Holidays Around the World – and a Give Away!!

D. J. Inkers has done it again!!    Take a look at this wonderful set of clipart –  http://www.djinkers.com/clipart/christmas/holidays-around-world-clipart-collection.html.  I used this clipart to create the activities throughout this post.

They are also giving away one of these wonderful clipart sets to one of my readers for FREE!!!

All you have to do is at least 2 of out of 3 of these options:

1) Join one of DJ Inker’s email newsletter lists.

http://goo.gl/8OS0D4

2) Follow one of DJ Inker’s boards on pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com/djinkers/

3) Like DJ Inkers on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/cuteclipart/

To enter this contest please leave a comment on this post

by  Monday, December 12

telling me which  of the above options you completed!

Holidays Around the World is a very popular theme in lower elementary grades.  There are lots of wonderful ideas online, and on Pinterest.   I love the idea of creating a Passport to be stamped as you learn about different countries.  Many people shared how they made a suitcase to collect projects that represent different celebrations.  There are countless great suggestions, and using this clipart would enhance any of those ideas.

I am sharing a book I created that highlights five countries, and includes a couple of pages about each one.  I would use it, not only to teach about the holiday customs, but also to reinforce features of informational texts.  I used to read lots of expository books about different countries and their holiday celebrations, so I thought it would be a good time to reinforce the parts of information books.

I wrote a previous post about how I taught the parts of an information book:  https://dbsenk.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/informational-text/, check it out if you have a chance.

I would use this book along with lots of fun activities that help children get a glimpse of the different customs and celebrations.  I would probably spend a day or two on each country, and have the children do the pages that go along with it.  I would like the children to label things in this booklet that are usually found in informational books.  On this page I would have them label the title and the author – which of course would be their own name.

I might run off these words on a different color of paper.  Then the children could cut apart the words and glue them next to the text features.  Or I might just have the children label the parts of informational texts by writing on each page.

I included pictures to help the children make associations with each country, and to help the emergent readers recognize the different countries.  Another great thing about DJ Inkers clipart ‘Holidays Around the World’ is that it includes fun facts about each country that lend themselves to great discussions and simple activities.  I highlighted some of those facts on a page about each country.

This page features bold text, so I would have the children add that label.  I would also have them color or highlight January 6 on the calendar and talk about how the children have to wait that long to get their gifts!  It goes along with how the Three Kings brought gifts to the Christ Child.

On the day we were learning about Mexico I would bring in a simple pinata, and an artificial poinsettia plant.

The children could use phonetic spelling to label the stick, pinata and candy.   Then they could also add the word ‘labels’ to show they recognize that text feature.

It would be so much fun to have the children leave their shoes outside the classroom door and ask a friend to put a small toy or candy into each child’s shoe.  You might include a simple T graph about whether the children’s families have put up a Christmas tree.  You might even have some fun with a good luck pickle.  I might laminate a copy of the pickle and put it on a table of quiet or helpful workers.  Throughout the day you could move the pickle to reinforce good habits.  This page would also be labeled ‘bold print.’

It would be fun to do lots of gingerbread activities while talking about how it is an important German tradition.  The children could color this page and label the caption.

I would get out a globe to discuss how Australia is in the middle of summer at Christmas time.  I think the children would love to hear about how Santa might give his reindeer a rest and use kangaroos to pull him around instead.  Again the children would label the bold print.

The children would label Santa, the surfboard and the waves on this page.

Here is more bold print, meant to emphasize the important words on the page.  I think the children would love to hear how Scandinavian children hear stories of little gnomes who are supposed to be taking care of farm animals, but get into mischief instead.  They might each create a gnome to take home and add to their own Christmas tree.  It would be fun to bake some buns and have a cup of “glogg,” too.

The children would label the caption on this page.  I also would make a chart comparing what Scandinavian children put on their Christmas trees and what we usually put on our trees.

Of course we always need to be sensitive to the customs and traditions of the children in our class.  In this book I was highlighting Christmas traditions, but I always spent time discussing other celebrations like Hanukkah and Kwanza.  ‘Holidays Around the World’ includes great clipart for those holidays too.

Here is a pdf version of this book.

holidays-around-world

As I introduce the customs of each country I would post a picture to help remind the children of our discussion, and also so they could see how to spell the name of each country.

