Friday, December 14, 2012

An Enchanted Childhood Playschool ~ December 10th - 14th ~ Christmas Books Fun!

Unlike most preschools, we don't start Christmas activities until two weeks before Christmas.  We would get burnt-out and tired of a month of Christmas activities and are pretty sure the children would too! 

This year's plan is to read a Christmas book each day, for the two weeks before Christmas, and do a co-ordinating activity of some sort!

Monday, we read One Shining Star!  During CircleTime, we made sure to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, as well as Jingle Bells and Bunny's favorite: Hark the Herald Angels.  We have bells for everyone so the music is quite lively! 

At snack, we cut our apples across the middle. 
The children are always amazed to see a star inside the apple!


For our activity, the children used glitter glue to paint their own star ornaments.







Tuesday's book was The Sweet Smell of Christmas.  It is always fun to try to get the children to understand that NanaKerri read this book to Hannah when she was a little girl!  For our activity, we made homemade playdough scented with Peppermint essential oil.






 The children each took their own ball of playdough home.

Wednesday, we read I'm Not Santa.  This is a very cute book and has already become a favorite among the children! 

After reading it, the children made their own little Santa Owl magnets!



Thursday, we did two projects.  First we made finger-dot snowmen on a Christmas light bulb. 
The ornaments turned out really cute!!  This was one of those spur of the moment ideas (not even from pinterest or anything!)







That same day, we read our book-of-the day, Christmas Tree. 
The children colored their own "trees" and then decorated them with "finger dots"!






Friday's book was This is the Stable. 
We made these cute paper plate angels.. I found the idea here!
Rather than leave the paper plates white, we wanted to allow the children to make their "own" angels, so they painted their paper plates with watercolors. After they dried, we cut them into angles.  We were all impressed with how beautiful they were.




Please join us next week as we explore five more Christmas books and make some of our tradition crafts!


I want to let you know that the books we read each week will be featured on the Amazon widget in the sidebar on your right.  If you purchase a book through this link, I hopefully (not so far, but maybe someday) will make a few cents.

Linky Parties:
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14 comments:

  1. Karyn TrippDecember 15, 2012 at 2:45 PM

    Such fun ideas! I love the crafts that go along with these books! I have a new Saturday linky and would love to have you come by to share your ideas! http://www.teachbesideme.com/2012/12/share-it-saturday.html Thanks!

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  2. JoeyDecember 16, 2012 at 5:20 PM

    Love your ideas and the names of the books that somehow we have not read before?...I didn't think it possible?!?
    Did you use baker's twine on the bulb snowmen ornaments? Great way to use up the burnt out ones!
    Thanks for linking up to Sharing Creative Ideas!
    ~ joey ~

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everyday ThingsDecember 17, 2012 at 6:00 AM

    hi just read your post and thought I'd share with link with you, I used to read this to my kids at pre kindy ( I used to teach ) and we used a real apple to show the kids the star inside the apple..I also did this with my own children when they were small.

    http://www.ncagr.gov/agscool/commodities/redhouse.htm

    do you know this story?
    we would then use the cut apples dip them into paint and print on paper with them!

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  4. OneMommyDecember 17, 2012 at 9:33 AM

    What cute activities!
    I love doing crafts to go with our books -- we've done a lot of Christmas crafts, but nothing tide to our Christmas books, yet.... Got to get my momma brain in gear!
    Stopping in from Delicate Construction link up!

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  5. Raising a Happy ChildDecember 17, 2012 at 10:07 PM

    I think keeping Christmas books and activities closer to Christmas is a great idea for younger kids. Thanks for sharing your picks with The Children's Bookshelf!

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  6. Karri ReiserDecember 18, 2012 at 10:56 AM

    Great ideas. I love coordinating projects with stories. Thanks for sharing at my Our Favorite Things Link Party.

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  7. Momand KiddoDecember 19, 2012 at 3:21 AM

    What a fun selection of activities. Thanks for linking up with The Children's Bookshelf!

    ReplyDelete
  8. JenniDecember 19, 2012 at 4:40 AM

    Looks like you have a lot of fun! :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. We-Made-That.comDecember 19, 2012 at 4:56 AM

    I love how you gear projects around books, I think it makes reading more fun for the kids. And those snowman light bulbs came out great! Awesome job! Thanks so much for sharing on We Made That

    ReplyDelete
  10. RedTedArtDecember 19, 2012 at 5:24 AM

    The stars are so sweet! And love the upcycled light bulb ornaments (so on our to do list).

    Thank you for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!

    Maggy

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  11. MegDecember 19, 2012 at 1:43 PM

    These are great ideas. We are doing a similar project this week, and today's craft/book was a Nativity Set/This Is the Stable. Beautiful book!! Pinning your idea for the angels for us to do next year!

    ReplyDelete
  12. SheilaDecember 20, 2012 at 11:59 AM

    Hi Hanna, I just featured this post a highlight:

    http://exploreandexpress-sheila.blogspot.de/2012/12/exploring-advent-and-christmas-continues.html

    Thank you for joining in the fun!

    ReplyDelete
  13. CarrieDecember 21, 2012 at 1:27 PM

    Wow, some great books and great activities!! Looks like a wonderful week! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!

    ReplyDelete

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