Some Christmas Craft

Wow.......is it Friday yet? What a week! Our student home boys all leave for 2 weeks of Christmas break tomorrow - the week before they leave is ALWAYS frantic.......and we see quite a few behavior issues that take up a lot of our energy - mostly the behavior comes out because many of our guys are going home to situations that are not ideal and as they mentally prepare for the "code switch" , they are sometimes overwhelmed. Please pray for them as they go home this break!
I haven't been feeling well either this week (I just can't seem to shake this cold/flu thing that I've had since Thanksgiving!) so I have not been able to do many of the things I had planned to do with Channing. The picture at the top of the post is Channing with his Grammy (who came to our house today - she even gave Sully his first haircut!).

Due to the fact that there is not much to "show" this week, I thought I'd show you some of the Christmas Crafts we've done over the last few years with the bigger boys.

What's a craft day without cookies....right??! We always start our Christmas craft days by making a ton (so we can eat them all afternoon as we work :-)

This year we had all the guys make their own Christmas tree......Mike drilled about 40 holes in each and we stuck the dowel in crayola clay (the kind that hardens) and stuck it in a votive candle holder......the guys then pushed pipe cleaners through the holes and stuck little beads on the end........we ended up with a bunch of interesting looking ones :-)

I love these ones.....so simple yet they look fantastic on the tree :-)

We made these cute little guys a number of years ago - they are always a favorite with me (I used to make them with my kindergarten class too).

One year I bought some pre-made porcelain stars and the guys wrote their names with puffy paint and decorated with sequins and little jewels - they look great on the tree!

We made these last weekend. The guys did a great job and are looking forward to taking them home to give as Christmas gifts.

Penguin Popsicle sticks....we made this one a few years ago when we had all 5th grade boys! (Most of these guys are still with us but are now in 7th grade).

We're heading to Philly for a few days early next week so things may be a little quiet from me.....I am working really hard on my Winter unit that I'd like to post about next week if I can - we'll see how things go :-)