Merry Christmas!

I'm really hating that I tried to cram all this Christmas fun into 2 days instead of 4, but it was still so fun and magical, and that leaves me lots of activities with no repeats for next year!

Dramatic Play

Christmas tree! I only decorated out of reach, so they could finish the bottom half. I want them to know they can touch something they might be told at home that they can't (and I get that, but at preschool, it's theirs, so I want them to feel some ownership).  They could hang up some of my shatter proof ornaments, or had 2 options to make their own.





I also have Christmas masks and hats, plus presents they can open and shut and add things too, and bags and stockings. Their turn to play Santa! It's fun to watch them fill and deliver the gifts to each other.




Their finished tree and ornaments:









Blocks

Christmas Duplos. Aren't they the cutest? I found them last year when my then 3-year-old threw me for a loop and asked for a reindeer toy. He treasures these so I was excited he offered to let the preschoolers play with them.




Magnatiles and jingle bells. It's so fun to play with magnets and metal!


Art

We made waffles for snack, then had these beaded Christmas trees to decorate. It's a great fine motor skill!


Christmas stamps


Small Manipulatives

Christmas puzzles


Beanbag toss. It's obviously more of a large motor skill than the fine-motor skills I usually keep in this area, but an important skill either way!


Fun Christmas magnets


Reading Center

2 stuffed animals dropped by for reading time!



Writing Center

Christmas cards. I could NOT believe how popular this one got! They all attacked it at the same time and were so dang excited about envelopes. And the fact I said they could take them home, but mostly because there was a little mailbox by the tree they could put them in. They used every card I had. I had to refill the center a few times.


Snack

Day 1, we had Christmas tree waffles with blueberry ornaments. A huge hit, inspired by Pinterest!

Day 2, we had hot chocolate and graham crackers.

Large Group

We learned about the word celebrate and sang Jingle Bells with real bells.

Day 1, we read Llama Llama Holiday Drama. Then we played this fun movement game where they got to move their bodies around the room like these Christmas objects or characters. It's from this blog.

Day 2, we read Polar Express and did our small group centers with mom helpers.

Small Group

Day 1, I helped the kids make "name trees" to review the letters in their names.

A mom helper did ornament counting with the other group.

Day 2, my group made candy canes with red and white beads to learn an AB pattern, and practice the letters in their name with letter beads.

Another group with a mom helped practiced their letter names on a Polar Express coloring page. She helped them add puffs of smoke with the letters of their name in the right order.

The other mom helped the kids make bead patterns on bell necklaces.


Also, I hope you enjoy your ornament gift! I was inspired by these on Pinterest, and found supplies at Dollar Tree to make them work. Their pictures were adorable. I just used clear plastic cups, foam snow, and added a character eraser, and a little sequin ribbon to jazz it up. They were so excited to take their pictures when I showed them what it was for. Hope you liked them as much as the kids did! I let them help put them together (besides the hot glue), but they got to watch that part.

Merry Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas just 1 day this year, instead of a whole 2 weeks! Trying to keep things fresh and new :) Here's a quick run down of what we did:

Dramatic Play Area
Trains! 2 different kinds I have. This was busy all day, building and driving.


Blocks:
Christmas bean bag toss. The bean bags also became Christmas presents, being delivered as toys throughout the day.


Art:
Christmas stamps


Small Manipulatives:
Gingerbread men decorating

Christmas ornament counting

Santa magnets


Writing:
Christmas cards. This was the busiest center all day long. Cards were being made and delivered to each other constantly. It was fun to watch them make sure they made one for all their friends, and no one was left out! Everyone got a card from someone. A few lucky family members may have had cards come home too.


Snack:
We had a Polar Express Theme to the day, and wore our pajamas to school. So, we read the book before we ate snack, then we drank hot chocolate and had cookies, like the kids on the train.

