setting up the festive classroom

our storybasket for the gingerbread baby

Our literature for the two weeks before the winter break is teaming with all sorts of festive goodness. This past week we read The Gingerbread Baby and next week we will be reading Rabbit's Gift. Here's a peak into our classroom for our week of gingerbread...

sorting gingerbread men

investigating area w gingerbread men and pom poms

gingerbread felt fun

candy memory/matching game

decorating our play gingerbread house

exploring our toaster set to accompany our nursery rhyme

dot marker holiday trees

fine motor dreidel fun

fine motor tree decorating

paint a wooden ornament {and wrap it up!}

 

Blank wooden ornaments can be found at most craft stores. Usually fairly priced as $2 or $3 they can pack a lot of punch without breaking your piggy bank. If you pick them up now for next year you can get them for under fifty-cents (I need to do this)!

 

 

 

Use acrylic paints for the ornaments and let your kiddos choose two or three colors. I had the children at school pick two similar colors and we added white. We are always talking about the color wheel and complimentary colors. For this project we first talked about warm and cool colors and then the children got to decide of they wanted warm or cool colored paint for their ornaments. Young children love to mix paint together and they will mix any and all colors they can. This is science at its best and the children have ample opportunity to mix away in the classroom For this project however we focused on our colorwheel and went with colors that would not muddy up.

Use wax paper to lay the ornaments down to dry. The ornaments won't stick too much and any drippy paint will be left on the paper and not on your table. If we had any glitter left, I am certain the children would have glittered their ornaments up. Even without, the ornaments are snazzy, don't ya think?

After the ornaments were dry, it was time to wrap them up. We used plain white paper (their painted wrapping paper was a gift to take home) and washi tape. I placed each ornament on its own sqaure of paper and had the children fold and crease their presents. They chose which washi tape they wanted to use and I helped them tear off pieces in the size they indicated.

Next up was yarn. They chose the yarn and I tied it around their presents  (unless they wanted to o it) as they hit up the giftwrap table for a bow. After peeling off the back paper they stuck their bow where they wanted and proudly posed for a photo before running the present to their cubby. So cool!

it's a wrap!

In Rabbit's Gift, each animal in the story returns home with a different type of vegetable. To add to the literature, the children used various vegetables to create their own wrapping paper to take home for the holidays.

I brought in my acrylic paints and let each child choose up to three colors. To keep the paper from getting muddy, we kept each vegetable to one color with the children choosing which veggie got which color.

 

One child worked at a time at our smaller art table. I kept an eye out and rotated the paper a little to keep the stamping an all over process rather than a cluster in one place. Some children chose to stand and walk around as they stamped.

We rolled up their paper and secured it with a pipe cleaner to take home on the last day before winter break. Some of the parents in other classrooms were really dazzled by how modern the paper looked.

holiday play dough fun

 

 

My co-teacher whipped up a batch of gingerbread playdough for the kiddos to enjoy while I brought in a bag of tiny bows. We piled it all onto a thrifted tray (my magic place) with as many holiday cookie cutters as we could find and let the play begin!

make a marshmallow garland

This super easy garland project can be whipped up with even your young twos and threes. A plastic needle is extra long and should both prevent poking and swallowing. This project will work those fine motor skills and get the creative juices flowing when given a variety of marshmallows and straws to play with. If you talk to your kiddo about creating a pattern with their straws and marshmallows you've just added math to the mix. Here's what you need.

Marshmallow and Paper Straw Garland

*large marshmallows

*plastic needle

*waxed dental floss

*paper straws

*two pony beads or buttons

*scissors

Gather up your marshmallows and pop them into a pretty bowl or two. Hand your kiddo a pair of scissors (if they're scissors ready) and let them cut up their paper straws. Set the cut straws into their own happy bowl and set aside. I have found paper straws at Michael's, Target, and online. If you cannot find paper straws, plastic straws will work and can be found in many different colors.

 Thread your plastic needle (I found mine at Michael's) with a long length of dental floss that has been double knotted. You want to use dental floss to keep the line as unsticky as possible (it will still be gooey as marshmallows are magically gooey). The plastic needle will easily poke through the marshmallow and is sturdy enoug for little fingers to thread through the cut star pieces. Tie one of your buttons or beads to the end and get to threading. Here is where the patterning comes in. You can ask your kiddo to create  a pattern of two or three and then have them thread it. As they thread the pattern (red, green, marshmallow) talk about repeating and patterning. Use their example but mix it up and see if they can find the mix-up. 

 Once finished, tie off the other end with the remaining bead or button. Hang in a happy place. Merry Christmas! 

scrubby sponge snowflakes

There are all sorts of household objects you and your children can use to make snowflake-like prints. A few years ago I used empty thread spools, this year why not try using a scrubby sponge? You can pick up a six pack of scrubbers from the  dollar store or even check under your kitchen sink to see if you have any tucked away already. 

scrubby sponge snowflakes

*cereal box or other thin cardboard

*acrylic paint in assorted colors

*plastic scrubby sponge (not steel wool)

*white paint

*glitter

*scissors

You can certainly create your snowflake prints on any type of art paper but I prefer to use up what I have so this cracker box was perfect. Simply open both ends and cut along one side with ap air of scissors. Have your kiddo squirt and dribble on two or three colors of paint. 

Use an edge of another box, folded up newpaper or paint scrapes to push, pull and scrape the paint so that it retains some of its original dribbly bits. This will create a nifty marble effect. Otherwise, let your kiddos go to town with a fat paintbrush or sponge. Set aside to dry and repeat on the flip side of your cardboard if you like.

 To create the snowflakes, pour a blob of white paint onto a plate or repurposed lid. Have your kiddo dip and press all over the cardboard. While the paint is still wet, hand them a glitter shaker and let them jazz up their snowflakes. Ignore the yarny parts of the pics. I had originally thought if I cut into the scrubby sponge five or so times and then tied it at the cuts it would make a more prominent snowflake print. It did not, though the yarn does make the picture look a bit more quirky. Set aside to dry.

Once dry, cut around each snowflake and flip over to add another snowflake print on the back. Add your glitter and allow to dry. Once dry you can tape them up on a window or turn them into gift tags. Tuck a few away and I'll show you another nifty projects to make hanging ornaments with them! Stay tuend and thank you for visiting scrumdilly-do!