At the end of our unit I would ask the children to draw and write about which country they would like to visit at Christmas, and I would give them space to explain why.

I had so much fun using Holidays Around the World.  Please take the time to check out their website and enter the contest for your own copy!  D.J. Inkers is also having a special sale for the holidays (Dec. 1-12, 2016)!  It’s called 12 Holly Daze Sales, you don’t want to miss it!  Here is a link to their website;  http://www.djinkers.com/ and sign up for their email newsletter at http://goo.gl/8OS0D4  .

Happy Holidays!

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Christmas Crafts!

We had a fun craft day at Nana’s house today!  In case you are looking for a few festive ways to interact with your little ones and create keepsakes and memories, I thought I would share a few!

 

This was probably my favorite from today!  I sent some recent photos to Costco and had them enlarged to 8 x 10.  After trimming each face I glued it onto posterboard.  The kids added gold hand print antlers, red noses, and their signatures!  They are precious!  Trying this with the 2 and 3 year old tomorrow!

I found these empty bulb shaped ornaments at a craft store.  The kids filled them with glitter pom poms, curled ribbons, small pieces of scrapbook paper, sparkly pipe cleaners and foam cubes with letters on them.

I bought these red chargers at Dollar Tree.  Regular acrylic paint worked great to make the reindeer handprint.  The kids added black feet with their pointer finger in paint, and the face and antlers with a Sharpie.  I think I might go over the Sharpie writing with glitter glue to make the black show up a little better.  Also maybe a thumbprint tail?  The kids used a small circle sponge in white paint to make the dots.

Each child took 3 tongue depressors (wider than popsicle sticks) and glued them together at the corners.  The trunks are brown posterboard that I put through my crinkle machine.

 

Then they painted the “trees” green.  After they dried the kids added buttons and foam stars on top.

 

You might have seen these thumbprint reindeer.  We made individual ones for each child, but I wanted one with all 5 grandchildren on it.  I started with a clear ornament and coated the inside with white paint.  Details were done with a Sharpie.

Equal parts cinnamon (from a dollar store!) and applesauce makes a wonderful dough.  After cutting out the shapes I used a straw to make a hole so these ornaments can hang on a tree.  They take a couple of days to air dry.  I borrowed this photo from Pinterest because I didn’t have one of my own.

I used to make these as parent gifts on white muslin fabric when I was teaching Kindergarten.  I sewed a casing at the top and hung it from a small dowel.  So cute!

These handprint snowmen have gotten very popular.  You just paint the child’s whole hand white, then hand them an ornament and help them gently close their hand so each fingerprint can become a snowman.  After the paint is dry details can be added with Sharpies.

 

Another photo that I borrowed from Pinterest, but I loved doing this craft with my Kindergartners too.  I used to print them on light blue paper, then laminate them.  Instead of drawing on the eyes we used to glue on jiggly eyes and a real pom pom on the hat.

It was a really fun day, making Christmas memories with my grandchildren.  Owen really loved the crinkle machine.  He left this crinkled sign on my door before he went home.

The Gingerbread Man!

Fairy Tales are one of my favorite kinds of stories to retell, and I especially love telling stories with a refrain that encourages the children to chime in.  Of course these stories are also great for acting out.  There are so many different versions of The Gingerbread Man, and so many take-off stories like Gingerbread Baby, etc.  Here are a couple that I used.

The characters are often different, and sometimes the story ends in a different way, but the basic idea is that they bake a gingerbread man and he runs away.

Here are some pictures of the characters from one version that I used to make necklaces or headbands for kids to act out the story.  Sometimes I reduced the size of the pictures and mounted them on popsicle sticks to make stick puppets too.  You could also glue them onto an upside down paper lunch bag and make puppets that way.

Here is a little game that can be used to retell the story.  After coloring and cutting out the Gingerbread Man and Fox, fold them so they stand up and can “move” along the gameboard.

Here are pictures that can also be used to sequence and retell the story:

Along with our reading, acting out and retelling of this story we made cinnamon applesauce Gingerbread Men ornaments (equal parts cinnamon and applesauce – then cut with a cookie cutter).  We also cut out gingerbread men shapes and used paint and markers to decorate them.  Afterward. each child would write a short sentence about something or someone that he or she could outrun.

