Holiday Fun Continues...and Day 4 of the 13 Days of Christmas Blog Hop!

There is definitely excitement in the air!  My kinders were bouncing, chatting little bubbles of excitement yesterday...but can I blame them?!!  Christmas is less than 2 weeks away (Eeeeekkk!- I still have shopping, wrapping, baking, card addressing, decorating, etc to do!)

I pulled the 'you don't want Jolly Candy Cane telling Santa...' card a lot yesterday!  

So where will my kinders find Jolly Candy Cane today? 

My listening center- along with Clifford and Pete!  I think he secretly is covering his ears so he doesn't have to hear all the 'noise, noise, noise, noise!'  We weren't using our listening center this week, so I took advantage- and I CANNOT wait to see their faces as they find all their cherished 'stuffies' hanging out together!!!

So what else did we do yesterday to prepare for the holidays and channel our excitement about Christmas into meaningful learning opportunities??!!

Christmas Cookie War!   We have been playing all sorts of war- Turkey War, Dreidel War and now Cookie War!  Next week Jolly Candy Cane is going to leave us Elf War to play (and when we return from the holiday break we will continue into winter with Snowflake War)!  We play for either the 'larger'/'more' cookies wins and then 'smaller'/'fewer' cookies!  And sometimes we even have to have a cookie war- as pictured above!

Now it's time to fill Santa's sack!

In this math center students filled the sacks with either the picture card that had that number of presents and/or counted out presents to fill the sacks!  It comes from my Elf-ing Around Mega pack and can also be found separately!  We followed up with a b&w printable!

This activity I got for free on TPT from The Kindergarten Pod

It comes with 2 different dice and recording sheets so I copied them front/back and provided both dice.  For my early finishers, they had the option to do another one by just flipping the paper over!  Everyone at that center was engaged, learning and having fun!

Non-Fiction Learning and Fun!

We read Scholastic's Remarkable Reindeer and then charted all we learned about reindeer on this fun reindeer shaped chart!  Later on in the day we made our very own reindeer!

I love how they all look so different!  Each one has 'character!'  Want to try it?  

It's super easy and requires nearly no prep!

1 9x12 piece of brown paper

1 9x12 piece of black paper

1 3x3 red square (I use red foil, but you can use red construction paper- and can even add red glitter!)

Students trace their hands on the black (my kinders did this on their own this year- and I am IMPRESSED!)

Students fold up the bottom to form a point (this was the trickiest part of the project, but they did it!)

Round the edges of the red paper and/or draw/cut a circle from the red paper.  

Glue the flaps down to hold the point, glue the hands on as antlers, glue the nose on.  Add eyes...display!

For more reindeer fun, check out my Reindeer Super Pack!

Now to the 13 Days Blog Hop...

Today is Day 4!

And it comes to you by...

She has a fun freebie all set for download and a chance to win a New Year pack!

Come on back tomorrow to find out where Day 5 will bring you!

Happy Holidays!