Incorporating reading into Christmas activities
Posted: December 9, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized 49 Comments
In exactly two weeks and two days it will be Christmas day. I enjoy this time of year as there is a lot of focus in my life on sharing, giving, and charity. My firm and my church undergo various outreach and charity programmes to help a large spectrum of underprivileged schools, churches, and families.
This year, the Community Service Initiative team at work organised gifts for 100 school children who were graduating from a nursery school. The gift packs included a selection of party foods and one of my Sir Chocolate Books. These were packed into a good quality school satchel so the children have one to use for school next year. A few volunteers from my office, suitable sanitised and masked, went to the school to help give out the gifts.
Christmas time is also traditionally a time when families gather. Every year, my mother and I host a large family lunch-time gathering at which we serve a traditional hot meal of roast lamb, roast potatoes and a large variety of vegetables. This year we are expecting 16 adults and 7 children for the day. My son, Michael, has undertaken to cook the meat and the vegetables this year as he has become a lot more confident with his cooking skills.
In addition to the Christmas meal, I always make the Christmas treats and puddings.
The preparation of a large meal and a few desserts are great learning opportunities for children. They can help you read the recipes and information on the the packets, boxes, and tins containing the various ingredients.
Aside from reading, there are a number of other benefits to baking with children, as follows:
- Baking enhances fine motor skills. Get your children to mix, knead, stir, roll-out, cut-out and decorate. These activities all help with the development of fine motor skills;
- Teaches children math’s. Measuring liquids and weighing or measuring dry ingredients teach children about mass and volume. Heating the oven imparts information about temperatures and sometimes a conversion is required for a recipe from Fahrenheit to Celsius. There can also be conversions from pounds, ounces and pints to grams and milliliters.
- Illustrates scientific principles. The combination of certain food items results in specific chemical reactions which are instructive and interesting.
- Increases focus and intention. Children need to concentrate throughout the baking exercise or the ingredients will not be added correctly and the baked items may not turn out well.
- Teaches life skills. Cooking and baking are life skills which facilitate the growth of independence in children.
How to make a home-made Christmas cracker
I recently read Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition: 101 Ways to Celebrate the Holiday Season on a Budget by Charlie Lee Austin which includes a large number of fun activities to do with children during the Christmas season.
One of the ideas was to make home-made Christmas crackers.
You will need scissors, empty toilet roll inners, crinkle paper cut into rectangles that are large enough to gather and tie on both ends of the toilet roll inners, three chocolates per cracker, curling florists ribbon, and sticky tape.
Cut the crinkle paper into rectangles as show in the pictures. Use a piece of sticky tape to attached the edge of the crinkle paper to the toilet roll inner. Gather one of the ends and tie with curling florists ribbon. Run the ribbon over the edge of the blade of the scissors to make the ends curl. Insert your chocolates into the cracker. Gather the remaining end and tie with curling florist ribbon.
To add an additional reading and writing exercise to this activity, search on the internet for some fun Christmas jokes for Christmas crackers [there are lots on Pinterest]. Get your child to write out the joke and insert it into the Christmas cracker. On Christmas day the children can take turns reading the jokes to each other.
My review of Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition by Charlie Lee Austin
This little book is packed with fun and economical ways of celebrating Christmas with children, friends and family. It has a strong Christian orientation and some of the activities relating to the Bible, but there are many other ideas that can be enjoyed by people of any religious orientation.
Reading the ideas presented in this book reminded me of two of my favourite childhood books. Little Women when the girls decide to play a variation of pilgrims progress and also when they celebrate Christmas without their father, who is fighting in the war, and all decide what gifts to buy their Marmee. I was also taken back to the glorious days when I read What Katy Did for the first time. My favourite scenes in this book are when Katy decides to make all sorts of Christmas gifts for her siblings and best friend. She creates a Christmas tree decorated with home-made decorations like popcorn strings and they children have a poetry reading evening where they all read a poem they have written.
The suggestions in this book are simple and yet so much fun to make. The ideas include making a pinata from clay pots and paper mache, making Christmas crackers from toilet roll innards, and making Christmas candles.
A great book of activity ideas to entertain young young children over the holiday period.
Purchase link
Merry Christmas
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and lets hope for a great New Year with an end to the pandemic.
About Robbie Cheadle
Robbie Cheadle has published nine books for children and one poetry book. She has branched into writing for adults and young adults and, in order to clearly separate her children’s books from her adult books, is writing for older readers under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Robbie Cheadle’s Sir Chocolate children’s picture books are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision. Her books for older children also incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Roberta Eaton Cheadle’s supernatural stories combine fabulous paranormal elements with fascinating historical facts.
Children’s picture books – available as a square book and an A5 book (co-authored with Michael Cheadle):
Sir Chocolate and the strawberry cream story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the baby cookie monster story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Condensed Milk River story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Crystal Caves story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Fondant Five story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Ice Cream Rainbow Fairies story and cookbook
Middle school books:
Silly Willy Goes to Cape Town (includes five fun party cake ideas)
While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with Elsie Hancy Eaton)
Poetry book:
Open a new door (co-authored with Kim Blades)
Supernatural fantasy YA novel:
Through the Nethergate
Horror Anthologies (edited by Dan Alatorre):
Spellbound
Nightmareland
Dark Visions
Paranormal Anthologies (edited by Kaye Lynne Booth):
Spirits of the West
Whispers of the Past
Murder mystery Anthology (edited by Stephen Bentley)
Death Among Us
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
Writing to be Read 
Reblogged this on Robbie's inspiration and commented:
I am over at Writing to be Read with my final Growing Bookworms post of 2020. This month I am sharing some ideas about how to incorporate reading and other learning skills into preparations for Christmas. Thanks for hosting me, Kaye Lynne Booth.