I would make a display of this writing along with their paper decorated Gingerbread Men.  On cooking day we sometimes made real Gingerbread men to eat too!

I know that I often felt like I was in this story right about this time of year saying  Run, Run, as fast as you can!

I hope you are able to slow down and enjoy this special time with your children!

Thanksgiving Party Activities

Yesterday I shared some games that I liked playing with the whole class at parties or just when we had some time for a little fun.  Today I am writing about a few activities that you might be interested in as a party center for a small group at a time.  Lots of these activities can be changed a bit to fit different holidays or themes.  Of course you might just choose to use some of these activities as a regular project instead of a party game.

1.  10 Little Indians

Copy a simple canoe pattern onto brown or tan paper, or have children use a tracer.  Use a hole punch to make holes around the outside and give the children a long piece of yarn for lacing.  I usually wrap the end of the yarn with tape to make it stiffer and easier to use.

Then either have the children cut and color 10 Native Americans – or draw them by themselves.

10 Little Indian clipart

10 Little Indians poem

2.  Thankful Chest

Fold a 9 x 12 piece of construction paper and staple all but one long side to make a pocket.  Copy a treasure chest on construction paper and have the children cut it out, then glue it to the front of the pocket.  Give each child small pieces of paper to draw/write things they are thankful for.  Put these inside the chest.

I gave several kinds of treasure chest clip art pictures because I don’t have a copy of the one I used!

Thankful treasure

3.  A similar idea would be for the children to make small books of things they are thankful for, you could use a treasure chest on the cover if you’d like.  These are like the concept books I talked about under the writing category.

Thankful books

You can copy these back to back, then cut them in half to make an 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch booklet.

4.  Have children create a free cut turkey – give them real feathers, construction paper, vinyl, buttons, etc.

5.  Snack

Vegetables and dip – remind the children the Pilgrims learned to plant and grow veggies.

Froot Loop necklaces – tape one end of a piece of yarn to the table, ask the children to create a pattern with their Froot Loops.  When they are done you can tie the necklace around their neck.

Turkey Cookies

I found lots of kinds of decorated turkey cookies online.

  These with the striped shortbread are closest to the ones I used to make with my class.

 

 

Cornbread and butter – Jiffy Mix is really pretty good!  We shook whipping cream in a baby food jar to make butter.  It takes quite a lot of shaking!

Apple turkeys –

We stuck one toothpick into the apple and put a gumdrop on it for a head.  Then we put 4 more toothpicks for feathers, kids made a Froot Loop pattern on each toothpick feather.

6.  Blotto

Cut out a simple shape (maybe a teepee?)  Fold it in half, then open it and put paint on one side.  Fold it over and press to make a symmetrical design.

7.  Use pictographs to decorate a bearskin shape or teepee.

pictographs

pictographs 2

8.  Make a Thanksgiving placemat the children can take home to use.  We used paper copies of pattern blocks to make a pattern around the edge of a 12 x 18 (or 9 x 12) construction paper.  Then we made a handprint turkey in the center.

handprint

9.  Melted Crayons

Give each child a picture of a turkey or cornucopia.  Allow them to color it with peeled crayons on a warming tray to give a painted effect.  Lots of fun!  It dries right away too!

turkey pict

10.  Drop the clothespin

Use a coffee can – or similar size container.  Tape a picture of a turkey or Mayflower on the front.  Children will kneel on a chair and try to drop clothespins into the can.  Similar idea – Put the picture on a basket, children toss beanbags.

11.  Pin the Hat on the Pilgrim (or whatever).  Instead of a blindfold I taped large black construction paper circles over the lenses of children’s sunglasses.  A little less lice-friendly!

12.  Child Made Games

Have each child create his/her own board game.  Give them a blank gameboard, stickers or clipart, markers, etc.  Encourage them to “program” their game with numerals, letters, sight words or shapes.  Or you could already program the gameboards and the kids just add decorations.  And then play of course!

We made a spinner with a brad fastener and paper clip.  You could also use dice – or give them numeral cards from 1- 5.  They turn over the pile of numeral cards and flip one at a time to see how many spaces to move.

Here are some blank gameboards – sorry one is decorated with a dinosaur – just cut it off and recopy it!  You can use these for any theme!

