1st Grade Christmas Party

There's nothing like having a Christmas party for a bunch of 6 and 7 year old kids right before Christmas.  The excitement in that room could not be contained.  I'm so glad that I can be apart of these events with Ava.  Here are the party details and some tips:

BOOK

To start the party, we read a story about the birth of Jesus.  We had two Little People Nativity sets and gave one piece of the set to each child.  As we read the story, the kids placed their piece in the manger scene.

CRAFT

Next the kids made an ornament.  We bought clear plastic ornaments with removable tops. The kids received an ornament and plastic baggie with the "fillers" which included the following item:
- hay to represent the hay in the manger
- baby to represent baby Jesus
- star to represent the Star of Bethlehem
- feather to represent Angel wings

- cross

After the kids filled their ornaments, the parents wrote the child's name and 2014 on their ornament and tied a ribbon on top. This craft did not take long which is good because the book and the snack took MUCH longer than we'd planned.

SNACK

The kids each received the following items to construct their Christmas tree snack:

- Christmas plate and napkin

- Keebler sugar cone

- Dixie cup filled with green icing and a Popsicle stick

- Kraft Jet Puffed Holiday Mallows star

- Skittles

- Twizzlers Pull N Peel Licorice

The kids loved the snack, but it took a LONG time to decorate it and eat it so build in some extra time or bring sandwich baggies for the kids that don't finish eating the snack to take it home.  You may also want to bring wipes for the kids hands - this got super messy!

Also, this snack is dairy, egg and nut free to accommodate the various food allergies in the 1st grade class!

GAME

To end the party we played Pass the Present.  Each of the kids received a $1 wrapped, gender-neutral gift.  The plan was that the kids would sit in a circle and pass the presents around the circle while the music played.  When the music stopped, the kids would be given a clue (see below) and trade their present with a classmate based on the clue.  As it turned out, the kids just hurled the gifts at each other.  It was so loud that I have no idea if music was playing or not.  We finally got the kids to stop throwing gifts and told them to just open their present.  It was total chaos and we were out of time so we scrapped the clues!  In case you are better at keeping kids under control and want the clues, here they are!

Trade with someone who is shorter than you

Trade with someone who is taller than you

Trade with someone with blue eyes

Trade with someone with brown eyes

Trade with a girl

Trade with a boy

Trade with someone who is wearing red

Trade with someone who is wearing green

Trade with someone who is wearing white

Trade with someone who is wearing black shoes

Trade with someone who is wearing brown shoes

Trade with someone with blonde hair

Trade with someone with brown hair

Trade with someone with black hair

Trade with someone who is missing a tooth

Trade with someone who has a bow in her hair

Trade with someone who has a ponytail

Trade with someone who is sitting criss-cross-applesauce

Trade with someone who likes Christmas

Trade with someone who is in 1st grade

Trade with someone who is excited for Santa Claus to come

Trade with someone who is excited for Christmas vacation

If you need some more ideas for your Christmas party, including free printable Christmas worksheets, check out my Pinterest board!

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year!  

Thank you all for visiting and supporting my blog this past year.

Here are the top 10 posts from 2014 (links below)...

Chocolate Toffee Cake

Top 10 Go-To Art Projects

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Puppy Dog & Kitty Cat Birthday Party

Summer Family FUN Passport 

Daisy Scout Purple Petal 

Salt Dough Ornaments

DIY Valentine's for Kids

Daisy Scout Orange Petal

Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

I hope 2015 treats you well!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

This year's Christmas sugar cookies were game-changers.  For the past two years, Ava and Sidney have been making and decorating Christmas cookies that Sidney could not eat because they contained dairy and eggs.  This year I found a dairy, egg and nut free recipe that will put your sugar cookie recipe to SHAME!  (or maybe not, but these cookies are seriously amazing and I'm so happy that Sidney could enjoy them with us finally).

