Between a lite Christmas curriculum and tailored crafts to be used as presents for family and friends, I like to fill any gaps with games and activities from Pinterest.
After assessing our calendar for December and planning for any outings, I begin to fill in the other dates with our curriculum lessons, and set aside days to complete our special crafts that we'll be using as presents. Whatever days are left, I pencil in various Christmas games and activities, attempting to include fine motor and gross motor opportunities to intrigue both my artsy daughter (5) and athletic daughter (3.5)... plus the two year-old.
Crafts
I've made this recipe a few times and they are delicious! If I can plan accordingly, we'll use this recipe for our Nativity scene.
Worksheets
- • Christmas Counting Worksheets Kindergarten Morning Menu
- • Hot Chocolate Counting (using mini marshmallows)
- • Candy Cane Printable Pack - includes assorted fine motor skills
- • Nutcracker Packet - My children love the nutcracker, so I will be choosing sheets from a packet like this.
- • Cutting Practice
Activities
It's super simple and easy to make ahead of time, leaving a few minutes to cool before kiddos handle it. We've used this recipe often, minus getting a pot dirty. We simply heat up our the water in the electric water kettle and pour directly into the bowl of flour (or into another container to stir in dye)
- • Create a maze on the floor using masking tape
- • Winter Roll - for gross motor movement
- • Hide and Seek Candy Canes: Hide real or paper candy canes around the house. Let the kids find them and have a chance to hide it themselves.
- • Decorate Christmas Tree - Using pipe cleaners for the tree, kids use their fine motor skills to slip beads onto the tree. See another variation below:
- • Christmas Tree Balance Walk - This is super quick and easy to set up. Although my kids don't always "follow the directions," they have fun "decorating" the Christmas tree.
- • Ornament Scooping - Last year my 1 year old played with this for a LONG time. While it's messy, it allowed for water play that would not immediately cause them to be freezing cold. To set up, I placed several beach towels under the table which helped the clean up immensely.
- • Christmas Ornament Balance Race
- • Christmas Gift Color Matching - using dot stickers. A combo gross and fine motor activity.
- • Making treats to pass out to our neighbors
BONUS
To help count down the days, the girls enjoy our advent blocks from a GoodKind. Every evening we read the story for bedtime and turn the block over to reveal the symbol/picture.
While this project is completed before Thanksgiving, the girls enjoy filling a box of toys and goodies to be sent overseas. Using a pictorial list, they shop for their items. Next they fill out a provided note and drop it off at the designed spot. Samaritan Purse has wonderful videos that help bring context to where these boxes travel and who they are given to.
