December 2019

Here are some things we have been up to in our classroom this month!

1. CANDY CANE FINGERPRINT ORNAMENT

I was originally going to do fingerprint snowmen or reindeer but then I saw @creativekindergartenblogontpt post about her candy cane ornaments and these looked so much easier so we switched to these. I have to say though these need to be hand over hand for them to look nice (well at least with my class!). At first, I tried to just draw a candy cane outline and have the kids do it themselves and they look like mangled candy canes.. so I had my placement student sit with the rest of the kids and do it one at a time and hand over hand.

We had the kids write their name and the year if they could on the back with a black Flair pen.

If you are interested in the wood slices I bought you can find them here: https://amzn.to/2LsP2BJ

If you want the tags shown above you can download them for free by clicking here or on the image below:

2. CHRISTMAS TREE STEM

This is a simple centre but the kids LOVED it! Can you make a Christmas tree with green cups? Can you decorate it?

3. KWANZAA CENTRES

My ECE partner has been teaching the kids about Kwanzaa and she has put these fun centres out so I got permission from her to share them here!

At this centre the students were invited to practice Kuumba (creativity), one of the 7 principles of Kwanzaa, by making a bracelet! We learned that making simple jewelry and gifting them is a Kwanzaa tradition so students were invited to make one for themselves or they could make one to give to a friend!

After we learned about Kwanzaa we also had Kwanzaa vocabulary booklets out for students to complete to reinforce the new words we learned.

The Kwanzaa booklet can be found here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Book-of-Kwanzaa-Words-5084891

We also learned that the unity cup was a symbol of Kwanzaa and that unity means coming together. My ECE partner invited the student to decorate a “unity cup” with paper mache glue and tissue paper. The various colour “come together” to create a beautiful design on the cup! The kids really enjoyed this centre too!

If you need lesson and book ideas you can find my Kwanzaa lessons here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kinder-Read-Alouds-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa–4455955

4. LETTER REINDEER PLAY DOUGH

This was our play dough centre for the second week of December! Can you make a reindeer? Can you make the letters on the antlers match (uppercase and lowercase)? The kids enjoyed making letters reindeers!

5. ROLL & DECORATE A STOCKING

This is a centre I quickly whipped up because I wanted a 2D shape math centre that would also work on fine motor and counting skills. The kids LOVED this one! They are asked to roll the dice and draw the shape they roll 10 times to decorate their stocking. Then they could colour the stocking at the end. I had one boy tell me “Mrs. Sloane I counted my shapes at the end and had 12 so I erased 2 to make sure I only had 10 just like you said”, which made me so happy! Lots of great conversations were happening at this centre!

I added this one to my “Kindergarten Christmas Activities” pack! If you already own it, re-download it to get the new pages for free! Here is the link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/A-Pinch-Of-Kinder-Yukari-Naka/Category/SEASONAL-Christmas-276923 or you can click on the image below!