Monday, November 28, 2011

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells ...


Just for fun, the boys are doing Bell Week for school right now. It's nothing fancy and I just have five simple bell crafts lined up for them to make. Today they made these with mini-pony beads, a pipe cleaner, and a little jingle bell. The picture shows Nathan's, which is long and straight. Neil made his curvy and it looks like something Dr. Seuss would have created.

My boys love simple crafts -- the more simple, the better. That's especially true for Neil. He loves doing crafts, but doesn't do as well if there are a lot of steps or if it involves a lot of cutting, gluing, painting, and waiting for things to dry. He likes instant crafts. Hot glue is his friend. Sticking a jingle bell and a few pony beads onto a pipe cleaner is his idea of Craft Heaven.

We just got our Christmas tree set up last night, so now the house is in that horrible state of disarray with boxes scattered from one end to the other. So far, only the tree is up, so my next project will be the Nativities. I collect them and it usually takes me hours to set them all up. I've lost count how many I have. Maybe I'll count them this year.

I also collect Carol of the Bells songs, which I know is kind of a weird thing to collect, but I do. I have over 30 versions of the song and they're all very different from each other. Because there are thousands of versions of this song, I try to make sure the ones I add to my playlist are unique. If there is a new way to perform the song, I'm all over it. I have flutes, pianos, harps, bells, guitars, cellos, fiddles, orchestras, even dogs barking and babies babbling out the tune. It's always been my favorite Christmas song and considering it's Bell Week, it seems appropriate to start up my playlist.

6 comments:

  1. Cute!
    We have boxes all over too. But the tree is done! (still have other decorating to do though)

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  2. My kids and I made one of those pipe cleaner bells a couple of years ago. It was a fun, easy craft. Wow! I can't believe there are that many versions of Carol of the Bells. I'll have to collect of few of my own!

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  3. As a former teacher, I loved those simple crafts that can be made quickly during a class to enrich something for the curriculum. Very cute idea!

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  4. Now I wanna see the Dr. Seuss version :)

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  5. Your sons sound like mine when it comes to crafts.
    But anything is cute when you stick a jingle bell on it!

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  6. I still have boxes out too!

    Don't forget to add "The Carol of the Bells" song to your bell week for school! ;-)

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