A Book of Mormon Christmas

I have been sick so we have not done much of anything with regards to preschool.  We finally did a little bit today.  I wanted to talk to my son about what happens in the Book of Mormon around the time that Christ was born.  We read this cute board book called Beyond Bethlehem:  A Book of Mormon Christmas.  My kids enjoy the illustrations in the book which keeps them interested in the story.  It mostly covers what happened with Samuel the Lamanite and his prophecy of Christ's birth.

I brought out a globe and showed my son where Bethlehem is and where the Americas are so he could see how far apart they are.

We also did this fun little craft.

We also decided to act out the story.  I was nominated to be Samuel so I climbed on the piano bench while my kids threw marshmallows at me (instead of stones and arrows).  

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Today we read "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss.  We also watched the cartoon. My son loves this book and has read it to me a couple of times now this year which is a fun switch for me and good reading practice for him.

My son did several Grinch activities.  There are several here and I also found a pattern one here.  

 We also made Grinch cookies.  Find the recipe here.

 Devouring the cookies!

I wasn't feeling that great so that is all we managed to do today.  However, we did several other activities that go with book last year.  Check out my post here. 

Santa Claus 2012 Activities

We sang "Up on the Housetop" and "Santa Claus is Coming To Town"  to kick off our Santa Claus day.  We also read some favorite Santa Claus books, "Twas The Night Before Christmas" by Mary Engelbriet and  "I Believe in Santa Claus" by Diane Adamson. 

My kids love getting e-mails from Santa with videos customized just for them from Portable North Pole.

I found some fun activities to practice writing.  I found these here.  This pack includes other things as well, but my son wrote down ways to get on Santa's good list and he wrote a letter to Santa.

The rest of the activities we did are ones we have done before, but since we enjoy them they are worth repeating.  Instructions for this Curly Beard Santa can be found here and a template for this Santa here.

 This Santa Claus face has been a big hit so we did it again this year.  He has a much fuller beard this time around.  :)

 You can check out my full Santa Claus post from 2011 here and from 2010 here.  Here is a Santa Hat we did a few years ago.  

Christmas Trees

We did a ton of Christmas tree activities today.  First off, we sang "O Christmas Tree".  My son loves this song and this link has the lyrics with it.

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a Christmas Printable pack with lots of Christmas tree activities including this one where your child counts the number of ornaments and puts the star that has that number on top of the tree.

 Living Life Intentionally has a cute Merry Christmas Pack that we have used several activities from.

 Little Piles Everywhere has this really cute Christmas Tree matching game.

 Making Learning Fun has this fun geometric tree.

 We always enjoy doing felt Christmas Trees.  My 2 year old especially had a good time playing with this.  Serving Pink Lemonade has a cute, free pattern.

 I made these lacing cards a few years ago and they are still serving me well.  I used cereal boxes and scrapbook paper.  Then I laminated them and punch holes and put brackets in them.  I use yarn for the lacing part.

 2 Teaching Mommies have a fun Christmas Tree pack too.

 I also made these triangle trees a few years ago.  Again with cereal boxes and scrapbook paper.  I originally found the idea here.

 1+1=1 has some cute Christmas Trees in her Christmas Coloring Page pack that we did.  I think there were three different ones that we used.

 I also found this cute Christmas Tree ornament.  Sadly, I don't have a picture of the finished product yet because they glitter glue is still drying.  I will try to update with one tomorrow.  You can see a finished one here where I found the idea.

 I also found several fun Christmas tree activities at teacherspayteachers.com.  Including a Christmas Tree Mathematics pack for kindergarteners and preschoolers.

 There is also this Christmas Tree Shape printable.

 And then there is a Christmas Tree color matching printable.

Whew.  There are a lot of Christmas Tree ideas out there and we only skimmed the surface.  You can check out what we've done previous years as well.  Christmas Trees 2011, Christmas Ornaments 2011, Christmas Trees 2010, Christmas Ornaments 2010,  Christmas Trees 2009. 

