Christmas Activities

Pin the Nose on Olaf

Christmas Tree Stack

Gingerbread Man Finger Puppets

Stuck in a Snow Globe!

Christmas Tree Math

Drive-In Christmas Party

My brother moved here from California (where I grew up) a couple of months ago and stayed at our house for a while. When he moved out he had some empty boxes. He asked me if I wanted him to recycle them. I was about to say yes, when inspiration hit!! 

We made good use of them for our Christmas party this year. We made cars to use at Chipman's Corner Drive-in Theater. : )

I added wheels and headlights to the boxes with large and small paper plates and brads. Then the kids decorated their cars with markers. 

We took them upstairs and watched the old version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

While they watched, they ate the gingerbread men that we made after we decorated the cars. It was pretty fun!

My favorite part was watching all the parent responses when I told them that they got to take the cars home. Some of them gave a very unenthusiastic thank you when they left. Hahaha. 

Math Christmas Trees

Who knew that Christmas was a perfect time to work on math skills? Here are some fun projects we will be working on this month.

The first is math sequencing short to long. Cut patterned papers in varying lengths. Glue a star to the top and let the kids glue the strips from shortest to longest, centered under the star. End with a brown square for the trunk.

The second is practicing counting, number recognition, and one to one correspondence.

One to one correspondence is understanding that when we are counting things, we count one time for each object there is that we are counting. To work on this, I make sure that the kids are touching the things that they are counting, whether it is dots on a number card or objects. I also make sure they count out loud until I feel like they are more accurate with their counting skills. Sometimes kids will count faster than their finger touches things so that they count higher than the number of objects. Or on the opposite, they might touch things faster than they count. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure our finger and our voice are going at the same speed so that we count each thing one time.

This project works on identifying numbers on a dice and one to one correspondence because each circle gets one "ornament."

To play the game, have your kids roll a 10 sided die and add that many pom poms to their Christmas tree until their tree is full.

Mother's Day Thumb Print Key Chains

 If you are looking for a cute Mother's Day gift that your moms will actually use, look no further. We actually made these for our moms as a Christmas gift so I have no reservations about posting this before Mother's Day. I don't know if you've noticed, but posting holiday activities before the holiday starts is definitely an area of improvement for me. :) There are many, many other areas of improvement, but we won't go into that right now.

   Anyway, these adorable key chains are super easy, super cute, and super usable. 

We used a tutorial from another blog that I cannot find for the life of me, so if I used your tutorial and you are reading this, please leave me a comment.

   These are very easy, but need to be done ahead of time to leave time for the paint to dry. 

Here's What You Need:

• Baking Clay (We used Sculpey brand from Walmart) 
• Heart cookie cutter (or you can free hand the heart shape)
• Toothpick
• Large Jump Ring (pliers for opening and closing the ring)
• Key Chain
• Paint (We used a metalic paint to give our hearts some shimmer)

Here's What You Do:

1. Roll out your dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.
2. Cut out a heart shape bigger than the thumb prints you are using.
3. Use toothpick to make a hole for the jump ring in the top left corner of the heart.
4. Use your child's thumb to make a heart print by tilting it to the left, then right, with overlap at the bottom. 
5. 
6. If wanted, etch the child's name and date on the back with the toothpick.
7. Bake in oven according to the package directions. 
8. Paint using two layers of paint. 
9. Pull apart the jump ring with pliers and put it through the whole. Then squeeze it back together
10. Attach the key ring and there you go! 

A sweet Mother's Day gift that your moms won't throw away once the holiday is over. 

Pin the Nose on Olaf

 I don't know about you, but the Frozen sensation has hit our house hard. My kids love listening to the songs. I know a few choice barbies that are going to find their way under the tree this Christmas. Anna and Elsa are great but, Olaf has stolen our hearts this season. 

   I am helping at my daughter's kindergarten class party this week. We decided we are going to play pin the nose on the snowman and then inspiration struck!! I know a snowman who is always loosing his nose and other body parts. Enter the game: pin the nose on Olaf!

 Isn't he adorable! I don't know who's more excited, my kindergartner or me, but I love how he turned out. Nothing like google images, butcher paper, and a good movie to watch. This little guy is about 4 feet tall. 

Here is a pdf with Olaf noses on it for the game. Each child is going to color and cut one out before we play the game. 

