Holiday Fun (& A Few GIft Ideas)

Let’s talk holiday fun!

I know this time of year goes by in a flash, so here are some easy to implement activities that you might be able to put to use before winter break in just a few not-so-short days 🙂

At the beginning of the month, my kids were telling me ALL about their elves at home. I thought their little conversations were a perfect springboard for a little graphing activity… “Do you have an elf at home? Or not?” We graphed the data and then made our very own little elves…then we filled out our elf applications to send to the north pole.

The holidays are the perfect time for teaching and reinforcing wants & needs and when I saw this cute idea on Krazy for Kindergarten, I knew I had to incorporate it into my plans. Her activity is PRECIOUS beyond words. We made a little t-chart and sorted a few different clipart pictures based on wants & needs, then I had the kids draw their own pictures and add them to our sacks. We carried that into a little writing activity and I had the kids write a little list of 3 things they wanted and 3 things they need.

Here are a few little writing craftivities we do during the month of December, too! You might remember Santa’s Stuck from the lesson we did last year and the year before that. One of my sweet moms gave me this tub of Christmas stickers and we have these adorable little light die cuts at school that I wanted to use, so I made a simplified version of my little Mooseltoe craftivity and changed up the writing prompt just a bit for my kinder babies. Love it!

No holiday season is complete without a little Christmas around the world. And let me tell ya…our little campus does it up right! I’ve never seen such a sight! The whole school participates and the kids start out by boarding “Eagle Airlines” and flying through the friendly skies to learn about the places they’ll visit on their trip. They got boarding passes and everything. Our administrators even dressed the part! They were precious!!! The scanned the kids’ tickets before they could board the plane and the kids even got little snack packs to take with them after landing.

We visit places like China, Holland, America, France, Germany, Australia, and Mexico. At each stop, the kids got a little “souvenier” and a little snack specific to that country. The parents even come in to decorate each “country” to a T!!!

Talk about a BUSY day! We all have jetlag, for sure 😉

Also, no holiday is complete without a few reindeer games. I added a few extra things to my reindeer stash this year and pulled out a few oldies, but goodies 😉 First up, we brainstormed a list of things that are as red as Rudolph’s nose. My kids did AWESOME! For those of you not from Texas, the “Red Raiders” reference is for my little Texas Techies 🙂 Presh.

After we brainstormed our list of *red* words, we wrote similes! This worked out perfect because our kids were working on the word “as”, so it was the perfect little segue into talking about how the word *as* can be used to compare different things.

This one absolutely KILLS me! “Rudolph has a nose as red as VOWELS.” I LOVE IT!! I’ll often write the vowels in red, so I love that she made this connection! Too cute!

Polar Express day is always fun and we and get to enjoy the movie with cookies and hot chocolate. As a little treat for the kids, we hand out these precious little reindeer hot cocoa treats after we watch the movie…found on Pinterest, of course. Here’s the original source of inspiration. We made it a little easier on ourselves by shoving his nose in the bottom of the bag and then drawing little eyes on the bag with a sharpie. The kids were so excited!

I was super excited to change up parent gifts this year. In the past couple of years, we made cute little snowmen plates to send home to the parents. This year, we made these darling little handprint Christmas trees on canvas boards {8×10…you can find them at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Wal Mart.} They were SO easy and absolutely ADORABLE!!!!! We mixed blue acrylic paint with a little water and had the kids *wash* on the paint with a cotton ball. After it dried…which took all of 2 minutes…we painted their little hands green and went to town. We cut little stars out of yellow foam and had the kids trim the tree with fingerprint ornaments. Love, love, LOVE!!! I even made these at home with my boys and I can definitely say that this will be a tradition we continue until their hands no longer fit on these little canvas boards!!!!