It's Christmas Time!

This is my absolute most favorite time of the year!  These three weeks before Christmas break are full of so much fun and learning, it's hard to not be just a little bit giddy!  

These are a few of the activities we have going on in our classroom for Christmas.

Decorate the Tree

This one is a favorite every year, and is so simple!  I just set out a small fake tree with ornaments, and when the students come to this center they can decorate the tree however they want.  I also added ornaments that I made out of craft foam for each sight word we have learned so far.

Christmas Sensory Tub

This is our Christmas Sensory Tub.  It has plastic candy canes, miniature trees, Christmas figurines, felt snowflakes, felt reindeer, felt Christmas trees, green and red poms, mirrored balls, bells, a foam Santa, stockings, and a string of plastic lights.  There are also letters that look like Christmas cookies to spell "Merry Christmas".

Christmas Sensory Bottles

This week I added our Christmas sensory bottles to our Science center.  The bottle on the left has confetti, water and glycerin.  The bottle on the right has miniature items I found at Hobby Lobby and faux snow from The Dollar Tree. (I think I have just as much fun making these bottles as the kids have exploring them!)

Interactive Writing: 
How to Decorate a Tree

Interactive writing is probably one of the best ways to teach writing to Kindergarteners.  So many skills are covered in one lesson.  

We start by reading the book, Mooseltoe, by Margie Palatini.

Such a cute story!

Then, we wrote about how to decorate a Christmas tree.  We discuss as a class the steps we need to take, then I call students up one a at a time to write part of the directions on the chart.  We also add the decoration to our paper tree.  As the student is writing on the chart, the other students are sitting on the carpet, helping figure out which letters to write.  Each student has a clipboard and they are copying the directions onto their own individual papers. 

Then they get to make their own tree on their paper. 

Christmas Light Bulb Center

I have these light bulbs in our ABC center, and it is a favorite every year!  I hang green yarn on our magnetic white board to look like real Christmas light strands.  The light bulbs are printed onto cardstock, then I add a magnetic strip to the back so they will stick to the white board.  The students can put the letters in alphabetical order, or make sight words with them.

If you would like a copy of these light bulbs, you can grab a set here.

I have provided a black and white set that you can color yourself to save ink, and a colored set that you can just print and go!

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!!