The Week Before Christmas
December 21, 2019
The week before Christmas is always a crazy, busy time everywhere but especially at my preschool. This post may contain affiliate links. We still do things from our curriculum but our main focus is on the many aspects of Christmas. I’m excited to share this year’s activities with you because we changed it up quite a bit and did all new parent gifts and ornaments. They turned out really well.
We decided to change our week up from the previous years by having our Christmas party on Monday. That meant that the gifts we put together for the families went home that day, parents could bring the gifts they had for the other children to be sent home and teacher gifts were brought. Some were not ready to bring those things on Monday, so of course, they were able to bring things any day that week. I think that was actually a good change because it gave parents that had too many things going on a chance to get things together and not be reminded on Friday when there weren’t those extra days to do it.
My assistant, my youngest daughter, and I were blessed with MANY wonderful gifts. We got some Disney gift cards to go towards our next trip. We each got a box of socks and other goodies, an ornament and a gift card to Amazon. We are still working on what we want to use it for. One of our most treasured gifts was a little Christmas tree with mine , my husband, our children and grandchildren’s names, done with Disney font. And she got a really pretty necklace. It is a wonderful things to feel appreciated by those in your life.
The big craft that we did for our party was to paint a snowflake made out of craft sticks. We grabbed the design idea online. Jenni put them together pretty easily. Even the 18 month old painted his all by himself. We let two of the children that are close to age one do a little bit of painting. They painted them white first. We gave them blue and purple just for fun. They sprinkled a white glitter on it. We sprayed it with sealer once they had dried for a day. We put the date and our school name along with their names on the back to remember each year as they put them on their trees.
In our Winter in the Woods theme, we are talking about winter gear. They made mittens, not ones they could actually put on but it was fun anyway. They had to decorate them and thread the yarn to keep the two pieces together. A few with smaller hands managed to get their hand IN the mitten. We will finish up the rest of this week’s topics and the last week in this unit next week. We will wrap up this theme the week after Christmas. We will begin the next theme on the first full week of January.
The pinecone ornaments were SUPER easy to make. The children got to pick their pinecone from two large bags. Some chose really big ones and some chose smaller ones. They were given white paint to use first. When they were finished we let them pick glitter to sprinkle on it. Most chose either red or blue but one child picked both. I just used some thin ribbon for a hanger. We did lots of activities with paint since they enjoy it so much.
On Wednesday we worked on our parent gifts so they would have plenty of time to dry before sending them home on Friday. We took a cue from our Experience Early Learning curriculum for this activity. We purchased canvas from the dollar store and gave them paint and let them create whatever type of picture they wanted. These were for their parents so we wanted it to be unique to each child. We had most of the colors of paint with multiple brushes in each. They changed brushes as they changed colors so we didn’t have a bunch of water on the table for them to spill or waste paint. We’ve noticed that if they are supposed to rinse out the brush to change colors they tend to rinse it off every time they use the brush even if they want to keep using the same color. This idea has really saved us paint and time. The parents have to frame it themselves but that way it will match whatever area they are putting it in.
The three children under a year old didn’t paint with brushes. We used their feet and thumbs to create these frameable pictures. These were definitely fun ideas that I will use again. Even the 18 month old made a pretty unique painting worthy of framing.
The thing about parent gifts, as far as I’m concerned, they should be something truly FROM the child that THEY did themselves, as much as possible. Even though the infant gifts were done by us, they are still unique to them because those are their footprints and thumb prints.
On Friday, we had a Polar Express PJ Party to wrap up the week before Christmas. The kids decorated boxes and sat in them like a train while watching the movie and eating lunch. We took pictures in front of the tree so we could capture their sweet smiles.
We hope you have enjoyed a small look at our preschool during the week we celebrate Christmas. The week after Christmas, we will be back to our regular activities as we start a new year and decade. I hope you will check back to see what fun things we are doing.
The week before Christmas is always a crazy, busy time everywhere but especially at my preschool. This post may contain affiliate links. We still do things from our curriculum but our main focus is on the many aspects of Christmas. I’m excited to share this year’s activities with you because we changed it up quite a bit and did all new parent gifts and ornaments. They turned out really well.
We decided to change our week up from the previous years by having our Christmas party on Monday. That meant that the gifts we put together for the families went home that day, parents could bring the gifts they had for the other children to be sent home and teacher gifts were brought. Some were not ready to bring those things on Monday, so of course, they were able to bring things any day that week. I think that was actually a good change because it gave parents that had too many things going on a chance to get things together and not be reminded on Friday when there weren’t those extra days to do it.
My assistant, my youngest daughter, and I were blessed with MANY wonderful gifts. We got some Disney gift cards to go towards our next trip. We each got a box of socks and other goodies, an ornament and a gift card to Amazon. We are still working on what we want to use it for. One of our most treasured gifts was a little Christmas tree with mine , my husband, our children and grandchildren’s names, done with Disney font. And she got a really pretty necklace. It is a wonderful things to feel appreciated by those in your life.
The big craft that we did for our party was to paint a snowflake made out of craft sticks. We grabbed the design idea online. Jenni put them together pretty easily. Even the 18 month old painted his all by himself. We let two of the children that are close to age one do a little bit of painting. They painted them white first. We gave them blue and purple just for fun. They sprinkled a white glitter on it. We sprayed it with sealer once they had dried for a day. We put the date and our school name along with their names on the back to remember each year as they put them on their trees.
In our Winter in the Woods theme, we are talking about winter gear. They made mittens, not ones they could actually put on but it was fun anyway. They had to decorate them and thread the yarn to keep the two pieces together. A few with smaller hands managed to get their hand IN the mitten. We will finish up the rest of this week’s topics and the last week in this unit next week. We will wrap up this theme the week after Christmas. We will begin the next theme on the first full week of January.
The pinecone ornaments were SUPER easy to make. The children got to pick their pinecone from two large bags. Some chose really big ones and some chose smaller ones. They were given white paint to use first. When they were finished we let them pick glitter to sprinkle on it. Most chose either red or blue but one child picked both. I just used some thin ribbon for a hanger. We did lots of activities with paint since they enjoy it so much.
On Wednesday we worked on our parent gifts so they would have plenty of time to dry before sending them home on Friday. We took a cue from our Experience Early Learning curriculum for this activity. We purchased canvas from the dollar store and gave them paint and let them create whatever type of picture they wanted. These were for their parents so we wanted it to be unique to each child. We had most of the colors of paint with multiple brushes in each. They changed brushes as they changed colors so we didn’t have a bunch of water on the table for them to spill or waste paint. We’ve noticed that if they are supposed to rinse out the brush to change colors they tend to rinse it off every time they use the brush even if they want to keep using the same color. This idea has really saved us paint and time. The parents have to frame it themselves but that way it will match whatever area they are putting it in.
The three children under a year old didn’t paint with brushes. We used their feet and thumbs to create these frameable pictures. These were definitely fun ideas that I will use again. Even the 18 month old made a pretty unique painting worthy of framing.
The thing about parent gifts, as far as I’m concerned, they should be something truly FROM the child that THEY did themselves, as much as possible. Even though the infant gifts were done by us, they are still unique to them because those are their footprints and thumb prints.
On Friday, we had a Polar Express PJ Party to wrap up the week before Christmas. The kids decorated boxes and sat in them like a train while watching the movie and eating lunch. We took pictures in front of the tree so we could capture their sweet smiles.
We hope you have enjoyed a small look at our preschool during the week we celebrate Christmas. The week after Christmas, we will be back to our regular activities as we start a new year and decade. I hope you will check back to see what fun things we are doing.
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