Make a star

I had a go at this one last night

Click here

Looks fab and really easy to do.

Here are some more links

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Christmas origami

These activities might be nice for older children. Would be nice to stick on the front of a home made card

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Christmas songs

Found this lovely site through 'sites for teachers' (link is down the right hand side of this blog)

Lots of nursery rhymes, pictures to go with the rhymes, music and songs. This is the Christmas section but do explore the rest of the site

Advent calendars

Advent train

Advent chest

The Nativity story

This is a nice one by Topmarks and here is a Nativity kit

Click here for another story

Stable template

Christmas wordsearch

Drag and drop snowman scene

This is a lovely drag and drop snowman scene

Nativity clip art

I found some clip art that can be used freely for educational use here Click on the images because there is more.

Advent calendar ideas

I love this idea where the children put a cotton ball on santa's face. I did this a few years ago for the class and also my little girl. I got a large sheet of paper and painted santa's face. We did it as a whole class.

Here is a link for a template

Below is my feeble effort of painting santa's face on a large sheet of paper. At least this way you could if necessary leave out the numbers so a child glues a piece of cotton wool on each day leading up to Christmas. Good if you have more than 24 in your class.

One teacher I worked with did a fabulous one where she got a bunch of twigs and basically stuck them to the wall with a big ribbon around the bottom. She then got the children to draw a picture and put their picture in a numbered envelope to hang on the branches

The paper chain advent calendar isn't a new idea but I thought I would mention it just incase someone doesn't know about it. Here are some instructions and a poem. You could write an activity on it each link for the children to do each day.

If anyone has any photographs or ideas then please email me and I would be happy to put them in this link

Santa's workshop role play

I have just started making somethings for my santa's role play area. Please keep checking back on this link because I will add things as I make them

Online Christmas fun

There are some fantastic sites out there. Here are a couple of my favourites

Light up all the Christmas lights

Penguin show (write your name in snow)

Mix and match santa, penguin and snowman

Print, laminate and cut along the grey lines. Children to put back together or perhaps even make a mixture?

Advent Calendar colour the stars

Christmas nativity writing frame with pictures

A writing frame with pictures for a prompt

Christmas writing frames

Sort from smallest to largest

Print and laminate. Cut out and children to order from smallest to largest or vice versa

Snowman soup

Another lovely idea! Children could make these for their parents for a Christmas gift.

Click here

Here is my snowman soup. I bought a cheap mug and snowman from 'Home bargains' - 99p, put in a galaxy hot chocolate, and a cadbury's hot chocolate, a candy cane, and some small marshmallows which I labelled as freeze dried snowballs.

Magic reindeer Food, Christmas dust

One of the members of the forum (blueliz) explained how she made christmas dust with the children each year. It is basically a mixture of oats and glitter. I have since read how it's best to use coloured sugar crystals due to the danger of birds eating the glitter. However, Liz explained how she made the dust and I thought it was lovely.

We sit in a circle, the lights off, so its dim. Depending on the children, I might have a large candle in the middle of the circle. I read a Christmas story, something about Santa Claus. I explain what we are making, Santa Dust, to sprinkle on our front step, front garden, driveway etc on Christmas Eve so Santa Claus will know a good little child lives there. The porrigde oats are for Rudolph and the other reindeers to eat, the glitter is the magic. We have a mixing bowl, a bag of porridge, and glitter. and take turns adding a small teaspoon of porridge and a pinch of glitter (the magic) to the bowl. Then stir it up, making a christmas wish. It's all very magical and atmospheric. When the bowl has gone round everybody we take turns to put a spoonful of the mixture into a small plastic bag, tied with a piece of thin parcel ribbon. I have little cards with a picture of Santa and a verse, which is attatched to the bag with the ribbons. Its a lovely calm, restful and magical activity at the end of term. just what the children need in the midst of the hustle and bustle. (And I love doing it to).

I found some other ways of making it, using birdseed, cheerios, coloured sugar crystals and of course rolled oats or oatmeal. To make coloured sugar crystals you basically add a couple of drops of food colouring to a bag of sugar and mix up well.

I made a couple of labels with two different poems but if you google there are loads more poems out there





click here and here for labels already set out and ready to print

I found out about it too late last year but I still made some for the children who live down my street and it went down very well.

Here is how I intend to do this activity. I am going to wrap up a parcel with brightly coloured Christmas paper. Inside will be a bag of oats, a bag of coloured sugar, a tablespoon, a teaspoon and a mixing bowl. There will also be a letter from Santa to read to the children. We will then make the Santa dust.

Here is the letter I have made



For lots more Christmas resources click here

Numbers 0-10 on penguins

Penguin rhymes and songs

More penguin rhymes and craft

Teddy Numberline 0-10