 

 

game boards

 

I hope you might find something fun that you can use!  Happy Turkey Day!

Party Day Games

I really love getting comments and questions from people who have read my blog – it is so much fun for me!  Rachel wrote that she is looking for some new games and activities for party days, and I am happy to share a few ideas.  Of course every community and every school is different, the amount of parent involvement and support, whether you can ask for donations of money or supplies, the history of what has been done in the past all make a big difference in what you do for holidays and parties.

One of my strong convictions is that parent education is an important requirement of a Kindergarten teacher.  I think the best way to show parents how to work with and play with their children is to provide activities for them to do together at school.  Every year I had 2-3 parent/child activity days – usually one was during an evening.  Sometimes the theme for this special day was Halloween or Valentine’s Day.  These took the place of a traditional party.  Sometimes I used a theme like Transportation or Dinosaurs for the parent/child days, and did more traditional parties for holidays.  Check out the my posts on parent/child days if you are interested.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas (Winter Holidays) my children usually performed for the parents, followed by refreshments.  I think that standing up in front of an audience helps children build confidence, and when they see the adults laughing and enjoying their performance it builds self esteem too.  These were not elaborate performances, but each child had a chance to stand up with a small group while the entire class sang or chanted, etc. Check out my Nov. and Dec. posts for details.   I invited all families to attend these performances, the amount of attendance varied from year to year.  Often parents would stop in for our little show and then need to get back to work.  We usually played some whole group games after refreshments.

When we had traditional parties I usually asked a few parents to come in to help supervise activities.  Usually I asked each volunteer to supervise a small group of children as they went from center to center.  Keeping the children in groups made it easier for them to play games at the centers.  When I stationed parents at the centers and allowed the children to move independently sometimes they didn’t have enough for a game, or too many wanted to come to the center at once.  One of the centers was usually creating their snack.  At the end of the centers we usually gathered for some whole group games.

So here are a few ideas of games my Kindergartners enjoyed, most of them can be changed slightly to fit any holiday or theme:

1.  This was usually the favorite game – I cut out a simple shape from felt – or used an object that went with the theme.  For Thanksgiving you might use a felt cutout of a piece of popcorn.

One child goes where (s)he cannot see the circle of children but can easily hear – not far away.

The class is seated crisscross in a circle.  I give the felt popcorn to one child and (s)he puts it down in his/her lap.  All children put their hands down into their lap to make it hard to figure out who has the popcorn.

Then the kids chant:

Turkey, turkey!  Come and see!

Who has the popcorn?  Is it me?

The child who was not able to see (the turkey) comes to stand in the center of the circle.  (S)he says the name of the person (s)he thinks has the popcorn.  We use HOT or COLD to tell the child how close the guess is to the person who has the popcorn.  The child has 3 guesses, if they don’t get the right person we tell them.  Whether or not they guess correctly, the child who was hiding the popcorn is the new turkey, (s)he goes where they cannot see, the child who was guessing gives the popcorn to another child and they all put their hands in their lap again and say the poem again.

Another Thanksgiving version could be

Pilgrim, Pilgrim!  Come and see!

Who has the wishbone?  Is it me?

For Valentine’s day we used Cupid and heart, for Christmas – Santa and present; for Halloween – Skeleton and bone.

2.  Here is another simple game they loved.  The traditional poem goes like this;

Down around the corner at the bakery shop, there were 10 little cookies with sugar on top.  Along came Timmy, all alone; and he took the green one home.

Obviously there were 10 cookies cut from different colored paper on the floor.  Instead of colored paper, you could label them with color words, sight words, numerals, shapes, etc.

For Thanksgiving you could say

Down around the corner at the bakery shop there were 10 turkey cookies with sugar on top….

Then you could cut turkey shaped paper cookies and label them with numerals, words, etc.

Here is another version for Thanksgiving:

Late in November; on Thanksgiving Day

There were 10 little turkeys, who tried to run away.

Along came ___________________, all alone

And (s)he took the _________________ one home.

3.  Have all the children stand up in a circle.  Give one child a hula hoop.  Have him/her hold hands with the next child and try to pass the hula hoop to that person without letting go of their hand.  Then that child holds onto the next child’s hand and passes it again.  They need one hand free, the other hand is being held by the next child.