Small Group:
One group decorated sugar cone Christmas trees. Frosting them was quite the challenge, but a doable one that took a little time. Adding the candy was the fun part!
The other group was making jingle bell necklaces by adding beads in a pattern. They did a wonderful job creating and repeating their patterns! They definitely have that skill down and ready for Kinder.

Large Group:
We had already read together, so we sang a few Christmas songs, then it was already time to go home! We had a fun and busy day!

Merry Christmas!

I wish this theme could last all month! There are so many fun Christmas-themed learning activities, that it was hard to narrow them down to just 3 days worth, but I think we got it all crammed in.

Dramatic Play
Christmas tree! I decorated the top half, and they added ornaments as they made them in art, so the bottom was decorated too.
I also have this random assortment of foam Christmas masks I inherited from a retiring teacher back in my public school days. They are a huge hit each year! I added presents under the tree, and we had kids dressed up as Santa, his elves, and reindeer. They turned the bean bag chairs from the reading center into their sleigh, and they spent the day delivering presents to the kids in class. They also went to the writing center to make cards to go with their gift deliveries. I loved watching them play and get along together, plus get creative in their gift giving and play.

 

Blocks
I had out a bean bag toss and bean bags. It was used a lot, but the bean bags also went into the presents for delivery by Santa and his elves.

We played with the magnatiles and jingle bells. They would use them around the blocks since they stuck to the magnets, and they also liked making houses to fill with the bells.


On the last day, I got out our trains and tracks. They loved them! My kids had actually gotten them out over the weekend, and although they weren't on my original plan, I left them out because trains around a tree just says Christmas to me.




Art
Day 1, we made ornaments. I had a variety of foamie ornaments and stickers. I wanted something that didn't have to dry and could be hung up immediately.



 

Day 2, we played with peppermint scented play dough. It made the whole room smell peppermint-y, and we also had the cinnamon smell from the salt dough for small group, so the room smelled extra Christmas-y and yummy! I love adding the smells into the sensory play.




Day 3, we painted our dried salt dough ornaments. When I look at the Pinterest versions, they're all perfect and cute and I want that, but I also want them to be the kids' creations, so they were not perfect, but I think they turned out pretty darn cute. Hope you enjoyed them as well! A few kids chose not to paint them, and a few missed school the last day, so some of you also got to enjoy them in all their natural color glory!
 


Small Manipulatives
Christmas tree and Santa magnets


I used styrofoam christmas trees with pipe cleaners in them, and the kids decorated them with beads. Its a great fine motor exercise for little fingers!

The next day, I used the same trees, but put thumb tacks in them and had small elastics for them to stretch over them, to make geoboards. This was my first year trying it. They each tried it at some point, but not many of them stayed for long. It was a pretty difficult skill, but definitely doable.

On the third day, we had Christmas tree print outs on cookie sheets, with magnetic pom pom balls to decorate them. This is a great fine motor skill, and also helps teach counting and number recognition.
 
On the table, I had out foam gingerbread men, with pom poms, bows, and gems they could use to decorate and re-decorate them. I had a lot of fun at this center with a group of kids, making silly gingerbread men. I added the tweezers to help with fine motor skills, but they mostly used their hands, which was easier.
 

Writing
The first and third day, I had out Christmas cards (thank you Dollar Tree!), and they were a huge hit. I think we went through 40. Some made some to take home for family, while others used them as part of their play in delivering, and I had quite a few delivered to me. It was just great watching them write and color as they dictated what they were "writing." This is such an important pre-writing skill.

The second day, I had out Christmas stamps. Some came home with the stamps also up and down their arms. We also had a lot of pretty pictures made and delivered to each other.
 
Large Group
Day 1, we read the Grinch who Stole Christmas, then talked about being kind to show love at Christmastime. We made hearts where they kids drew, and we wrote, what they could do to be kind at home, and what they could do to be kind at school. We sent the family ones home, and hung up the school ones on our wall to help us remember.

