Friday, December 15, 2006

Gingerbread houses & math games in the car

We're in full holiday mode at our house now after making gingerbread houses and driving around looking for Christmas lights this week.

We took part in a family workshop at the Baxter Library in Gorham to make gingerbread houses. And although it looked as though our house had been through a snow storm thanks to our less than careful work with the frosting adhesive, we did include a hot rod parked next to the house. The girls were pleased to have built a hot rod "just like Grandpa's" and even included a Hershey Kiss date for him. Typical Almeida family humor...

See our Seen Team photos at the gingerbread house workshop

Then last night I took the girls and a couple of their friends out to look at Christmas lights. It's a family tradition to make hot cocoa and pack a bucket of popcorn and candy for a car ride around town looking for light displays.

G. took photos from a few favorite displays. This one was in Standish.

Another favorite display in Windham

A couple of years back I made a math game out of our Christmas lights car adventure to help G. with her math skills. It was so much fun that we now make a tally sheet every year for our trip.


In the 20 miles we drove through various neighborhoods last night, here's what we found.

108 - candy canes
95 - Reindeer
88 - Christmas trees (shrubs didn't count)
50 - Santas
43 - Frostys
36 - Stars
7 - Polar bears
6 - Mangers

There was much discussion about their statistical data on the most popular light display items and which were not.

When I told G. that math really wasn't so bad she replied, "Yeah but this is fun math. Not like the other stuff I have to do."

G. had the camera's video going on the trip as well and took some video clips of a couple of the bigger light displays we saw along the way that she liked.





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