Holiday crafting party with other homeschoolers

 I had planned on having the boys help me bake some holiday treats this morning.  I don't have time for a full baking day this week but though if we made just one or two sweets each day we'd have a nice assortment by our party on Sunday with plenty of goodies left for Christmas Eve & Christmas day.  

We were going to a crafting party with our homeschool group.

Today we made magic cookie bars and oatmeal scotchies.   Yum!

We finished off Christmas In Camelot and then read a lovely story about polar bears called Ice Bear; In the Steps of the Polar Bear.  The illustrations were beautiful and it was a very nicely written non- fiction book.

Ian and Alec played a new multiplication game called Pile It On.  Using a deck of playing cards and a die they took turns Piling it on.  Each player rolls the die twice; the first number rolled tells them how many piles to make and the second number rolled tells them  how many cards to put in each pile.  I think this game ended up being a bit simplistic for Ian but Alec really started picking up some multiplication facts by the time the game was ending.  I finally told Ian he didn't need to make the piles if the already knew the answer to his fact.

While Ian and Alec played their game, Evan and I tried a new game.  It's a snakes and ladders sight word game.  I was able to download it here.  It's just like playing Chutes and Ladders, which he loves, but with sight words mixed in.  We each took a turn rolling the dice and then moving our pom pom to the right box, we then had to read the sight word.  The first one to the end wins!

We got ready to head to our local library for our Homeschool Holiday party.  I had already packed up all the supplies needed for this beaded Christmas tree ornament craft. 

Each family was asked to bring a craft for the children to make and wrap to give as gifts.

I found these instructions and thought if I changed the needle and thread to a pipe cleaner/ chenille stem and used a small hole punch to punch the ribbon it should be fairly simple for the kids to weave the ribbons back and forth and add a pony bead to the pipe cleaners.  They came out pretty cute too.

 I had an array of colors to choose from, lots of different pipe cleaners, ribbons and beads so they could be as artistic as they'd like.

There were only 4 families that showed up for our homeschool Christmas party, but we all had so much fun we didn't even care.  Alec and Ian learned how to sew!

Alec and Ian made an edible craft using a slice of bread, a cookie cutter, green cream cheese and assorted veggies. 

Yum!

Alec made a foam ornament.

Ian colored a wooden ornament



Ian and Alec with their friends, making our beaded Christmas trees



One of the mom's is teaching Alec to sew!

I finally convinced Evan to make a foam ornament too.