December | 2011 | green bean kindergarten

Last year my room mom organized my Christmas party with Stations. It worked so well, so this year, I am planning the same type of game plan. I plan to have 5 stations set-up with 1 parent at each station. I plan to start the party with my students singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer.” I will paint a red nose with tempera paint and they will wear their antler ears that we made earlier this week. Then, for the remaining 45 minutes, they will go their party stations!

Christmas Party Station Rotations

Station 1: Snack and drink

Station 2: Ornament craft

Station 3: Gingerbread house craft- Pre-made houses will be places out on red party plates, with each child’s name on the plate in permanent marker. The teacher will help students use plastic knives or spoons to spread royal frosting onto the house and students will place candies and gingerbread marshmallows on top. When finished, place the house on the plate inside a large zip-loc bag for students to take home.

Station 4: Game—Santa Says: Same as ‘Simon Says’: The student standing up is “Santa”. S says “Santa says hop”. All Ss hop. S says “Stop”. Ss should continue hopping on until “Santa” says “Santa says stop”. Repeat for other actions such as jump, run, turn around, sit down, stand up, hands up/down, star jump, says “ho, ho,ho”, says “Merry Christmas.” Students will take turns being “Santa.”

Station 5: Games—-Pin the nose on Rudolph: Students will write their name on a red circle, close their eyes, and then place on Rudolph with tape……also…..Pin the beard on Santa: Santa’s beard poster will have circles with numbers. Students will have 5 white circles to tape to Santa (while their eyes are closed). The group will add up the numbers to write down the points for the child. Then it is the next child’s turn. You can do the same game with “Pin the snowball on the Snowman.” You just draw a simple poster for each of these games.

My good friend Bethany (and a great teacher!) inspired me to make my own play-dough infused with the wonderful smell of gingerbread! My own children loved playing with it and using cookie cutters to make thier own pretend cookies. I made three batches of the recipe below (for less than $10!) and placed a little gingerbread man into a little plastic container. I made one container for each of my students. This will my Christmas present to them! Along with a cookie cutter and the play-dough, I will wrapping it in a little plastic bag and tie with curly ribbon. I love being able to make something for my own children and my classroom kids at the same time!

This is a great way to incorporate team work, recipe reading and following, and responsibility for cleaning up. Reading and following a recipe is a great way to teach sequencing and the skills of “first, next, last,” which is always a skill needed for any reading lesson. So, not only is making play-dough fun, it is also educational!

GINGER BREAD PLAYDOUGH Recipe
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 tbsp. of each: cinnamon, allspice & ginger (this is a nice dark brown)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup water

Mix with a wooden spoon until well mixed. When it is too hard to mix, take out of the bowl and knead on the counter. For an extra special touch, add multicolor glitter. It makes it sparkle nicely! This is a “no-cook” recipe!

Here are some great ideas of how to wrap up and “gift” the play-dough:

littlebunnyfeet.blogspot.com

homeschoolblogger.com

meandmarielearning.blogspot.com

shabbychiccrafts.blogspot.com

First, we made sure that we had all the ingredients.

This is why you “need” to knead the dough. It looks pretty gross during mixing.

Here it is! Isn’t it nice! And it smells so good!

Here are the kids using cookie cutters to make their own things.

These are the cute and cheap containers I found at Wal-Mart. Instead of rolling the dough into a ball, I cut out the shape of a gingerbread man.

Now they are stacked and ready for labels. Click below to print the label which contains the recipe and directions. You can also edit and change it in Microsoft Word and add in your own name.

Gingerbread play-dough labels