4.  Musical candy

Traditional musical chairs is a more active game, but you could ask the children to sit in a circle.  You turn on a song and give the children a lunch sized paper bag containing individually wrapped small candies (I often used individually wrapped life savers).  When the music stops the person holding the bag gets to take out one candy.  I like this because no one is eliminated, everyone keeps playing.  Once in awhile I let a child have 2 turns to keep the interest of kids who already got their candy.  Sometimes after they get their candy they lose interest in the game.

5.  Fruit Basket

Each child needs a piece of fruit – either laminated pictures or plastic fruit.  It works best when you have 4-5 of each fruit, bananas, apples, oranges, grapes, etc.  They all sit in a circle and you call out the name of a fruit.  Kids with that fruit stand up and run to the spot that was just emptied by another child.  After trying this with all the fruits, try calling out 2 fruits at a time.  If you want everyone to move at once, call out Fruit Basket TURN OVER!

6.  Relay Game

Take 2 paper lunch bags (you could decorate them with a turkey or seasonal picture)

Write out simple instructions like Jump 3 times.

You can draw/write the instructions with picture cues – or have an adult close by to help each child read their strip.  Make 2 identical sets of instructions, cut them into strips and put one set into each bag.  Divide the class into 2 teams.  I would do this right at the circle, – half the circle one team, half the circle the other team.  The bags are in the center of the circle.  The first children for each team get up and take a slip from the bag.  Then they do that activity in front of their group.  When they go back and sit down, the next child gets up and pulls out a strip of paper with an activity.  The team that finishes first wins.

Here are some ideas for the instructions:

Relay instructions

7.  Roll a ball

Pick a category like candy bars, or cartoons.  Call out the name of one thing in that category (i.e. Snickers)  and roll the ball to a child.  That child has to call out a different item from the category (i.e. M & Ms), then roll the ball to another child who has to come up with another candy or whatever the category is.  You could use Thanksgiving Foods as the category.  When a child can’t think of an item you can either allow them to have a ‘conference’ with the child next to him/her – or you can change the category.

8.  Count Down

This is a math game from Everyday Math but my kids asked to play it often.  Everyone stands up around the circle and you choose a number. (I always chose something smaller than 20 to make the game go faster.)  The children count each saying the next number – the child who says the chosen number sits down, and no longer counts.  Example;  they start to count – each child saying the next number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and the child saying 7 sits down.  The next child starts over with 1 again, continue until there is only one child left standing.  If you are working on counting through teen numbers you might want to choose a larger number.  After playing it once or twice try to get the kids to predict who will be left standing.

9.  Copy and Add

This is an old game, you say “I’m going to Thanksgiving dinner and I’m going to eat ________.  First child says the sentence and adds a food.  The next child (either go around the circle or call on a child by pulling his/her name) says the sentence, the food the first child names, and then adds another food.  Continue until the kids can’t remember, it’s fine to let them help each other.

Here is an adaptation:  Instead of just saying the food, have the child touch something or do a motion.  The kids have to repeat the motion as well as the words.

10.  Build a Tower

Have each child choose a wooden block (different shapes make it more fun)

Start with one child placing his/her block in the middle of the circle.  Go around the circle and the next child stacks his/her block on top.  When the tower falls, move those blocks away but continue with the next child starting a new tower

 

I hope the description of these games make sense to you, if not – please ask!

Tomorrow I will share some individual or small group activities that we did at parties.  Thanks for reading!

Needs and Wants

Our Social Studies curriculum was made up of different strands – under the economics strand we had benchmarks that covered what it means to be a consumer and producer, and the difference between needs and wants.  I thought that Christmas was a perfect time to introduce this topic.

I found this book:

Needs and Wants (Pebble Books) [Library Binding]

Olson Gillia M. (Author)

This whole Pebble series does a great job explaining many topics in a Kindergarten friendly way – using great pictures and simple language. (I also liked their book on Living and Non – Living.)

I usually introduced the topic of needs and wants by asking children why people had jobs – or why they worked.  It usually took a few children before someone came up with the idea that people work to earn money to buy things for their families.

We discussed how every family has to make choices about how they spend their money.  Then we talked about how we were so lucky in our class that everyone had enough money to buy things that they need. (Luckily in my community that is mostly true.)  We listed things we need to have to be healthy and safe – food, clothes, a home, a bed, etc.  Then we also said that most people do NOT have enough money to buy everything they would like to have; but don’t really need.

