December activities in detail

• He showed a lot of interest in craft work this month, mainly using stickers so we made Christmas cards for all those we knew, which is why so many days are dedicated to making cards! Pictures of the cards we made are posted in the December gallery post.
• Kitchen activities like baking the cake, icing the cake and making gingerbread cookies was fun, though they were messy activities and there is a lot of tasting going on during them. I found that having all ingredients measured and laid out before he joined me was the best for my sanity! We also used some gingerbread dough as playdoh the next day.
• Science experiments- we tried two: 
• Milk in a saucepan, food dye mixed with little water in a few bowls (different colors) and a bowl with little dish soap. Use a Q-tip to dip in food dye bowl and then dip it in milk. Now use another Q-tip to dip in dish soap bowl and then touch it to the food dye drop in milk and watch it spread beautifully.
• Sprinkle some baking soda on a plate and place 1-2 candy canes on the plate as well. Fill a dropper/ small bottle with vinegar and I let him squirt it onto the candy canes on the baking soda and watch it sizzle. Of course have extra candy canes on the side to nibble on during the process!
• Decorate small Christmas tree: I got a small Christmas tree from the Dollar Store and we decorated it with pom poms and bead chains and bead jewelry I had. 
• Coloring ginger bread man: I had a cut out of gingerbread man and we decorated it. 
• Carols: Almost everyday we sang Christmas songs like Jingle Bells and 12 days of Christmas. Christmas songs on YouTube by Super Simple Songs were his favorite. For Carol Singing, the family got out jingles, shakers and drums and spent some time playing music and singing the Christmas songs. Jingle Bells was his favorite!
• I got removable window stickers from Dollar store that we stick to window panes using water. Spent some time with water spray, a dish cloth and the stickers.
• Visiting the Santa and the Christmas movie did not go very well lol! He was very much intimidated by the Santa and would not go near him. He sat for the Christmas movie too (Moana 2) for around an hour and that too because he had popcorn and juice. Hopefully they might work better for you!
• Fake snow: I did not put too much effort into this. Just spread a not-so-nice blanket (I had one reserved for messy plays) and put his tractors, cranes and dump trucks on it along with a box of rice powder and a tiny bottle of water to squirt water from. I gave him the small shovel and bucket from his beach toys and he was occupied for 20-30 minutes. 
• Simon says: We play this game with him on the bed and me standing at the foot of the bed pretending to be Simon, a giant. There is exaggerated twirling and growling before Simon says what to do and once he copies Simon will fly him like an airplane and throw him on the bed. He loves this version!
• Build a fort- We did this using his toddler bed on the floor and I just folded  the bedsheet in half, bunched up a corner and put a band around it and hung the band on a nail high above the bed and  so that the two halves of the bedsheet will form a curtain around the toddler bed, I tucked the falling halves under the bed and hung some string lights too. While it looked cute it didn't interest him much but I had some cushions on the bed and he enjoyed crashing into those cushions for around 10 minutes.
• Family painting- we spread out one chart paper and laid out stamps, stickers, sketch pens and crayons and just went wild on the chart.
• All the activities that he loved have been marked with a heart in the calendar post.