Bear Stays Up for Christmas

Today we read Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson.  We love all of those bear books at our house.  1+1=1 has some funny story prop printables that we used with the book.

 I also found this fun freebie at teacherspayteachers.com   My son cut out and glued each card on to a second page in the section of the book it fell on- beginning, middle, and end.

It was a simple, but fun day.  You can also check out what we did with this book last year here.

Reindeer

My son wasn't feeling very well today, but we were still able to do some preschool activities.  Today's theme was reindeer.  Check out some reindeer in action at Reindeer Cam.

We did a lot of activities from 3 Dinosaurs Reindeer Pack.  Including a cute little book about reindeer.

This cute coloring page came from this coloring page pack.

This is also a fun reindeer unit that we have activities from.

Here is this cute dot-to-dot reindeer

We sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Then we made these fun little paper plate reindeer's with my other two sons. We traced each of their hands on brown paper.  Then we cut the center out of a plate and they colored the edge of it brown.  Then we taped the hands onto the top of the plate for the antlers.  Then we found pom-poms and taped them to their noses and they became reindeer.  

You can check out our reindeer activities from 2011 here, 2010 here, and 2008 here.

Candy Canes

Today we had a candy cane theme.  It's always a lot of fun and a great opportunity to talk about patterns.

I made this cute file folder color matching game a while back that is fun although too easy for my 5 year old at this time, but we still did it.

 This is a fun number recognition game.  You put a number up and have your child put that many candy canes "in" the stocking.

 Confessions of a Homeschooler has a fun Christmas Preschool pack that includes this candy cane counting activity.

 I like to use this Candy Cane mini book to explain different things that a candy cane symbolizes.

 My son loves to paint so he painted a candy cane.  My two year old also had fun painting one for himself as well.

After they dried we cut them out.  I am not sure why my 5 year old picked orange and green, but there you go.  My 2 year old was a bit more festive with red and green.

We taste tested a bunch of different flavors of candy canes.  I didn't realize how many different flavors are out there now a days.  We found Swedish fish flavored, Jolly Rancher, Bright Crawlers, and a whole lot more.  In the end with all the varieties my son said peppermint was his favorite.  :) 

 This is a real fun activity, but preschoolers still need a lot of help with that.  You cook candy canes and then you can bend them into different shapes.  They still need to be warm or they will break.  You can stick them back in the oven though and they will go back to being bendable.  My son did some different shapes and I wrote out some names.  The directions I followed are found at Make and Takes.  Her directions say 10 minutes however when I did it last year 10 minutes melted my batch completely. 5 minutes worked much better for me.  It's just going to depend on your oven so beware.

 My son also made a beaded candy cane that we hung on the tree.  This time he did green and yellow.  You just need pipe cleaner and beads for this activity.

2 Teaching Mommies has a fun Candy Cane pack
They also have a candy cane coloring and counting book
Here is a matching game we do that I didn't take a picture of.
We also did a candy cane coloring page from this coloring pack
And a dot-to-dot found here.

You can also check out our candy cane themed day from 2011 here and from 2010 here.

Angel Activities

Today we talked about how an angel appeared to Mary and told her that she would have a special baby named Jesus.  Then we talked about how an angel appeared to some Shepard's and told them about Jesus' birth.

We did this fun paper angel craft that I found here.

 We also collaborated and made this angel together.  I found some cute trees with a pattern that I used for the angels body here.  My son also wanted to use the template for the wings so I cut it out but didn't do any of the folds.  Then he cut out a circle for a head and some arms.  Then we taped it together.  We used some vellum that I had on hand so it would look more heavenly.

Then my son did a coloring page of an angel that we found here. 

Since yesterday was packed full of activities and fun we had a more mellow day today, but it was still enjoyable.

Check out our angel activities from last year here and from 2010 here.