Sometimes I passed out magazine pictures that I precut and we sorted them by needs or wants (milk, shirt, shoes, bread = needs;  doll, bike, candy = wants)  You could also have the children find pictures that depict needs or wants in magazines by themselves.

After reading the Needs and Wants book we sang a song to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree.  I always found that singing about a subject really helped children internalize the information.

Oh needs and wants

Oh needs and wants

We can’t have all the things we want

We really want

A lot of stuff

But sometimes there’s just not enough

Oh needs and wants

Oh needs and wants

We can’t have all the things we want.

This made a cute and funny addition to our Kindergarten Holiday Program.

 

I used an activity with the Polar Express to reinforce being a producer and consumer.  I usually did this the last day before our Holiday Break.  I would ask the children to do a task, maybe a writing assignment or math game.  If they completed it they would each “earn” a quarter.  Then during clean up time I went around with a clipboard, checking off those children who were working hard (everyone got a check mark) and they would earn a dime.   Then I told the children that I was going to sell tickets to see the movie the Polar Express.  The tickets cost 25 cents.  I actually bought a roll of tickets – but you could use scraps of construction paper or run something off as a ticket.  While the children were out of the room – at lunch or at a special, I arranged the chairs in rows to pretend our room was a movie theater.

I did not give them the coins ahead of time.  I passed out a quarter to each child, reminding them that they earned it by doing their job.  Then I took the class out to the hallway where they lined up to buy a ticket.  As they went into the room I tried to have a parent helper there to take the tickets and seat the children in the rows of chairs.

We started the movie and watched part of it.  Then I stopped the movie and told the children that I just remembered that they also earned 10 cents for cleaning up.  I passed out a dime to each child.  Then I told them that I had juice and popcorn for sale – 10 cents per child.  I collected the dimes from children sitting in one row at a time  and they went to their tables (there were no chairs at tables because I had used them as theater seats).  At each table there was popcorn already individually bagged and a juice box or glass of juice.  After they cleaned up again we went back to the movie.  It is a pretty long movie – sometimes I substituted a shorter holiday movie instead.  If I did not want to include a drink I let them eat the popcorn in their chairs, but that meant we had lots on the floor.  The kids loved this – I turned the lights off so the room was dim, and they sat much better for the video than when they were all on the floor.

I loved doing special things with my Kindergartners, but I also felt like I needed to justify how all our activities fit into the curriculum.  You could always do a follow up activity to a movie where the children made a connection to something that happened in the movie, retold the beginning, middle and end; or wrote about their favorite part.  Sometimes we also compared a book with a video version of the story!

 

Rudolph Day

I loved celebrating a special Rudolph Day during December.  A lot of children in my school were already familiar with the song, and often the TV special.  I liked to start singing the song – but then stop to talk about the vocabulary and what was really happening in the story that is told in the song.  It was a great opportunity to ask the children questions – “What color nose do most reindeer have?”  “What do you think it would be like to have a shiny nose like that?”  “What else do you know that glows?”  “Why did other children laugh at him and call him names?”

Of course I wouldn’t ask all those questions at once – but they can lead to great discussions.  I also read a simple book that told the story.  I think that Rudolph is a great story to introduce – or reinforce – the idea of making connections.  It was really common for children in my class to raise their hand and tell me they were making a connection to something we were talking about.  At the beginning of the year most of their connections were pretty vague – if we were reading a dog story they might raise their hand to tell me about their dog, etc.  As the year went on we talked about text to text connections – when one book reminded us of another we had read, and text to self connections – when something similar to the storyline had happened to ourselves.

The story of Rudolph gives lots of opportunities for children to make personal connections.  Some children might relate to how he felt when other children made fun of him, or wouldn’t let him play their games.   Some children might think that there is some way that they are different from other children, like Rudolph with his red nose.  Other kids might relate to the idea of getting to do a very special job, like Rudolph when he got to lead Santa’s sleigh.

After a lot of discussion I asked the children to draw and write about a connection they made to the story of Rudolph.  Please click for a copy of our writing paper.

