HOMEMADE COTTON WOOL AND MARSHMELLOW SNOWMEN

I some how happened to find an amazing site called "Reading Confetti". The writer Lorie reads to her kids and does fun activites that relate to the stories they have read, making reading more fun and enjoyable for her kids. She had just finished the 12 days of christmas posting each day a new book she has read and a fun activity you can do with your kids. Check out her 12 days of christmas here and the rest of her blog here.
I was so inspired by Lorie's blog that the very next day gg and I went to the library and took out some christmasy story books. I must admit though I did kinda cheat the night before and researched some christmas activites on the net that I thought gg would love, and we had the materials already at home so we wouldn't have to buy anything extra. So when we went to the library I looked for books that related to the activites I wanted us to do and we found them all, plus some (",)
To my surprise the book gg wanted us to get was Country Companions, A Winter Wonderland, which has snowy/christmas activites on each page of the story which was a bonus as it gave me even more activites (",)

The story is about Tom Mouse who has woken up to see the whole village is covered in snow and he can not wait to get outside and play with his friends. They snowball fight, build a snowman and sleigh down the slopes. This book is filled with so much fun getting children and adults in the mood for it to snow.

On the second page it shows you how to make your own snowman out of an empty toilet roll and cotton wool. My mistake was that I bought cotton wool balls because I thought it was best because last year gg and I made a snowman picture by sticking cotton wool balls. You're supposed to use cotton wool pleats to get a distinguished snowman head and body but if you like the look of ours then stick with the cotton wool balls (",) On the plus side I think it is more fun and easier for kids to stick on individual cotton than wrap one piece again and again (I got to cover myself lol)

COTTON WOOL SNOWMEN

You will need:

• empty toilet roll
• cotton wool
• pva glue
• brush
• coloured paper
• tissue paper
• bottle lids
• pipe cleaners

Method:

• Glue all toilet roll
• Stick on cotton wool
• Stick on nose
• Stick on eyes

When we finished gg took the snowmen to the christmas tree and started stacking them on top of eachother. Daddy was at the bottom, mummy was in the middle and gg was at the top (",)

We really enjoyed this activity. gg wasn't feeling well, so we were at home all day but this kept her occupied plus papou (grandad in Greek) also came and joined in and all 3 of us had fun making them together. gg liked the funny voices papou made for each snowman when he gave us a puppet show, she made him do it over and over for about half an hour (",)

Papou left and gg had her nap, then when she woke up I told her we were going to make snowmen to eat out of marshmallows. She was very excited, not because we were making snowmen to eat but because she was going to be eating marshmallows (",)

                                                     MARSHMELLOW SNOWMEN

You will need:

• Marshmallows
• Matchmakers chocolates
• Candy melts or chocolate of your choice melted to act like glue
• Strawberry laces
• Sweets of choice
• Sprinkles
• Broken orange candy melts for nose
• Edible pens

I used what I had in my cupboard as decorations. You don't have to use what we did you can use whatever you have.

Snowmen Marshmallows how to:

• Push marshmallows onto matchmakers (be careful because the matchmakers break easily, also the marshmallows seem to scrunch up together)
• Use some melted candy melts/chocolate to act as glue
• Decorate with choice of sprinkles/sweets etc
• Add facial features with edible pens or sweets
• Add strawberry laces for scarf
• You can stick marshmallows on top of each other rather than using the matchmakers

We both had alot of fun making our marshmallow snowman, even though gg spent most of the time eating all the ingredients (",) She liked using my edible pens because she was making pops "like mummy does" (",) She meant she was decorating like mummy does when mummy makes cake pops (",)

All the activites, this one and the ones I will be posting will all be made by gg with my help when needed, so if they don't look exactly like they should don't let that discourage you from doing the activites with your child. Children have really good imaginations and most of the time they prefer the look of their own creation to ones made by adults. So let them loose and get creating (",)