Crafting for Christmas

I am going to be late publishing all of my Christmas posts this year, but if I get a move on, I shall have them all up before new year :) And since we still have the Christmas tree up I feel that I can get away with Christmassy posts for a couple more days.
Here are some of the Christmas decorations that the children made this year.
Cotton wool snowpeople
Water painting and adding salt to create icy pictures

Gingerbread men

Sewing the paper Christmas garlands

B, K and Googs all made one.

This next project took the longest. It was a perfect craft project just before Christmas because the children could just add tiny pieces whenever they felt like it.
It started with the angels and the stable...
Santa made an appearance
and it just grew from there

Sinterklaas

My grandparents on my mother's side are both dutch so my Mom grew up celebrating sinterklaas. This year she ordered lots of yummy goodies from Holland (lets face it, it's all about the food) and we celebrated too :).
Marzipan Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet
Hopjes, stollen, and drop

speculaas
hmmm yummy
and of course, chocolate letters :)

Making a natural perfume/potion

The children were set a task of making a natural perfume/potion. They had to collect and fill an empty film canister with anything they fancied from nature.
Smooshing it down


and sniffing it.

crushing up some fungus

They put in some wild garlic too.
Being smelly scientists. There was only one lab coat so both boys got into it at the same time :)


And sawing, of course...
and climbing :)

Christmas bits and pieces

Just a few Christmassy photos from the last couple of weeks.
Baking, of course. Although I haven't done as much baking as I'd like. Oh well, there will be plenty of time once the snow arrives.
Kiki helped to fill the advent calendar, they are all helping to empty it :)
She was trying to draw a picture of Christmas but was just too excited to be able to sit still!
We made angels. Kiki chose the colour of this one, she requested a pink angel for her room too.
I bought the children some new colouring pens. They have spent hours drawing pictures.
And these were made for the children. Aren't they beautiful!!
Putting up the Christmas tree. For some reason we are always in our pjs when we do this :)

Animals and fairy house

The forest school that the kids go to is held a a city farm.
The kids walk around looking at all the animals that they would like to have :)
Very friendly goats



After saying hi to the animals, the children then made a fairy house.

And of course Googs can't be outside without a stick in hand