Rudolph connections

The first year I tried this with my class, I really asked them to do too much!  (I had a problem with this sometimes!)  Here is a copy of the writing paper we used – it really might work fine if you spread it out and only wrote about one connection at a time.

Rudolph

We also made reindeer headbands to wear that day.  I cut two strips of red construction paper about 2 1/2 inches by 12 inches and stapled them together for each child.  Then each child traced one of their hands on brown or tan paper – I usually used 6 x 12 folded in half so they would get 2 sets of “antlers.”  Then we stapled or glued to hand prints to the bands, and stapled them to fit around the children’s heads.  I used red paint on their nose for anyone who wanted to be Rudolph.  I made one for my grandson Owen too!

(Grandparents love showing off their grandchildren!)

I took a class picture of all the children wearing the reindeer headbands.  I usually had some kids stand, some on knees and some on the floor.  Later we used copies of that picture on our Christmas or Holiday card for parents.  To go along with that I asked each child the question “What is Christmas?” and typed out their responses.  It was very cute and personal.

We made several other reindeer projects – The children traced a large candy cane and painted on the red stripes.  When it was dry they cut it out, added brown handprint antlers like the ones on their headbands, one jiggly eye and a big red pompom for the nose.  This made a profile of a reindeer – I usually put those up in the hallway with a title “Mrs. Senk’s Little Deers.”

For a parent gift I made a reindeer wall hanging.  I tore unbleached muslin about 12 X 18 inches, leaving the slightly raveled edges.  I traced each child’s foot and cut it out of brown felt.  I glued the felt footprint onto the muslin.  Then I painted the children’s hands green and made handprint antlers.  We added eyes and another pompom nose.  I made a simple casing for a dowel and tied on a string for a hanger.  I made one of these with my grandson Owen too – here is a photo of that one!

Owen was about 14 months old when I made this – one handprint came out fine, then he grabbed onto the fabric with the other hand!  Kindergartners are usually more cooperative!

Occasionally I did the footprint project on paper instead of fabric.  I glued the footprint on white paper and made the handprints.  Then I bubble cut it out and mounted that on red paper.  It was cute too!

I loved including a “cooking” project too – we made Rudolph sandwiches.  The children put peanut butter (if we had no allergies) on a slice of bread.  Then they cut it into a triangle, by turning the flat side of the slice of bread to the top, and starting to cut at each corner – basically cutting off the bottom two corners.  We used small pretzel sticks for antlers, sticking them into the two top corners of the triangle.  We used raisins or M & Ms for eyes and a maraschino cherry  on the point at the bottom for the nose.  Very cute and fun!  I usually offered cream cheese as an alternative for the peanut butter – we called it brown reindeer fur or white reindeer fur.

Happy Rudolph Day!!

Hanukkah

If you are looking for a simple project to give the children a little information about Hanukkah you might be interested in this simple book.  I don’t remember where I got this booklet, sorry I can’t give the author credit.

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If I had a child in my class whose family celebrated Hanukkah I always gave them time to talk about their family’s traditions.  I also included a Hanukkah song in our Holiday Program.  I made up a simple song to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb.

On Hanukkah the candles burn

Candles burn, candles burn

On Hanukkah the candles burn

Eight days of Hanukkah.

2nd verse:

On Hanukkah the dreidel spins

Dreidel spins, dreidel spins

On Hanukkah the dreidel spins

Eight days of Hanukkah.

Holiday Senses

I usually taught a unit about our 5 senses early in the year, but I liked to reinforce this learning through the whole year.  One of the ways we reviewed and reinforced 5 senses was this simple book we made during the holiday season.

I actually made an entire book in front of the children, and read it several times.  Sometimes we read the words in a pocket chart too.  Then I took apart the book I made and put one page at each table, along with the materials to complete that page.  The children would each start out at their own table, then move to different tables to finish the book at their own speed. That is why it was important to put picture cues as well as the words on each page.  The children had to find the page in their book to match the sample page and materials at each table.  Each child read the book to me when it was finished, the picture cues also helped every child successfully “read.”

The children used a triangle tracer for the tree and I put out sequins, stars, all kinds of stuff to glue onto the tree.

