Christmas Gifts 2015 - Spoiler Alert!

This year for Christmas gifts for the kiddos I kept it fairly simple.  I usually make a superhero cape for each kiddo, but I simply ran out of time.  Drat.

Gifts for the Kiddos -

I was excited to find the mini flashlights at Walmart for $1, the book I got with my Scholastic dollars, the bag I found in the dollar bins at Target in August.  The bubbles were donated and the cup I found on super clearance at the end of summer.  Each gift cost just $2.25.  Cool beans!

Gift for the Parents - I took a head shot of each of the kiddos, then mounted it on a mini canvas.  I got the canvases at Michaels, during one of their art supply sales.

The kiddos LOVED the mini canvases.  I think it would be fun to make a class set of blocks like these for the kiddos to play with.

 I wrote the kiddo's name and the date on the back and hot glued a twine for hanging.

Gifts for Siblings - Pine Cone Buddies - I always love to provide a gift that the kiddos can make for family members.  The kiddos also make jingle necklaces again this year.  They get so excited when they have gifts to give.  

The kiddos wrapped the small pine cone (it's what we had in the yard) with fat yarn and picked out eyeballs.  I hot glued the eyes on and made sure the yarn ends were glued down too.

Gift for their Parents - We do this every year.  I find the plates at the dollar store.  I have the kiddos think of what they would like to draw for their parents.  When they are ready, they use Sharpie paint pens to draw.  I write the kiddo's name and the year on the back as well as any explanation of their drawing they give.  I also write "hand wash only".   I bake them in the oven (30 minutes at 350 degrees F.). 

Here are a few of this year's plates.

 

All of the classes do this project. 

 

 

Christmas Week 2

Such great snow today!  Sorry it made it so some of our friends couldn't come.  No worries though!

Snow - Shoveling, tasting, playing...

Hot Cocoa and Snow Ice Cream - Yum! - Just need snow, sugar, vanilla and milk!  Stir, taste and adjust.  Yummers!

 Hot cocoa WITH marshmallows!

 Snow melting experiments.  First on the table with fingers...

Then with hot cocoa!  The cocoa was a bit warm, so the kiddos added snow ice cream ... soon they had cooca slushies.  Ha!

 

Check out the backyard!

Pine Cone Tree - The kiddos merrily glued decorations on their mini trees.

I hot glued a milk jug cap on the bottom.

 

Big Nosed Reindeer - Here are a few of the youngster's reindeer.  Super cute!

 

More Snow Play -


Sugar Cookies - The long awaited day is here!  The kiddos were thrilled to be able to make, frost and eat cookies today.

Rectangle Wreaths - While our cookies baked and cooled, we made these fabulous wreaths.  I saw this great idea on this blog:  HERE.

For the toddlers, I used the smaller plates.

 
Frosting Cookies! - And tasting and decorating and tasting.  Yum!snack:  apple slices, pretzels and cookies!

Star Wars Buddies - A kiddo and I were excited to discover we both had our Star Wars shirts on for Star Wars day.  So cool.  (December 18, 2015)

Snack - One of the moms made these cute applesauce reindeer.

Learning Station - Stacking Santa Hats

The kiddos worked in pairs, taking turns placing a cup then a pom pom then a cup then a...  .  We found that they could stack all 20 cups with small pom poms, but when they tried the bigger pom poms the "hats" usually fell over.  I saw this idea on this blog:  HERE.

 

Learning Station - Jingle Bells and Magnets

The kiddos enjoyed moving the bells from the bowl to their container.  Lots of great jingling!

This was the record capture ... 22 bells!

 

Christmas Week 1

These next two of preschool are some of my favorite.  I love how the kiddos get so excited about making gifts for family and friends.

Hanging Ornaments - First thing, the kiddos hung their gingerbread ornaments on our tree. 

 

Craft Stick Tree Ornaments - The kiddos carefully glued "ornaments" onto these little trees.  As prep, I hot glued 3 craft sticks to make a triangle, then added a felt "trunk".  I used the dyed craft sticks from the dollar store.

Baked Bead Ornaments - These will be fabulous on the tree!  The kiddos chose beads to fill the bottom of the cookie cutter.  Bake them at 400 degrees F for 12 or so minutes.  This is super stinky.  Let them cool, then they pop right out of the metal cookie cutters.

Beading Necklaces - With the beads out, one kiddo wanted to make a necklace for her mom.

Poker Chips - I found a big bag of these at Goodwill.  I thought they would be great for counting, sorting and play.  Today the kiddos pretended they were cookies and "baked" them in the oven.

 
Journal Time - Candy Canes - The kiddos were excited to find a candy cane to munch while working in their journals. The kiddos took their candy cane out of the wrapper, then put a paper candy cane back in it and taped it in their journals.

 One kiddo was surprised to see the red disappearing from his cane as he licked it.

Felt Stars - The kiddos were quite happy to decorate these felt stars with glitter glue.  I cut and sewed the stars.

 A few of these might take a couple of days to dry.  Ha!

 

Wrapping Gifts - The kiddos started their Santa Helper jobs today by wrapping their gift for their Mom and Dad.  We'll start making sibling gifts next time.  So much fun! 

I have the older kiddos write their own tags.

Our tree is starting to fill up underneath!

Paper Plate Santas - The kiddos where happy to create a Santa today.  They added buttons to his coat and a pom pom on his hat.

We were running out of time in the youngster class, so we drew on our faces.  No time for glue to dry.

Warm Weather - We are enjoying unseasonably warm weather this week.  We had rain!  So, we enjoyed chalk and we found a lady bug!

 

Frosted Pine Cones - The kiddos enjoyed this very much.  They painted the tips of their pine cones with white paint, then dipped them in Epsom salts.  They turned out fabulous!  We had gathered the pine cones from my neighbor's yard a few weeks ago.


Big Nosed Reindeer - The kiddos cut out the parts of their reindeer, then glued it all together.  These are a new favorite.  I love the eyelashes on this one!

Games - Skip-Bo - I love teaching the kiddos to play games, there is so much to be learned from it.  This kiddos was super excited to learn Skip-Bo.  Great for number recognition and counting and knowing what comes next on the number line.  So fun.