Santa Claus Preschool Theme

Today we did some Santa Claus activities!

We read our favorite books about Santa Claus "The Night Before Christmas" illustrated by Mary Engelbreit and "I Believe in Santa Claus" by Diane Adamson. The first is a classic story of Santa Claus with really fun illustrations.  The second one is a comparison of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ and symbols of Christmas.  We reread both lots throughout the Christmas season.

 We sang "Up on the Housetop" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

There are lots of preschool Christmas packs out there with little things that have to do with Santa.  I enjoy this Santa sizing activity from Little Piles Everywhere.

I found some real cute and fun puzzles that were targeted right for my son here. 

We also did this Santa Claus paper plate craft.  You can see more about it in my 2011 post about Santa Claus activities.  This post is actually my second most viewed post of all time.We did use white construction paper instead of copy paper and I think it worked better. Doesn't he make a cute Santa?

 The number one activity that all my kids look forward to each year is receiving a personalized e-mail from Santa Claus from Portable North Pole.  I can't say enough good things about it.  My kids have fun watching them over and over again each year.

Here is what we did in 2010 for our Santa Claus theme and in 2012.  I don't vary too much year to year with this theme because what I have already works so well, but it does change a little depending on how old my kids are that I am working with.

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.