Christmas Tree Math

Roll a dice and add that many pom poms to your tree. Use one dice or two or use a 10 sided die.

Let's talk about dice!

There are a lot of different kinds of dice you can use for math games. I mainly use the standard 6 sided dice with dots or a 10 sided die. Depending on what the activity is and what skill I want them to practice, I will use different types. 

•  6 sided with dots are a great way to practice counting and one to one correspondence. (Learning that you count one time for each dot or object in front of you.)
• 10 sided dice with the numbers are a great way to practice recognizing the numbers by sight. For example, I know that my daughter can count objects pretty well, but she has a hard time looking at a number 7 and knowing that means 7. So lately we have been using the 10 sided die more often to help her practice that. 

Either way, both are great math tools and are worth having around to practice numbers!  

Thank you to Kids Matter for the fun Christmas math idea!

Rick Rack Christmas Tree

 Here's a fun project that we did last year as a gift for our parents. I didn't post it before Christmas because I didn't want to ruin the surprise. 

 

Click here for complete instructions.  

I'm Stuck in a Snow Globe!

 I have been wanting to try homemade snow globes since last year's winter theme. So, of course I had to sneak them in this year. The great thing about these is that you can really put anything you want into them. You could do pictures or make your own winter scene. Anything that is small enough to fit and is water resistant, is fair game.  I was actually thinking these might have made fun parent's gifts for Christmas. They were a huge hit with the parents and kids alike.

After doing the project with my big class and my little class, I have to say that this is definitely a small group kind of thing. They turned out adorable and I really loved them, but you use a hot glue gun and a laminator so there was a lot of adult work needed to get these bad boys done. 

We used mason jars to give it more of a clean look, but you could use old glass jars from food or other items. You are also supposed to use glycerin to help the "snow" fall more slowly.You can usually find it in the baking isle or the first aid isle in your grocery store. I'm not sure that it makes a huge difference, but we used it anyway.

We started by making paper dolls like the project we did last year found here. It would also be cute to just take pictures of the kids dressed up in winter gear. I wasn't able to do this because I only have little girls, so all our winter gear is purple and pink. I didn't think the boys would appreciate that too much. : ) Then  laminate the dolls. I used one of these super handy home laminators. I got it on an online black Friday sale and I love it! It is so handy to have and I use it all the time. It is made by Scotch and you can find it all over the place - Walmart, Target, Staples, etc.

 

You have to make sure that the seal on the pictures is completely tight (we learned that the hard way on the first day we made them). So, I actually sent this project through the laminator twice. After laminated, cut out your pictures. Leave a good margin of plastic around the edge to help keep the seal.

Then, use a hot glue to glue a layer of cotton balls on the top of the lid and glue the dolls down sandwiched between the cotton balls.

Fill your mason jar with water and add some glycerin and glitter. We used about a tablespoon of glycerin per jar. We just sprinkled glitter on the top of the water until there was a nice layer of it. Sorry, to be so vague. 

Then slowly submerge your dolls into the water. The cotton will soak up a lot of the water, so you will have to add more. It helps to do this part of the project over a towel because there is a good chance of over flowing. Make sure that nothing gets in between the seal on the lid and the jar. If you don't, the jar will leak. There you have it! 

If you wanted, you could spray paint the lid or add a cute ribbon to the bottom.

Here's What You Need:

• mason jars or other glass jars
• cotton balls
• glitter
• water
• glycerin
• paper dolls or toys to put into the globe
• hot glue gun

Here's What You Do:

1. Make your paper dolls, laminate them, and cut them out leaving a small edge of plastic to keep in the seal.
2. Hot glue cotton balls and your paper dolls to the lid of the jar.
3. Add water, glitter, and glycerin to the jar.
4. Turn dolls upside down and lower them into the jar. (It helps to do this part over a towel or the sink.) Add more water if needed.
5. Seal the lid and enjoy!
6. If wanted, hot glue a ribbon around the lid.

Rick Rack Christmas Trees

I couldn't post this before Christmas because it was the present that we made for our parents. So, sorry that this Christmas post is a little late. We made these rick rack Christmas trees to give as gifts to our parents. They turned out so cute and the kids did a great job making them. It was an art and math lesson all in one. The kids worked on their math skills by comparing the lengths of the different ribbons and putting them in order from shortest to longest.