Day 2, we read the Polar Express. Then we made jingle bell necklaces. I wanted them to make patterns, and they were great at following and extending the patterns I made first. Some of them made patterns, while others would make 1 pattern for a bit, then switch to another one. Some didn't make a pattern at all, but that was fine. Threading the beads onto the string was a difficult, but doable, fine motor skill for them.

Day 3, was our Christmas party. Thanks to the moms who came and helped! We rotated between 4 different centers to learn about different holiday celebrations. Each read a book and did a craft.
Group 1 celebrated Christmas by making beaded candy canes on pipe cleaners. They worked on fine motor skills, as well as patterning.
Group 2 celebrated Saint Lucia Day from Sweden by making hats. The girls made wreath hats with candles like Saint Lucia wears, and the boys made cone-shaped star hats.
Group 3 celebrated Kwanzaa by weaving mats, called Mkeka. It was a great fine motor skill for them.
Group 4 celebrated Hanukah by playing the Dreidel game. They loved it! I sent home a bag of Hanukah gelt (chocolate coins) and a dreidel made from a pencil, if they wanted to try to play again at home.

Small Group
My group used cinnamon salt dough found here, to make handprint mittens, inspired by this. I loved how the smell enhanced the play. They really wanted to eat them since it smelled so good! I did cinnamon graham crackers for snack Thursday, since they wanted to eat cinnamon so much, and they tasted much better than the salt dough would have.

Miss Kim's group worked on spelling their names and putting the letters in order, by making name Christmas trees. It was a little difficult, making the names go vertical, but they got it with help. They got to decorate them with markers too.

Christmas

 As I always say, we had a great time these last 2 weeks! How can you not have fun, celebrating the holidays?

 Dramatic Play
We went back to the housekeeping dramatic play (always a favorite) with the addition of 2 Christmas trees (one was a felt one on the wall) and Christmas masks. The kids love the masks and had fun playing "Santa Claus" and delivering presents, made from empty boxes I had wrapped and placed under the tree. The mirror was awesome this week because they loved switching masks and checking themselves out.


 
 Blocks 
The block area was taken over by the Christmas tree and fake presents, plus the felt tree on the wall. This is also where we collected your donations, under the tree in big wrapped boxes. I also had the doll house out. Maybe the old-fashioned feel of a doll house under s Christmas tree makes me think of Christmas. The dolls even had their own little tree.


Art 
We made snowflakes for our class tree. I had the paper cut into squares and folded, and they only had to cut it. I knew it'd be hard, but they did a great job! I was impressed. They all cut off the corners because that was the easiest, some cut out a few more shapes, and they mostly cut slits. I only had to help a little. They loved opening them to see their creation! We then added glue and glitter. It was a fun mess!

 Day 2, we painted the salt dough ornaments they had made Tuesday. They were all colorful and bright! A true preschool masterpiece. You can see a few on our tree.

 We decorated these styrofoam "trees" with pipe cleaners and pony beads from here. It was planned as a fine motor activity for the small manips area, but it fit better at the art table. I honestly didn't expect it to be a big hit, but they all did it! They really wanted to take them home too, but they stayed at school. It was a really good fine motor skill that required a lot of concentration. I was also pleasanly surprised when I checked them out to see how many patterns were made, with no help or prompting to do so by me!

 
We played with peppermint playdough. I used my usual recipe, but added some peppermint extract so they smelled like candy canes. It still smelled like playdough, but left their hands peppermint-y and they loved that. Some even tasted it, and regretted that. We had Christmas cookie cutters and this was a very popular center!

 Small Manips
We had Christmas ABC and picture puzzles.

We played Charlie Brown Christmas dominoes.

We played with the counting tree magnets. There are magnets on the pom poms so they can attach to the trees on cookie sheets. It's a great counting activity. I made the sheets with non-copyrighted pictures, so you can download them here if you want to try them out at home.


I made this bean bag toss board, and the kids loved having a fun and active game, that required sharing and taking turns! It was a hit.

We had out 2 books on cd, The Polar Express, and The Night Before Christmas the whole 2 weeks too. 