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What great ideas for Christmas, Robbie. 🙂 I bet kids don’t even realize they are gaining important skills, but rather just see it all as fun activities.
And your birds on logs cake is darling! 😉
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Thank you, Kaye. I try to get my kids and nieces and nephews to do some artistic and baking activities to distract them from the TV and computer games they spend so much time playing. Balance is everything.
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Sounds like a busy time of year for you, but I’m sure you’ve got it under control. That’s great that Michael is helping out with the dinner, that’s a lot of people to be serving.
I’ve never heard of Christmas crackers, but it looks like a fun gift.
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Really, Jim? Don’t they have Christmas crackers in the USA? The store bought ones have a banger inside and often a small trinket and a paper crown. They are a fun Christmas item.
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I’ll have to ask my wife, but they do not sound familiar to me…
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I have never heard of them.
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OK, good. It’s not just me! :0
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Lol. Nope. You’re not alone, Jim. 🙂
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my wife just told me that is familiar with them, and has seen them. but we’ve never had one. maybe this year… 🙂
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That would make a fun change, Jim.
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I’ll let you know if we find any…
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That is so interesting that you don’t have Christmas crackers in the USA. Well, now you can make your own [smile].
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🙂
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It´s so great to get the whole family involved.
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Thank you, Darlene. I am pleased that Michael enjoys cooking. There is so much pleasure in socializing over good food. it is a life skill.
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It´s so great to get the whole family involved.
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Fabulous ideas, Robbie. I used to love this time of year with my kids and would always involve them in all sorts of cooking and decorating activities, and they loved it. A brilliant idea about the crackers. The best time of year. Toni x
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Hi Toni, pre Christmas is also my favourite time of year. It is spring/summer and I enjoy the build up to Christmas and the big family celebration.
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I love the same things, and also enjoy it in summer here in Canberra. xx
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Any time you can make learning fun, I am all for it
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I agree, Annette. Learning should be fun.
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What a big project Michael is taking on – cooking for that many people! I have every confidence he can do it after spending so much time with you in the kitchen. Those jokes are adorable, lol.
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Thank you, Teri. My mother and I will help him as needed, of course, but he is quite competent with cooking. He’s not that good at washing up though haha!
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Crackers crack me up! Looks like so much fun!
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I love crackers, Pam. I have made them for many events and for home.
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I love the idea of giving a gift in a satchel! It doesn’t even need to be wrapped so less harm to the environment.
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It was a good and useful idea, Tandy. We put the party sweets in brown paper bags and not plastic.
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How nice! Thank you to Robbie, and you for hosting! With Robbie there is always a lot of fun for children. Thank you also for the review, of the Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition. Michael
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My pleasure, Michael. I am glad you enjoyed this post. I have always been an arty sort. Hugs.
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🙂
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Thank you, Michael. Christmas is all about children, isn’t it? Mine are older now, so I ‘borrow’ my nieces and nephews. We also make goodies for underprivileged kids.
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What an expression “borrowing nieces an nephews”. Lol Sorry, but its true. For the elder ones its – especially here – only walking to the church. A good way helpin the kids in such situations. Thank you, and enjoy your weekend!
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Your homemade Christmas crackers look much nicer than store-bought ones! Christmas sounds like a lot of fun in your house, Robbie- enjoy ❤
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Thank you, Jacquie. It is lovely to have everyone gather to enjoy the day.
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Awesome post Robbie. I think I am going to make Christmas crackers for my Christmas dinner, but will put lots of jokes in them and just a bit of candy. I like the tradition from Iceland. Christmas Eve, everyone gets a book as a gift to read. I love that idea.
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Hi Carla, my kids get a pile of books very year. I have some really great ones for this years gifts. Hugs.
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I love giving books for gifts, I just wish everyone did.
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That is a top notch tradition, Carla. Thanks for sharing it. I had never heard that, but I do think books make wonderful gifts. I gave a book for a gift this Christmas, and will always keep it at the top of my Gift Idea List. I just give people things that I would want to recieve. I love getting books. If you know someone fairly well, you can usually pick out a book to fit the recipient. But, we’re talking print books here. Digital books aren’t any fun to give as gifts. Gotta be print.
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I also love getting book, Kaye. I also give books and already bought my book gifts. I also give physical books and usually ‘special’ ones.
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Yes, it has to be print, so you can wrap it up!
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I spent a lot of back-and-forth trying to understand what a Christmas cracker was… the vast language gap from “southern American” to “English,” LOL!
“So they’re mostly for Christmas… are they firecrackers?” — “What at the table? We might have fireworks, but not at the table.”
“Are they crackers then, like saltines?” — “Sometimes they might be crackers, if the person likes them.”
“What do you do with crackers?” “I put them in soup.” “Why would you do that?”
It was exhausting. If only they’d had your photos. 😀
Thanks for this delightful post, Robbie.
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I only discovered when I posted this, Teagan, that lots of Americans don’t know about Christmas crackers. The shop bought ones do go bang as they have a snapper inside them. I don’t like the bang so I don’t put them inside mine. They really are fun and, for me, an essential part of Christmas.
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Michael is cooking the meat and vegetables for Christmas dinner? I am very impressed!
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He asked to do it, Liz. He has looked up recipes and written a meal plan. I will help him, of course. And do all the washing up [wink].
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He must have an appreciation for how rewarding it is to cook food that people enjoy, particuarly when it’s for a special occasion.
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I’m sure he does, Liz. That is what we do in this house. Special foods at Easter, birthdays, and Christmas.
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That’s what family is all about!
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