 

 Here's What You Need:

• green rick rack ribbon
• patterned Christmas paper
• a star for the top - we used paper stars
• mat

Here's What You Do:

1. Cut your paper to fit your mat.
2. Cut the rick rack ribbon starting with one bump. Add a bump for each level that you want for your tree. Your tree can be as big or as small as you want it based on your paper and mat size.
3. Put the ribbons and star in a baggie for the kids.
4. Let the kids compare the sizes and put the ribbon in order from shortest to longest. 
5. Glue the ribbons onto your paper in the shape of a tree starting with the shortest at the top in the middle and going down from there. If you want, you can put lines or dots on the paper for the kids to use as a point of reference to insure that the tree is centered.
6. Glue your star at the top.
7. Glue your paper to your mat.

The Gingerbread Man

We had fun talking about gingerbread men and gingerbread houses this holiday season. 

 

We read the gingerbread man book. Then, we made our own running gingerbread men finger puppets. I got the idea from another blogger and liked it so much. 

Here's What You Need:

• empty cereal boxes
• crayons
• hot glue gun
• scissors
• gingerbread man cookie cutter

Here's What You Do:

1. Trace the gingerbread cookie cutter onto the back of a cereal box but make the legs a lot longer and straighter. 
2. Cut out the gingerbread man.
3. Cut out two strips about 3/4 inch tall and long enough to fit around your finger.
4. Hot glue the strips into a rolled tube.
5. Color your gingerbread man.
6. Hot glue one circle to the back of each leg to insert your fingers to make it run. Bend the legs and run, run, run as fast as you can!

Holiday Necklace

Here is one of the fun crafts we made at our Halloween party this year.

This necklace could be used for a lot of holidays - hearts for Valentine's Day, clovers for St. Patrick's Day, eggs for Easter, Christmas shapes, etc.

I had one of our fabulous moms cut out 5 Halloween shapes (skull, bat, pumpkin, ghost, and witch's hat) using her silhouette machine. Each shape was about 3 inches across, except the bat was a little longer. I used a mini hole punch to make the holes because I didn't want them to swing as much as if I had used a regular hole punch. (You can find mini hole punches at places like Michael's.) Now that I think about it, you could probably cut the hole with the silhouette if you add it to the image.

Anyway, a fun and easy Halloween necklace is a great way to celebrate!

Here's What You Need

• Halloween shapes (or other shapes if doing a different holiday)
• Straws cut into 1 inch pieces
• Necklace string or chords (I used braiding chords found at Walmart)

Here's What You Do

1. Put 6 straw pieces on the string. (A great way to stop the pieces from sliding off is to tie one end to a pencil with a lose knot.)
2. Put on one of the shapes then a straw piece.
3. Repeat step 2 until you have used all the shapes.
4. End with 6 straw pieces up the other side.
5. Tie it off and enjoy!

Puzzle Piece Hearts

We made our moms puzzle piece heart pins for Valentine's Day.


I got the idea from Family Fun Magazine and then we tweaked it a little bit. We made the project two different ways: The first time we made it, I cut out card stock hearts and then cut out the middle so that it would look like the picture on the website.
But after we tried it, the card stock wasn't sturdy enough for the kids to take it home before it dried. So the next time we tried it, I cut out hearts with card stock and glued them to cardboard, but I didn't cut out the middle so they look like the pictures that are above. The next time we do it, I think I will use the cardboard and the card stock and cut out the middle because once they dried, they were very cute. Okay, enough rambling, here's the project:

Here's What You Need:
Red spray paint
20-25 puzzle pieces per heart
white glue
pin backing (we used the kind that are self adhesive)
cardboard
red card stock

Here's What We Did:

1. Take out all of the edge pieces of the puzzle pieces and spray paint red. (You could also spray paint it after the pieces are glued together.)
2. Cut out heart shapes from the red card stock and glue to the cardboard.
3. Use exacto knife to cut out the middle of the hearts leaving a thin heart outline.
4. Glue red puzzle pieces onto heart shape with white glue.
5. When dry, put pin backing on the back.

If you want to, you could attach it to a valentine with sentiments like I'm going to pieces over you or you'll always have a piece of my heart.

There are a lot of variations to this project. Instead of a pin, you could add a magnet, or you could add a sting to use it as a Christmas ornament. It could also be a cute picture frame.