Ahead of time I strung the bells on a piece of colored string and tied a knot.  The easiest way to do this was just to string a whole bunch of the bells and slide them down the string.  Then I would slide the bell closest to the end of the string about 2 inches from the end.  I’d cut off the string at about 4 inches and tie the knot, then slide the next bell down to the end and cut and tie it.  Parent helpers were great for this job!

The kids taped the string holding the bell on the page, then glued the paper bell over the top of the string.

I put cinnamon in an old glitter shaker.  The children would cut out and glue on the gingerbread man, then put glue on for the details.  They placed their book on top of a cookie sheet and sprinkled the cinnamon, then dumped off the extra onto the tray.  We often made cinnamon applesauce ornaments that day too because they smell so great!

The triangle for the hat used the same size tracer as the tree page.  I really modeled pulling off a small amount of fiberfill, and stretching it out.

The children traced a candy cane and painted the stripes, I modeled blotting it so we could read the book right away.  You could easily use markers instead.  I usually gave each child a mini candy cane when they read the completed book to me.

The text in this book can be easily adapted, depending on your class’s reading readiness, and which sight words you want to reinforce.  You could write  “I can see the tree…”  or “I like to see the tree…”  or “You can see the tree…”  or even  “I want to see the tree…”

I don’t have the masters for this book, but I am including a pdf copy of each page so you could use the clipart along with your own words.

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Sorry, I know there must be a way to put all these pages on one pdf file, I tried but it didn’t cooperate!  I really am just playing with this and trying to figure it out!  Any expert suggestions are very welcome!

Deer Facts

I used the same technique to teach Deer Facts that I used for Turkey Facts.   My primary goals were to expose the children to informational material, encourage them to remember and retell information, and give them an opportunity to write in an expository format.  Our curriculum did not include specific facts about animals, but I found that it was a good way to teach these skills and make connections to the holidays.  Parents were always so impressed when their children came home talking about the facts we learned.

First Roxie Heart visited our classroom wearing a new deer dress.

She always told the children that her Mom had just made her a new dress, and asked them if they liked it.  She talked with the class about the deer on her dress and told them that there are lots of kinds of deer – reindeer were only one of the kinds.  Elk and Moose are other kinds of deer.  She told them that another name for reindeer is Caribou.

She told them that she had deer food in her purse, and showed them the leavcs.

She talked about how deer only have teeth on the bottom in front – not the top.  She also told them that deer have 4 stomachs!

She told them she had a secret about baby deer – and it was on her back.  Then she turned around…

and showed them the white spots, then told them that baby deer are called fawns and they have white spots too!

Then she asked if they noticed her antlers.

Of course they were actually pipe cleaners twisted around her pigtails.  She told them that she must be a deer because deer are the only animals that have antlers.  Roxie also told them that only boy deer have antlers and they fall off every year, and then grow back again on the deer’s head.

The whole time Roxie was talking I was stroking her, she would look from the children to me.  I would ask her questions to help her tell all the information to the kids.  Then I asked her where she learned all these facts about deer and she showed me a ZooBook about deer.   I could not find a good book for deer facts, and I had a large collection of ZooBooks.  This would work just as well if you have a great informational book about deer – just pick facts from that book to highlight.

I had drawn or adapted clipart pictures to help the children remember the facts that Roxie talked about –

Baby deer are fawns and have spots

4 stomachs (I drew 4 circles inside a deer clipart and numbered them)

Only deer have antlers

Another name for reindeer is Caribou

Deer eat plants and leaves

Deer have no teeth on top

I wish I had kept these pictures to scan for you.  I put these pictures in a pocket chart and asked the children if they remembered the facts Roxie told us.  As they named each fact I turned the picture over.  Then I asked if they still remembered them – and I turned them back over as they listed them.

Then I put Roxie back into my puppet castle and read the ZooBook.  I didn’t read all of it because they have so much information, I highlighted some of the facts, and put sticky notes by some – to model this for the children.  We also looked at the informational text features like bold print, captions, labels, etc.  I asked the children to wave their hand quietly when I read one of the facts we had learned.  When we came to one of the facts and they waved to me – I moved that fact to a different spot.

We reviewed all the facts one more time, then the children went to their tables and drew and wrote 3 of the facts we had learned.

Here is the writing paper.  I ran the 2 pages back to back and folded them into a booklet.

Deer facts

When the children finished drawing and writing they always read their work to me, or a parent volunteer.