Russell’s Christmas Magic

When asked to participate in the  Christmas Read and Play Blog Hop, we couldn’t decide whether to do an activity based on Aliens Love Panta Claus or Russell’s Christmas Magic. So we did both! You can read about our Aliens Love Panta Claus Christmas Tree decorated in underpants here.

Last year, Adam’s favourite books were based on the Russell the Sheep series by Rob Scotton. Each night we would read either Russell the Sheep,  Go To Sleep or Russell and the Lost Treasure (all affiliate links). You can imagine Adam’s excitement when he  opened  Russell’s Christmas Magic (affiliate links) in his Christmas Eve Box.

When Santa’s sleigh crash lands into Russell the sheep’s tree they are both sure that Christmas will have to be cancelled. However, with a little bit of magic, Christmas is saved. Russell is rewarded with a special bauble which re-ignites the lanterns on his Christmas tree. I wanted to create our own Russell light show. When re-reading the story I remembered the  Recycled Halloween Decorations that Learning and Exploring Through Play created. However, I knew we wouldn’t use enough milk bottles in time so we adapted the activity into Light Up Sheep made with recycled plastic bottles.

I found five recycled clear 2 litre plastic bottles and covered each of them with a strip of A4 white paper. I re-used the same sheep face template that came from our Sheep Shearing activity, which had originally been used as part of our Animal Balloon Herding activity. In the story the majority of the sheep are wearing red Santa hats so I made them from red card and white sticky labels.

In order for lights to go inside the plastic bottle I cut a hole in the back of each bottle.

Russell is known for his very long stripy hat so he was created slightly differently. The hat was made from a green foam sheet and the stripes were added using strips of white sticky labels.

Now it was time to add the Christmas lights. I used three boxes in total. Russell had a box to himself. I inserted the lights into the back of the plastic bottle, making sure they went right to the neck.

All that was left was to turn off the living room lights and turn on the Christmas lights. We instantly had our own Light Up Sheep.

Adam was captivated by the lights. He kept bringing me the book and pointing to the end of the story where Russell’s tree is lit up. He loved it when I pressed a button and the lights changed to flashing. The sheep light up the whole room. We have decided to leave our light up sheep for the rest of the festive season as a Christmas decoration.

Equipment:

* Five plastic 2 litre bottles

* White paper

* Black and red card

* White labels

* Sellotape

* Green foam sheet

* Christmas lights – we used one box per pair of sheep and Russell had a box to himself.

 

Are you looking for Christmas Ornaments crafts to do with your children? Then take a look at Red Ted Art’s Christmas Ornaments ebook. Find 30 festive easy-to-do ideas all in one place. Click here to find out more.

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