It's a Preschool Christmas! Art, Games, and Gifts for Parents

Christmas is so much fun.  Especially at preschool!  And this week was no exception.

One of the things we have on our TO DO list every year is making a Christmas gift for the parents.  

This year we decided to make a magnet bar to hold artwork onto the fridge.

The materials for this project include:

• paint sticks donated from a local hardware store
• two round button magnets hot glued to the back
• two clothespins hot glued to the front

An inexpensive, yet practical gift!

Here is a picture of the kids painting the blank side of their paint stick.  

We decided not to make this gift look too "Christmasy" with red paint or sparkles so that it could be kept on the fridge throughout the year.

One of our other projects this week was making Christmas swags using some fir branches.

The children painted glue onto one side of the branch, then dipped it in a tray of sparkles and glitter.  The best part of doing this project was the reaction of the children when they first lifted their branch out of the sparkle pan and flipped it over.  

So many oooohs and aaaahs!

Some of the children also pressed on some cotton ball "snow" at the end.

To hang the swag, we attached two pipe cleaners twisted together (to look like candy cane stripes) and attached it to the branch at the top.  

Then we helped the kids add a bow to the front with some inexpensive ribbon.  (Sorry I don't have photos of some completely finished samples.  It was a busy day!)


Another project this week was creating stockings to hang over our classroom "fireplace."  

 We provided flyers with lots of images of different Christmas gifts that the children could cut out and glue onto their stocking.


We encouraged the children to pick out items not only for themselves, but for each member of their family.  A little "we" not "me" reminder!

After gluing on the pieces, the children decorated their stocking with cotton and stickers.

To spice up our playdough, we added some peppermint extract and some sparkles to the mix.  We thought it was important to bring the scent of Christmas into the classroom, too!

And then it was time to play in the snow!

As I mentioned at the start of the week, we had our first snowfall of the year on Monday. So, we decided to celebrate by having a big snowball fight.  Indoors!

A crazy idea?  Yes, crazy if it had been real snow. But what we used for the snowballs were crumpled paper balls.   They make the perfect snowball.  They're not wet, not icy, and most importantly, not painful when they hit you in the back!  (As noted by me - a wimpy snowball fighter.  Some of those real snowballs can feel like rocks!)

Here we are battling it out.  The children particularly enjoyed pelting the teachers!
But I got a few good shots in myself!

The snow falling from the ceiling unfortunately was not real.  I just thought it would be fun to set the scene through a little creative editing!  

And last, playtime in the snow would not be complete without makin' some snow angels. Here are our little snow angels!

And so caps another fun week at preschool...!  Fa la la la la...la la la la!

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