Wrapping Presents in Preschool

Every year at Christmas time, I set up a present wrapping center in the classroom. Ripping tape, cutting, and folding paper are great small muscle activities for young children. Besides, it's lots of fun to wrap and open presents!

To set up, I fill the wrapping center with rectangles of wrapping paper,

bows,

scissors, tape,

an assortment of boxes,

and some small toys from around the room.

As children came to the center, I explained how to rip the tape and fold the paper around the boxes. After a little while, they can usually do the folding on their own, but the tape can be a bit more difficult (so be prepared to go through lots of it!)

Of course, opening the presents was the best part!

Even though they knew what would be inside, the children got so excited as they ripped the paper and opened the boxes!

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Christmas Countdown Calendar

I wanted to make a calendar for my class to count down the days to Christmas. I wanted to make it more interesting than simply removing numbers. At the same time, I didn't want to put prizes under each number like the traditional Advent calendars do because it would be difficult to fit enough prizes into each box for eight children. Then I remembered seeing somewhere on the Internet, although I can't remember where, the idea of putting an activity under each number.

I came up with little activities that we could do at circle time each day. Most of them were very simple (balance a bean bag on your head or balance on one foot). Some were longer and a bit more fun (decorate the Christmas tree). For each activity, I found a picture to go along with it, printed out the picture, and glued a sentence explaining the activity on the back.

I had the children paint toilet paper rolls with red and green paint. Once they dried, I cut them in half, stapled one end of each closed, and pasted numbers on them.

I only used the numbers 1-15 because there are 15 days of school in December before Christmas this year. I put one activity paper inside of each box (and marked on my calendar which activity was in each box so that I would remember). Then, I used clothespins to hang them from strings in our circle time area.

Every day a different child chooses a number and opens it for the class. It's very exciting to see what we will do each day!

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Pine Cone Turkeys

A few weeks ago I was taking a walk and found a whole bunch of pine cones that had fallen from a tree onto the sidewalk about a block from the school. Later in the day, I went back with some of the children to gather up the pine cones. At the time I didn't have a plan for them but I was sure they would come in handy with the holidays coming up.

Today, we used some of the pine cones to make Thanksgiving turkeys. I showed the children how to squeeze some glue onto them and tuck feathers into the pine cones.

Then we added eyes and a little piece of orange pipe cleaner as a beak.

Aren't they cute!

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