Santa Pop Sticks

Here are some quick counting Santa's to make with or for your child. These counting Santa pop sticks could be used in a variety of ways.

Children could ...put them in the correct order

                        ...play with them in the block area

                        ...use them in playdough

                        ...count with them

                        ...identify the numbers

                        ...put them in trucks

                        ...attach them to boxes, cylinders or stands

                        ...make a Santa village

                        ...play with them !!

You will need 10 large pop sticks and some red, black and white acrylic paint.

This is how I painted them.

I hope you enjoy making some counting Santa's and that your child has fun learning with them.

Niccola

Alphabet Christmas Tree

In Australia it is getting hot and water play is a large part of the outdoor programme. This activity combines three of my favourite things.....recycling, water play and Christmas.

MATERIALS

Laundry scoops

Plastic bottle tops

Water Trolley ( or if you prefer, a sensory tray filled with rice or similar)

Some material or a plastic tablecloth ( something that you can draw on with a permanent marker- not a water based marker as it will run if it gets wet)

HOW TO MAKE YOUR ACTIVITY

Write the letters of the alphabet on the bottle tops with a permanent marker.

Draw your Christmas tree and trace around the bottle tops to make the 26 alphabet lights.

Write the letters of the alphabet in order from the top of the tree to the bottom.

NOW THE FUN PART !!!

Encourage the children to take turns to scoop out one bottle top with a laundry scoop.

Get the children to name the letter they scooped and put it in the correct position on the tree.

Keep fishing until the children have collected the entire alphabet.

Admire your Alphabet Christmas Tree.

Niccola

Classroom Restaurant

The children in my class love role playing and dressing up. I love setting up different themed areas for the children to play in and we currently have a Post Office and a restaurant.

The restaurant has been a lot of fun and has provided the children with lots of hands on, valuable learning experiences.

After playing in our classroom restaurant, we decided to make some pizzas for our morning tea. The children were the chefs first and made some delicious pizzas, and then they were customers in the classroom restaurant.

Our classroom Restaurant 

A table in our restaurant with our 'pretend pizza'.

Making Aprons

We needed some dress-ups for our restaurant and I had a large roll of perfect material.

A lovely mother who is a whiz on the sewing machine very kindly sewed the children's aprons for us once the children had printed their hand-prints with fabric paint.

She made cute little chefs hats as well - BIG THANKS Angela!!

Pizza Making

We made some delicious pizzas for our morning tea. Three and four year olds don't like a lot of toppings - mainly cheese!!

Until next Tuesday - happy playing!!

Niccola

Noodle Box Counting

I had some disposable noodle boxes left over from my daughters birthday and thought I could use them on the light table at school.

I attached the numbers 1-10 on the fronts of the noodle boxes as we are working on our numbers at the moment, hence all the Maths related blog posts.

I have lots of wool scraps at school and so I thought I could cut up a variety of colours and lengths to represent noodles.

The children had to use the chopsticks to fill the noodle boxes with wool noodles and then add the correct number of pom poms to the noodles, from 1-10.  We discussed what the pom poms could represent and the children came up with lots of ideas- Chinese meatballs, vegetables, sausage etc...

Using the chopsticks was a lot of fun and a great fine motor activity. 

This activity could be done anywhere but was very effective on the light table as the noodle boxes are transparent.

You could use bowls or plates for this activity and crepe paper or ribbons as noodles.

The children thought it was great fun.

Niccola