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.  

Santa Claus

Today we talked about Santa Claus. We read some books about Santa.  Mary Engelbreit has a wonderfully illustrated "The Night Before Christmas" that we read.  We also read a book called  "I Believe in Santa Claus" by Diane G. Adamson.  In this book the similarities between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ are pointed out.  It also points out how Santa is a symbol of what Christmas is about.  Tami Greene was a guest writer on Latter-Day Homeschooling and she also had another idea for bringing out the similarities Santa has with Jesus.

Last year I shared a Curly-Beard Santa activity.  We did that again.  (Instructions here).  I found a cuter Santa template to use though here. 

 I cut the strips of paper 1/2 an inch this year instead of 1 inch, like last year.  My son colored Santa's hat red.

 My son glued these cotton balls onto a red triangle for a Santa Hat.

 I decided to combined the two previous projects.  I cute a hole in a paper plate and had my son glue his Santa Hat on the top of it.  Then we curled some more paper and glued it to the bottom so we could have this Santa Claus Face.  I think it turned out.  Your child could put way more paper strips on the bottom half of the paper plate if they wanted too.

 A personalized e-mail from Santa is a must at our house with how much my kids love it!  If you don't do anything else, check out this.  It is worth it, I promise and it only takes a couple of minutes on your part to get it put together even my 21 month old has watched the video e-mails a dozen times and giggles throughout them.

 Little Piles Everywhere has a Christmas Pack that I've linked several times.  Included with this size ordering Santa.

 Since Santa's belly jiggles like a bowl full of jelly we made some jello jigglers to remind of us of that jiggle belly.  Unfortunately I don't have a Santa cookie cutter so we had to make due with candy cane and stocking shapes.

You can check out our Santa Claus Post from last year for more ideas.  Here is a Santa Hat we did a couple of years ago.

Shared with:

Santa Claus

Gathering Time:

Read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” illustrated by Mary Engelbreit

Talk about different names that Santa goes by (Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas…)

Read “I Believe in Santa Claus” by Diane G. Adamson (This is a wonderful book that points out similarities between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ)

 

Sing, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”

Sing, “Up on the Housetop”

 Focus Activities:

Santa’s Workshop- online games and games

Curly Bearded Santa

Count Santa’s

Santa Hat

Other Possibilities:

Personalized e-mail from Santa My children LOVE this!  We've watched each of their e-mails more than a dozen times.

RESOURCES:

http://www.santagames.net

www.northpole.com

http://www.christianpreschoolprintables.com

 http://www.friendsacrossamerica.com

http://prek-8.com

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home

Curly-Bearded Santa

I thought this would be a fun activity to do with my boys for our Santa Claus theme.

 

First cut strips of white paper (I cut them 1 inch wide and 5.5 inches long)

 Next either find a Santa Claus template to use or you could draw one yourself.  I thought this Santa was pretty cute.  However, if I do it again I think I will find one that's hat isn't black so it can be given some color.

 If you are going to have your child color on Santa now is the time to do that.  Then you can assist your child (if needed) in rolling the strips of paper around a pencil in order to curl them up.  My 3 year old needed quite a bit of assistance doing this part.

 Next, glue the stripes of paper to Santa's beard.

 Here is Santa with his curly beard!  My boys thought that Santa was pretty funny with all of these curls in his beard.