Crafts For Less

Recreating the joy of the festive season by bringing Christmas into your classroom is a brilliant way of engaging your preschool students and encouraging them to learn.

The vivid sights and sounds of Christmas, the anticipation of presents, the magic of Santa – the festive season provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers to engage students and encourage them to learn using fun and easy to organize activities.

Imagining the holiday from a preschooler’s perspective, and exploring the sensory experience of Christmas through the eyes of a child, is a wonderful way to foster the development of new skills and experiences.

Research certainly indicates the central importance of play in learning. Many educational studies have highlighted the importance of learning through experience and emphasize that students must be active in the construction of their own learning, rather than passive recipients of information.

There a literally thousands of Christmas activities all of which promote literacy, numeracy, problem solving, teamwork and creativity.

Counting, classifying, categorizing, drawing and painting, storytelling, narrative and recounting, problem solving, relationship building – the possibilities are endless. Here are five wonderful Christmas activities which can be used to encourage your students to learn through play.

1. Glittery Xmas Wish List

This activity develops classifying, identifying and organizing skills using a Christmas wish list to develop and enhance these skills.

Materials: Colored paper, glue, glitter, scissors, toy catalogues and magazines.

1. Supply students with large sheets of colored paper.

2. Ask students to trace glue around the border and use glitter to decorate the border.

3. Color in the heading ‘My Wish List’

4. Tell students to hunt through the toy catalogs and select and cut out toys that they like.

5. Students can glue images in order of size, value, shape or color.

2. Candy Cane Hunt – Outdoor Activity

This activity is great fun and develops team building and problem solving skills using an outdoor treasure hunt. Rug your little students up and brave the cold!

Materials: 6 identical treasure maps of the outdoor play area, clue sheets, candy cane, a whistle.

1. Divide students in to groups of four or five ‘Elf Teams’

2. Provide each team with a treasure map.

3. Hand out clue sheets and instruct students to find the hidden Christmas treats.

3. Christmas Music and Art

Enhance your students’ art, design and creativity skills using a range of fun craft activities.

Materials: CD Player, Christmas CD, art supplies, cookie decoration kit

1. Play Christmas CD’s to the class while they make and decorate Christmas cards for loved ones, create Christmas ornaments or decorate gingerbread cookies.

2. Encourage students to sing along to jingles as they create their artwork.

4. Creating Christmas Stories

Read a wide range of classic Christmas stories to your class to inspire their imaginations. Watch Christmas DVD’s and share favorite Christmas experiences in order to develop narrative skills, recounting skills and collaborative learning.

Materials: DVD’s, stories, DVD’s, colored pens.

1. Divide students into groups of four and ask students to create a Christmas story.

2. Each group storyboards the tale on large pieces of cardboard.

3. Have students present their storyboards and share their Christmas tale to the class.

5. Christmas Clues

1. Make a list of people, places or objects related to Christmas. Examples – snowman, reindeer, elf, star.

2. Students ask up to 15 questions about the item and answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ depending on the relevance. For example: Snowman – ‘Does he melt?’, ‘Does he love the snow?’

Merry Christmas!

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