5 Christmas Centers and a new TpT unit with a FREEBIE!

Hello All, Happy Holidays to you all! I wanted to share this week a few of my time tested Christmastime centers. I don't have pictures of all of them but I will post the ones I have. So far this year my busy little four year olds are enjoying the (1)jingle bell pick up the most. I place a bucket of small jingle bells on the table with 4 ice cube trays and 4 pair of tweezers. The children fill up the ice cube trays with the jingle bells without using their fingers. They count, make patterns, compare each others trays and sort by color. They have begged me to play this every morning this week!

(2) Candy cane counting center: I hang number cards across my cabinets on yarn. I then have them hole punched at the bottom to coorrespond with the number. The children then go along the row and hang plastic candy canes from the dollar store on each card while counting. (3) Christmas Sensory Bin: I have gathered bows, tinsel, plastic candy canes, jingle bells, small ornaments and all things Christmas (mostly from the dollar store) and have them in a bin for the children to play with. They love exploring these items with tweezers, magnifying glasses and divided trays for sorting. (4) Christmas Bow Patterns: I always shop after Christmas for 90% off supplies where there is always and abundance of bows in every color imaginable. I take out my color dot pattern cards and allow them to pattern with the bows. Once they have had a chance to play for a while I give them a long sheet of construction paper and a pattern to make (AB,ABB,etc.)They get to choose their favorite colors to pattern and adhere them to the paper to take home. For a large group activity you can count all of the bows and make patterns as long as your hallway or classroom. If you are working on counting have a bow day where you place bows everywhere around the room and the children have to find and bring them to you or count and record how many of each color they find. (5) Christmas word mix up center: I write Christmas/Holiday words on cards and then make a set of squares with each letter to coorrespond. I give the children a sheet of paper and a pencil and see how many words they can build from the Christmas words (Christmas, ornament, stocking, jingle bell, reindeer, hot chocolate, etc.) These centers are in addition to the Christmas Cookie Unit I have created which includes 14 complete centers and many more center/craftivity ideas. Christmas Cookie Math and Literacy Unit I have this unit on sale for $5.00 this week to kick off a great Christmas season so get it while it is on sale. It will go back up to $7.00 on Saturday.

Christmas Cookie Math and Literacy Unit Here is the link to the freebie I promised you all from my new Christmas Cookie Math and Literacy Unit: Christmas Cookie Freebie Till next time enjoy life! Christine