Wishing You All A Very Merry Christmas 2014! Thanks for Making our 2014 Family Advent Calendar Such a Success!!! Here’s what we did this year: The Lunchbox Season’s Sweet Shop: Our Best Holiday Recipes Kick-Off Party: Stir-Up Saturday: Make a Twenty-First Century Canadian Christmas Cake 0 Sketch-It Sunday: Re-Illustrate Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas […]
Christmas Eve Checklist Turn on the Tree Lights and Meditate! Glaze and Slice our Twenty-First Century Canadian Christmas Cake! Bake Cookies for Santa! Mass at the Cathedral! Light a Candle for a Loved One! Indulge in the Feast of the Seven Fishes! [at a Chinese restaurant] Drink Egg-Nog and Sing Carols in Front of the […]
Tonic Tuesday Give to Forests Ontario Today, we’ll donate to an organization that supports the health and sustainability of Ontario’s tree canopy. Who doesn’t want to breathe well and breathe easy? It’s difficult to plant trees during winter, so we’ll let Forests Ontario take of that for us. To learn more about this great organization, […]
Last-Minute Monday Make Holiday Bark for Giving: Host a Bark-Making Party for the Kids You’ll Need A few heat-proof glass bowls or measuring cups for melting the chocolate A pot of boiling water or a microwave A few spatulas Parchment, at least 1 sheet per guest Cookie Sheets, 1 per guest Chocolate, about 1/4 – […]
Sketch-It Sunday Read and Illustrate Much Ado About Nothing, Acts III-V Today we’ll read and illustrate the second half of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. [One could also watch or listen to the play and illustrate along.] Don’t forget to draw a “cover image” for your collection! I’ll post the finished illustrations as they become […]
Stir-Up Saturday Reverse Chip Brookie Cookies The kids have been dying to recreate a cookie they often choose from a local bakery – a half-chocolate white chip and half-vanilla chocolate chip cookie. Their bakery cookie of choice is just fine, but it’s a bit high on the shortening and a bit too crispy for my […]
Festive Friday Fish and Chips and a Quadruple Feature Everyone’s home from school by now. It’s time to stay up late and go to town! Tonight, we’ll pick up some fish and chips from our favourite local shop. [Although, if you’re interested in DIYing dinner, check out our Calamari and our Fries with Feta from March […]
Throw-Back Thursday Play Holiday Floor Scramble and Christmas Clue, Revive the Holiday Shadow-Puppet Theatre and Make Butterbeer Blondies Today, we are revisiting ALL of the homemade classics. We’ll be playing with our Holiday Floor Scramble and our Christmas Clue Board Games. We’ll get out our Holiday Shadow Puppet Theatre and Christmas Shadow Puppets and improvise a […]
Write-It Wednesday Holiday Haiku Challenge Haiku: a 17 syllable poem, typically written in lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Today, we are going to go all “twelve-days-of-Christmas” and try to write 12 holiday-inspired haiku in a hurry. Check out the prompt below for some possible topics. I’ll post the results as they become available! And, […]
Tonic Tuesday Donate to the Daily Bread Food Bank* Today, we’ll be gathering canned goods, dried beans, and pasta to give to the Daily Bread Food Bank box at our local grocer. We’ll also be making a contribution online. Who’s on your giving list today? _____________ The Food Bank supports more than 200 Food Programs across […]
Sketch-It Sunday Read and Illustrate Much Ado About Nothing, Acts I-III You didn’t think we’d go without reading and illustrating Shakespeare during Advent, did you? After 2012’s Winter’s Tale and 2013’s As You Like It, and March Break’s adapted Bearicles, you couldn’t possible have thought we’d go without? Of course, we’re back! And we’re in […]
Stir up Saturday Cherry and Pistachio Studded Shortbread Cookies The kids were so excited by the flavours of last year’s Chewy Christmas Nougat that they asked for more Cherry and Pistachio treats this year. Add one more recipe to the Holiday Treats Recipe Round-Up! Here’s an easy cookie to prepare ahead of time and slice and bake at the […]
Festive Friday Take-out Chinese and a Triple Feature: The Maltese Falcon, Murder My Sweet, and The Lady in the Lake We always have a film festival on Fridays in advent. Last week, you’ll notice, we snuck in our movies under the guise of our Tree-Trimming party. This week, it’s on to something that’s become a […]
Throw-Back Thursday Make Picasso Santa Holiday Cards and Bake Turkish Pizzza Pides KIDS’ DIY PICASSO SANTA HOLIDAY CARDS Today’s art prompt is based on two of our previous activities. Last Advent, I asked the kids to draw portraits of Santa in the styles of Modigliani, Kahlo, Klee and Etrog. And, last summer on our sister […]
Write-It Wednesday Use a line from Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” a.k.a. “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” as the inspiration for your own poem or story! Today, we’re doing some free-writing based on a Christmas classic. Using the prompt above, the kids will create their own Christmas or not-so-Christmas poem or story. […]
Tonic Tuesday Give a Family an Endless Harvest via Plan Canada Today is one of our giving days. Today, we’ll be purchasing one of Plan Canada’s Gifts of Hope. The gift of an Endless Harvest will support a family in a developing country by giving them the ability to create and maintain their own garden. […]
It’s Sketch-It Sunday once again. Create Your Own Illustrations of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Today, after reading aloud key scenes from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, we’ll get out our best pens and paper and create original illustrations of our own.
It’s Stir-Up Saturday once again! Last week, we guaranteed you a Christmas Cake with absolutely no candied fruits. Well, this week, we’re fitting in the one candied item the kids absolutely adore…Ginger! When I asked the kids what their “ideal cookie” would be, they both concurred – Gingerbread! With this in mind, they demanded a new, very […]
