glitter over.  Luath loved the glitter.

The baubles looked lovely hung next to the lights on the tree.

Book of the week – No! by Marta Altes

We all loved this picture book.  It is the story of a dog who thinks he is a well behaved dog, but the illustrations show what the family think of his actions.

Most double page spread has what the dog is thinking he is doing “I help them with their laundry” and then a speech bubble saying No! or Nooooooooo!  Luath had fun saying the No! parts of the story.  The illustrations are clever and you can’t help falling for the cute dog..  There is such a funny ending.  You could use this book to talk about expected behaviours but we just thought it was fun – maybe because we have/had dogs like this.

(Luath is 22 months)

Celebrations - Sinter Klaus

When I was little I remember reading a story book about all the different Christmas traditions and also the items children left out for Father Christmas (or his alias).  Our family didn’t celebrate Sinter Klaus but when I worked in the USA people did.

On the eve of the 6th December, Luath and I left out a clog, daddy and the dog left out shoes.  We left a carrot for the horse. 

Next morning we found some chocolate Santas, Luath also got some new mittens and our dog some bones.

Tot School – St Andrew’s Night/Scottish

A shoer record of what we did this week. St Andrew’s (patron saint of Scotland) Night is celebrated on 30th November.  Being Scottish and living in Scotland you could say that pretty much everyday has something Scottish about it, but it is nice to have a Scottish themed week.

We read some of our favourite books that are written in Scots.

We ate (veggie)Haggis, Neeps and Tatties.

We sang Scottish songs, listened to music and danced.

We cuddled Pooh and Mickey Mouse in their Scottish costumes.

We looked at a Scottish map and pointed out places that are important to use

(Luath is 22 months)

High speed tree decorations

As our loft ladder broke we had no decorations for the tree.  I bought some baubles but I thought we would make the rest.  The first set we made simply and quickly.

I traced round some Christmas cookie cutters onto cardboard and paper and then cut them out. Luath enjoyed helping me stick the paper and card together.  We then decorated the paper side using crayons.  Once we had finished I punched a hole and thread some string so they can hang up.  Luath loved putting them onto the tree.

A last minute advent countdown

I had thought of a few different ways we could countdown to Christmas however we ended up making one on the 30th November.

I used some gift tags, ribbon and Christmas pegs.


  On the reverse of each card I wrote the numbers 1-24.  I then pegged the cards to a ribbon hung on the mantelpiece.
 
Luath and daddy enjoyed turning the cards round each day.

Tot School – Road Safety

As it was road safety week we choose that as our theme.  Just a short post about what we did.

We read some different books around road safety.

We played with some vehicles on a play mat.  I pointed out the road markings and safety features.  Luath of course enjoyed driving her cars on the mat and anywhere else she thought of.

We looked at different road signs when we were out for our walks.

We have been working on Luath learning how to be safe while she is walking on/near roads for a while now and often she tells me when I am carrying her, “stop mummy, stand still, car coming” (we walk on a rural road with no pavement so we need to go into the verge and stand still while the car passes).

Virtual Book Club - Tomie dePaola

This month’s kids' virtual book club was another author that we don’t know  (Tomie dePaola) and our library doesn’t stock any of his books.  I found a video of one of his books  “Pancakes for Breakfast”.  As it is wordless it was a perfect book to see online.  We both loved the story.

I had planned to make pancakes with Luath for lunch one day but they turned into a big mess, so a few days later we bought some pancakes instead. 


Luath wasn’t sure initially, she ate all the blueberries on her plate and ignored the pancake.  I offered her a piece of pancake later in the day and she tried it and loved it and asked very quickly for more.

We also read two books that featured pancakes that we love to read.  Mama Panya’s Pancakes and Hippos don’t eat pancakes.

Hippo’s Don’t eat pancakes is a picture book about a girl whose parents are too busy to pay her any attention, until one day all the pancakes go missing and they don’t believe it was a hippo who ate them.

Mama Panya’s Pancakes is based in Kenya.  Mama and her son are off to market to buy the ingredients to make some pancakes. At the end of the story there is a recipe for Mama Panya’s pancakes and some Kenyan phrases used in the book.

Tot school – Elephants and Diwali

This week’s theme was elephants and Diwali.

We found a book on Diwali which featured an elephant and read some other elephant books.  We probably spent more time reading than any other of our theme activities this week.  We had out some elephant finger puppets and elephant toys.
     
I cut out an elephant so that Luath could decorate it Indian style, but she only did a little of this.
 
We finally used the pumpkin seeds that we had dyed at Halloween to make a Rangoli inspired picture.  Luath loved squeezing glue onto paper then sticking the seeds down.

We ate some curry and lentil dishes this week.

I would love to say that we cleaned our house top to bottom all ready for Diwali but we didn’t!

Tot School – Guy Fawkes/Fire

21 months

Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

I see no reason why the fifth of November

Should never be forgot.

This week we celebrated Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night so our theme this week was all things related to that – fireworks, fire and guys.  We had lots of fun.

We were a little limited in our books, we found one at the library about fire fighter and had one about a barn on fire.  Did, Dig, Digging has a page on fire engines, The Owl who was afraid of the dark features fireworks and a bonfire, and the scarecrows secret is close to making a guy.

A fire fighter jacket (much too big), a hat, a fire engine and a dog.  She also got some new fleece lined wellies that she loves.
   
Luath loved wearing the fire fighter jacket and hat. 

I made a shape puzzle of a fire engine

We made a guy together.  Scrunching up newspaper and stuffing it into old clothes of Luath’s.  A guy is meant to be burnt on the Bonfire but Owl (as Luath named him) wasn’t heading for any fires, he was too busy.
 
 
We did  firework crafts, some at a library craft hour.

We made some bonfire buns - really chocolate cakes with orange icing – very yummy.
  
We had a bonfire soup.

See what other tot school is happening this week at 1+1+1=1