As we are getting closer to Christmas, we are having fun with some holiday centers. Our students are getting in the Christmas spirit, and they have had a great time exploring these new activities.

Decorate the Tree!

This simple provocation was easy to set up- some loose parts and a tree cutout. We challenged students to decorate the tree using patterns and numbers during our math centers. Our students used the materials to make some great looking trees, and they had fun at the same time.

Can you build an elf trap? STEM challenge

This invitation was used after we read the book How to Catch an Elf. We wanted our students to build their own elf traps, then record their structure. We asked our students what materials they wanted to use, and we even gave them a ‘decoy’ elf that they could use to test their traps! We had so many fun creations, and our students are getting better at recording what they make.

If you would like to do this activity in the classroom, I have added it to my Resource Library as a free download!

Winter Sensory Bin

Our sensory bin this week had fake snow as the base. We also added pine cones, bells and foam snowflakes. Then we added sight snowflakes into the mix and gave the students recording sheets to write down the sight words that they found. They had a lot of fun in this bin, and it was great sight word practice. You can see more winter-themed activities from my post earlier this week, or if you would like to get this literacy center, you can find it here:

         

Reindeer Directed Drawing

Our students *love* to do directed drawings. They get so excited when we tell them that they are going to be learning how to draw something new, and they are such attentive listeners when we are doing them. We try to do at least one a month, and we had success with turkeys and owls in the past, so this month we tackled reindeer. This was definitely a more complicated art project than we had done before, so I was a little apprehensive. Our students blew me away with their enthusiasm and the pride they took in their work. After they finished colouring in their reindeer (we used oil pastels), I took black crayon and I went over all their lines to darken them up, this improved the images so much since you could really make out the details in their drawings. We had some pretty colourful reindeer, and next time we are going to focus on contrast so that students see that they need to make their details pop.

If you would like to tackle this art project with your students, you can find the directions from Artventurous!

If you would like to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in our classroom, make sure you follow me on Instagram!