Writing 
This is usually a rotation of stamps, stickers, and stencils in addition to the writing materials always available, so Christmas added a fun twist.
We had Christmas cards out the first day, and I put them away, except every day they begged for them, so I had to pull them back out each day. They wrote and delivered them to each other for 4 days and it was so cute and kind!
 We also had Christmas stamps and stickers.
 

 Snack 
Besides the usuals, we had Christmas tree waffles for snack. The kids helped prepare the batter, then cleaned up as I cooked them. I cut their waffles into 4 triangles and stacked them to look like trees. I got the idea from here on pinterest, but ours weren't quite as fancy :) They were tasty, and almost each kid ate 2! 

Here's the recipe we used (they especially loved beating the egg whites)
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup oil
Mix together dry ingredients. Combine egg yolks and milk. Stir into dry ingredients. Stir in oil. Beat egg whites until very stiff. Fold into batter. Don't over mix. Makes about 8 waffles.

The last day, we bagged the healthy thing for once, and decorated sugar cookies that we ate with hot (lukewarm) chocolate. It's Christmas :)

Outside
Snow. We figured if I dress them as we eat snack, we can get 10-15 minutes of outside time before we need another 5-10 minutes to get boots and coats off for large group. It's time consuming, but they need the active time, and they love it so it's worth it. We did have 2 inside days with the inversion and storm.

 Large Group 
We read "Merry Christmas Mouse" and "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" with my stuffed mouse as incentive to listen quietly (we passed it to good listeners as we read). We wrote our favorite Christmas traditions in our journals, then instead of small group, our Mom helper helped us make salt dough hand print ornaments. Their favorite part seemed to be helping make and mix the dough. They each rolled them out themselves too and did a great job!
 Day 2, we celebrated St. Lucia Day and read about and looked at pictures of how they celebrate in Sweden. For small group, we split into boys and girls to make our hats. The boys made cone "star boy" hats and the girls made candle wreaths. I wanted to get a group picture, but as they finished we were getting coats on and such and just run out of time.

 Day 3 was all about Christmas trees (this is the day we had the counting trees in small manips, the styrofoam trees in art and trees for snack). We read "The Best Christmas Tree Ever" and then made our name trees. Man, these kids are SMART! I had their trees cut with the letters of their name, and they had to spell out their name to make their tree. Then they used their markers to decorate their trees with ornaments. Without prompting, they started comparing names and counting how many letters each person had, who had more and fewer, and which letters were the same and different. I never had to lead the conversation or butt in, yet they were doing all sorts of great learning from each other!
 
 Day 4 was about finishing our service project for The Road Home. A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you for donating. We were able to go above and beyond my original plans, and add a few extra items to each kit, plus have boxes of donations beyond just the Hygiene kits, so thank you! During snack, I started the movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and they gathered on the floor to watch once they finished. I then called them over one at a time, so they could each pack a kit. They were very thoughtful in picking things they liked the best. Each kit had: shampoo, soap or body wash, washcloth, comb or hair brush, tissues, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, tooth brush, flossers, chapstick, a toy, plus a crocheted stuffed animal (hand-made by my Grandma, the Great-Grandma of 4 of our students). The bags were even hand made by one of our preschool grandmas so the kids have a good bag to keep!
 
 
 
 
We had to cut the movie short (skipped some scenes to end it quickly, but I explained them all and they got to watch the ending). We played 2 active games (it was needed on a day we skip outside play). The first was finding Gingerbread Men and Women around the preschool, by searching for the ones that matched the ones I had. The second game was this one from Pinterest. They LOVED it and I highly recommend if for getting some wiggles out! We then passed out some presents, and did small group before heading home on a crazy snowy day!

Small Group
The first week we skipped it, for help in large group activities.
The second week, we made candy canes with pipe cleaners and pony beads. It was a good fine motor activity, and patterning activity to practice our math skills.
My group made handprint Christmas trees.