SMMART HOLIDAY

Thank you for reading SMMARTideas this year...Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to you!

Check in next year for more SMMART ideas!

SMMART READING: CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS AROUND THE WORLD

I LOVE reading about cultures all over the world...and especially how different countries celebrate their holidays.

Every day in December, this "Christmas Around the World" cultural holiday calendar, from the December 2009 Friend Magazine, describes a holiday tradition from another culture.

Your child can help you read the words or point out letters as you read a tradition every day. As you read about a country's tradition, your child matches a picture to the described event. Tape the picture onto the calendar each day and by Christmas, you and your child will have made 25 cultural discoveries.

My little girl wanted to play the "game" all in one sitting...and we've played it several times since this month.

I thought it would be fun to recreate many of these world-wide traditions with my children. One night we could eat a traditional Liberian holiday dinner or bisquits, rice and beef. Another night we could make little clay lamps and learn about the Indian holiday tradition...or eat our version of traditional holiday cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

Laminate this Christmas Calendar. Cut out the little square pictures and laminate those too. Now you have an international Christmas Tradition Calendar that you can reuse every year.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=622926a816c25210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

SMMART ART: SPARKLING ICE ORNAMENTS

Glittering ice ornaments can adorn your bare bushes outside. This is a twist on the SMMART ice art activity.

Help your child collect small waterproof items of interest around the house and outside. You can be holiday festive and collect red berries and twigs of evergreen. You can even include bird seed for a natural and usable ornament.

Some things that will work well are glitter, small toys, colored yarn, twigs, leaves and small pebbles. Your child can help you cut up the string or ribbon into small pieces. Help your child fill up a bundt cake pan, plastic bowl, ice cube tray, or any other type of mold with water. If you have little holiday plastic ice or chocolate molds, those would work GREAT!

Sprinkle the waterproof trinkets all over the water. Let your child stir up the treasures in the water. Many items will sink to the bottom, but when the mold freezes, those items will show nicely on top of the ice.

Cut a long piece of yarn and fold it in half. Rest the ends of the string inside the mold, so they'll freeze and you'll have a hanger for your ice ornament. Tape down the string onto the side of the mold to ensure that they stay put.

Place the water molds on a cookie sheet and pop into the freezer until completely firm.

Unmold the ice ornaments and hang around your trees, on your deck or outside your window for festive holiday shimmer.

SMMART GIVEAWAY MASTERMIND TOYS WINNER

(Claimed)

Congratulations to:

Mami2jcn said...

The Lego Brickmaster Pirates look good.

mami2jcn at gmail dot com

November 25, 2009 7:04 AM

Be sure to contact me and send your mailing address to, SMMARTideas@hotmail.com before midnight tonight (Dec. 3) to claim your prize. If you don't contact me by midnight, another winner will be posted.