So Scary is super good at staying up on reading blogs. She found this awesome idea of making Nativity Blocks for your kids on Yellow Spool and pinned it on my Pinterest board (she's always doing this for me, which I love; If you want to ever see a random board, this is it).


This is a really amazing idea especially considering we had tons of extra blocks (that Power Shoes made from a 4X4) just waiting for a purpose.

I liked the general notion, but I wanted a stronger contrast because things to be bold. I put my Silhouette to work (as I do for most projects).
WARNING: This is not for the faint of heart. This took hours, but I really love it.


We used black stain (left over from my table refinish) on the blocks. I had some white vinyl and I downloaded some nativity images from Silhouette using my subscribe and save credit. Most of the time was spent in weeding the vinyl and making sure we hadn't lost any dots on the i's.Yellow Spool has a free printable to do the light ones.

Both my toddler and baby really love this. I am relieved to have a nativity out that I don't have to spend more time letting the glue dry on it than it is actually on display. This is something that I see myself having and still being loved even when I am a great grandma.

Enjoy!



I used most of the phrases from Yellow Spool, but added some of my own words on the blocks that needed more.

Jesus

•  J
• Savior of the World
• Only Begotten of the Father
• Luke 2:11

Mary

•  M
• Mother of Christ
• Virgin
• Luke 1:27-31

Joseph

• J
• Mary's Husband
• Carpenter
• Matt. 1:18-21

Wise Men

•  W
• Gold, Frankincense, & Myrrh
• Traveled from the East
• Matt. 2:1-2, 10-11

Shepherds

•  Sh
• He is our Shepherd
• Visited the Babe
• Luke 2:15-16

Angel

•  A
• Heavenly Messenger
• Glad tidings of great joy
• Luke 1:28-30, 2:8-12

Camel

•  C
• {spit}
• Came w/ Wise Mend from Afar

Sheep

• Sh
• Baaah
• We are His Sheep

Donkey

•  D
• Hee-Haw
• Carried His Mother

Cow

• C
• Mooo
• Gave up Manger for His bed

Star

• St
• Sign of Christ's Birth
• Bright and Guiding
• Matt. 2:9-10

The Wampanoag native american tribe, was the tribe that helped the pilgrims, when they reached the Eastern shores of the United States.
For this unit study we made a Wikkiup.  This is a traditional Wampanoag home.  We used some twigs that we gathered, some moss from the dollar store, a fabric that looked a lot like tanned animal hide to me, some hot glue, and some card board.

 This was our first project, so this became the home for our class pet, Rocky.
 This is Rocky.  We painted Rocky acrylics.   He survives on Faith and Prayer.  Each child gets a turn to take him home for the week, use him as prayer rock,  and bring him back on Fridays.
 We made native american feather headdresses, like those that the Wampanoag people might have worn to the first thanksgiving dinner.
This was a super easy craft.  I let each child pick 10 feathers.  Then we used a banded elastic and a hot glue gun, we glued on the feathers and then tied the band on their heads.  This was a highlight for them, and they were excited to see how different they each were.



We made traditional Wampanoag jewelry using copper beads, seashells, leather strings, and wooden beads.
I bought most of the craft items from JoAnns and the DollarStore.  The kids had a blast.  We also talked about traditional Wampanoag food.  I provided jerky, popcorn, and dried cranberries for the kids to snack on while we made our crafts.
This was a super helpful site, when I was researching what I wanted to share with the kids and how I wanted to share it http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/first-thanksgiving/

Have you ever wanted to have church related coloring pages without having to worry about your kids ruining their church clothing?
There is a website that makes church related coloring pages called, Green Jello with Carrots. On Friday's they have Freebies where if you buy 5 dollars you will get something free, the post the deals on their blog.
Another thing that I love and for me is an absolute essential part of having a little boy is Crayola Color Wonder Paper and markers. Because Ryder (or one of his little friends) can mark where ever they want to (walls, tables, clothing, etc.) but the color only shows up on the paper.

Yesterday I decided to experiment and see if I could print one of Green Jello with Carrots images on color wonder paper without it creating any problems? And it totally worked!

This is the picture that James and I did together.

1. The size of the Color Wonder Paper that I had was 8 by 10 so on my printer I set the paper size to 8 by 10. Then I scaled the image to fit on an 8 by 10 (on the program I was using their was just a check box to scale the image to the size of paper, otherwise you might have to resize it yourself).
2. I put a single sheet into the Rear Feeder Tray of our printer. 
3. I set the print quality to fast because I didn't want it putting too much ink down. 
4. James grabbed it out of the printer and we enjoyed non-messy fun. 

I am really excited to see what sort of fun coloring pages I can make for Rhett. I might even take some pages from the Friend.

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