Christmas Activities

I mentioned that we've been trying out some Christmas activities this week, so I thought I'd share the ones we've tried.

First up was this pom pom push.  I put it together after bedtime one night.  I drew a Christmas tree on a piece of paper and put it on a shoebox and then cut holes and drew lines of different colors around them.  I also put a pom pom of each color in the corresponding hole for Cooper to push in so he knew what to do.  He actually really loved this at first-- he played with it while I made breakfast and enjoyed it so much that  he wanted to keep playing instead of eating.  He didn't match the colors at all, but liked pushing the pom poms in.

Then he figured out how to open the box so he just wanted to climb in it.  I sat with him after breakfast and worked some on matching the colors, but he didn't really want to do that part.  Any time I try to match with him he is pretty uninterested.  So once I tried to get him to do that he lost interest in doing anything with it for most of the day.  

He did however find pencils and push those into the holes, so I got out some of our colored craft sticks for him to push in and he really enjoyed that.  Once again, he didn't like trying to match the colors, but he had fun putting the sticks in and taking them out and starting over.

Next up was the Christmas Tree Ball Sort.  It was a simpler version than the original-- I didn't add green poster board or try to color code it.  I thought this one would be a big hit, but honestly it only lasted about 3 minutes before he was over it and never really went back to it.

But he seemed to have fun while it lasted.

Last up were these velcro snowmen.  I actually made these a few Christmases ago for our foster kids and so I just pulled them out for Cooper.  I have 10 snowmen with the numbers 1-10 written on them and then the corresponding number of velcro pieces.  Then there are buttons with velcro on the back.  I gave them to Cooper a few snowmen at a time with the buttons already on them.  So he pulled the buttons off first and then would try to put them back on.

This one actually was a really big hit and kept him entertained for over 30 minutes, which is huge for him.  He wanted to be on the table to get close to them.  I also was with him the whole time since he wanted to try to put the buttons in his mouth a few times.  But overall he seemed to really enjoy this and I'm glad since we can keep using them throughout the winter.  This picture is also when he told me "no pictures" so I didn't get any others :)

We've also been enjoying lots of nights driving (and walking) around looking at Christmas lights.  And tonight we had a family viewing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  David has read the book to Cooper a few times so he points out the Grinch whenever we see him in the stores or in yard decorations.  He was enthralled with the movie and kept asking for more Grinch, more Whos, and more music.

It's been fun trying out a few new things this week and most of them haven't taken too much time to prepare, which is nice since I never know how long they'll last.  It's always fun when simple activities can be made a little Christmasy.