I adapted the recipe below from the Speed Bump Kitchen blog.  Here's my version:

Ingredients:
½ cup Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks (or shortening, margarine, or coconut oil)
⅔ cup sugar
¼ cup dairy-free milk (I use Silk Soy Milk) + 1T cider vinegar
2 cups flour
½ t. baking soda
¼ t. salt
1T. vanilla (optional but I used it)
a pinch of cinnamon (optional but I used it)
Cookie decorating icing and sprinkles

Instructions:
1.  In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter together until smooth.
2.  Combine the milk and vinegar together and then add to the sugar mixture.  Beat until smooth again.
3.  Add the vanilla and cinnamon and mix well.  The dough is going to look gross - like scrambled eggs - but don't worry.  Once you add the dry ingredients it will look normal.
4.  In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and slowly add to the sugar mixture.
5.  Wrap in plastic wrap, shape into a big disk and freeze for ½ hour.
6.  Roll to ¼ inch thickness and cut out as you like.
7.  Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheets at 350 degrees for 8 minutes for soft cookies (they may seem barely baked, but they’ll firm up when cooled). 
8.  Cool completely on a cookie sheet before icing.  I just transferred the whole sheet of parchment paper with cookies on top to a cookie sheet to cool.

We used Betty Crocker Cookie Icing to decorate the sugar cookies.  We also used holiday sprinkles, dairy-free chocolate chips and sugar crystals.  Here are some pics of the girls' cookies!

I have a general policy against eating food made by kids, even my own, so I can't speak for how their cookies taste.  But mine are fantastic!  I am single-handedly eating them all by myself!  I just used sugar crystals. You sprinkle them on before you bake the cookies - so easy!

Merry Christmas from me in my PJ's!

Snowball Cookies

Snowball Cookies are probably my favorite homemade Christmas cookie.  I double the ingredients this year so I'd have some leftovers after I package our gifts for the neighbors. No amount of exercise could possible compensate for the number of Snowball Cookies I have consumed!

I've tried a few online recipes over the years.  Here is my version:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 
1 ½ cups powdered sugar 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
¼ teaspoons salt
2 cups all purpose flour 
½ cup ground slivered almonds
¼ cup ground pecans
¼ cup ground walnuts
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.  Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. 
3.  Add ½ cup powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. 
4.  Beat in flour, salt.  Grind nuts in a food processor then add to mixture. 

5.  Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic and refrigerate until cold, about 30 minutes, until the dough is chilled but not hard and is no longer sticky to the touch.
6.  Whisk remaining 1 cup powdered sugar and cinnamon in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside. 
7.  Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 1 tablespoonfuls between palms into balls. 
8.  Arrange balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing ½ inch apart. 
9.  Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 10 minutes. 
10.  Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. 
11.  Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. 

12.  Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. 
13.  Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.) 

14.  Sift remaining cinnamon sugar over cookies and serve.

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

The Snowball Cookies completed the Treat Trio that I gave our neighbors!  I arranged the cookies on a rectangular holiday plate with a doily. Then I wrapped them in clear cellophane and tied them with red tulle.

Peppermint Bark

I have some pretty generous and talented neighbors who like to bake treats for us around Christmastime, which is why every year I make my kids suffer through my endless baking for other people!  It kills them that we don't keep everything that is baked (even though Ava is the only one who can eat any of it!).

This year I'm baking a treat trio!  Rolo Pretzels, Snowball Cookies (more to come on this) and Peppermint Bark.  The Pioneer Woman promised that the Peppermint Bark recipe was easy and I'm happy to say that she was right.  This recipe only calls for 3 ingredients and the hardest part is waiting for 2 hours while it hardens in the fridge.

Ingredients:
3 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
Crushed peppermint candies

Instructions:
1.  Line a square 8x8 pan with foil and smooth the surface.  Spray foil with nonstick spray.  I just threw out my 8x8 pan so I used some heavy duty foil to form a square-ish shape.

2.  Combine the chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in a double boiler over medium heat.  Heat until melted, about 5-7 minutes.  Don't leave it on the heat for too long or the chocolate will ruin.  I don't have a double boiler so I fit a ceramic mixing bowl over a pot filled with boiling water and inserted a baking thermometer between the bowl and the pot so that the steam could release.

3.  Remove from heat and stir until smooth, then immediately pour it into the foil-lined pan.

4.  Use a spatula to smooth the surface, then sprinkle on the crushed peppermint.

5.  Refrigerate for 2 hours, then cut into small squares.  I trimmed the edges before I cut into squares.

Letter of the Week - Kk

K is for King
Here's what you need for this project:
- cardstock (3 different colors)
- jewels
- glue

Click here for free printable Upper Case Letter templates.

K is for Kite
Here's what you need for this project:
- cardstock (4 different colors)
- gift wrapping ribbon
- tape
- glue
- marker

Click here for free printable Lower Case Letter templates.

Sight Words
This week's Sight Word is:
- kite

Handwriting

Books
Here are some library books we reserved to go along with our theme: