Activity Village News

5th December 2008

A Message From Lindsay

Well, I made a big blunder in last week's newsletter! I completely forgot to tell you about our new online Advent Calendar - and I'm not sure how I managed to forget because we have been working so hard on it! If you haven't taken a look yet, please visit and catch up on previous days - you'll find a brand new printable activity each and every day until Christmas. So far we've had an advent word search puzzle, a printable board game, two printable mini-coloring books, and a useful "Christmas Wish List" to fill in - and of course there will be more surprises today...

Advent Calendar 2008 (UK and Europe)
Advent Calendar 2008 (Australasia)
Advent Calendar 2008 (US)

Differences in time zones have meant that we rather clumsily need 3 pages this year (next year I'll get some technical help to sort it out magically!) Please don't forget to bookmark your page and come back every day to see what you will find, because you won't find the same printables elsewhere on the site for a while yet!

Also this week we have new Christmas crafts and even more new Christmas printables (see below) as well as some new Hanukkah activities (Hanukkah begins on 21st December this year). We continue to look at the issue of "sleep" in AV Baby (I always felt you could cope with anything if you got a good night's sleep!) And as always we have some interesting sites to explore with your kids in the right-hand column.

What's New At Activity Village?

For UK Visitors - you still have a few days to play our Charlie & Lola game and enter our competition for a chance to win a goody bag worth over £100!
Charlie & Lola Game and Competition

After I sent out last week's newsletter, I realised that I had forgotten to link to our new Christmas and Winter colouring pages. I snuck them in a few hours later, but if you read the newsletter early, you will have missed hearing about these:

We have 6 new Christmas colouring pages (bringing our total Christmas colouring pages to 65!)
Christmas coloring pages

and we have 4 new Winter colouring pages, too.
Winter coloring pages

Printable Christmas mini-booklets - some to read, and others for kids to write and illustrate their own stories!
Christmas booklets

The Little Match Girl is a sad but sweet Christmas and New Year story by Hans Christian Andersen. We have 3 printable versions of the story (one illustrated, one with coloring page, and one mini-booklet), as well as a coloring page, story pages and printables for you to write and illustrate your own version of the story.
The Little Match Girl

We have a great new set of 6 different Christmas acrostic poem printables - something for all ages!
Christmas classroom printables

Sarah and the boys have created 3 great new Rudolph crafts, as well as painting some special "Mince Pies for Santa" plates just to bring out on Christmas Eve - sure to become a family heirloom!
Christmas crafts

We also have some new Hanukkah printables this week...
Hanukkah printables

and some Hanukkah fuse bead pattern ideas, too.
Hanukkah Fuse Bead Patterns

New at AV Baby this week:

Baby Photo Of The Week
Baby Sleep
Excessive night feeding
Products To Help Your Baby Sleep
How To Combat Early Morning Waking
Core Night Method
Safe Sleeping For Your Baby

Diary of a New Mum - Week 27
Eating And Sleeping
In which I discover that even a well-trained baby’s feeding and sleeping can co inexplicably wrong!

Recommended Product

If you have any behavioral issues with your kids, you might want to check out the Better Behavior Wheel, from Robert and Julie Butler. We've been recommending it at Activity Village for over two years now and have had great feedback from purchasers (as well as resorting to it ourselves on occasion!) Available as a digital download, the Better Behavior Wheel allows you to set consequences for undesirable behavior that fit your family - and the unusual and very clever twist of having to spin the wheel to discover your punishment works wonders to take the stress out of the situation for the parent and reinforce the message for the child. This is an excellent product and we recommend it highly.
Product review here
Find out more about the Better Behavior Wheel

A Giggle!

Two little boys were spending the night at their grandparents' house the week before Christmas. At bedtime, the boys knelt beside their beds to say their prayers. The youngest one began praying at the top of his voice.

"I PRAY FOR A NEW PLAYSTATION! I PRAY FOR A NEW FOOTBALL! I PRAY FOR A NEW SCOOTER!"

His older brother turned to him and whispered,

"Why are you shouting? God isn't deaf!"

His little brother replied, "No, but Grandma is!"

Reader Tip of the Week

"I have an old-fashioned string bag hanging on each of our hooks in the hallway - one for each member of the family. All hats, gloves and scarves must be put into the appropriate bag as soon as we walk in the door. It makes going out again so much easier!

Also, I have just finished stitching my youngest boy's gloves onto a length of elastic. I measured from his wrist, up his arm, across his back, and down his other arm to his other wrist. I cut the elastic (black, about 3/4 inch wide, which I had in my sewing chest) to size, then stitched one end to one glove. I then fed the other end through the hanging loop at the back of my son's jacket, then stitched the other glove on and fed the gloves down the jacket sleeves. It works brilliantly. He doesn't lose his gloves! If he doesn't want to wear them, he just slips his hands out and tuck them into his sleeve. If he gets cold again, he pulls them out. I wish I had heard of this trick when my daughters were young!" 

Thanks to Jacki, Edinburgh, stressed but happy mother of 4!

Have You Seen?

There's nothing better than curling up on a cold winter's afternoon with a good book. If your children would rather be watching the television of playing on their games consoles, you might like to have a look at some ideas for encouraging reading!

Something To Think About..

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
Thomas A. Edison

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	Advent
	Hanukkah
	Christmas
	Kwanzaa
	Winter
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