Tuesday, December 1, 2009

A gift from Creative Nanny


A few years ago I made an Advent Calendar Activity Book for my great niece.
I set it up so that she could do one activity a day but you can really use these files anyway that you choose.The files consist of simple finger plays, songs, games and activities that can be adjusted to fit each age.
For example: On the coloring pages, if you have older children you might in addition to letting them color the pages let them use cotton for Santa's beard and markers or glitter or rhinestones to decorate.

On the games, you might want to print them out on card stock and laminate them so that you can keep a file of holiday games and activities that you can use over and over again.
Simply laminating your game pieces will save a lot of wear and tear on them. I set the matching games up so that the backs can be used for both games. You can also simply print out the pieces without backs or print out the backs and use your own stickers to create a game.

When you do snowman soup, I have included the graphics so that if you would like to make snowman soup for a gift you can do that too.

On the finge rplays I have added simple graphics so that if you want to print out an extra page and cut out the graphics, you can turn it into a counting game too. It adds one more dimension to the fun.

On the make a snowman, it is fun to print this out on a magnetic sheet and then you can play with it on the refrigerator all winter long.

There is really no right or wrong way to do this as long as you enjoy them. These are simply my suggestions of what worked best for me.

I would suggest you download all the pages, print them out and read through them.
You don’t need a lot of extra things to do the activities but you probably want to look through the pages and figure out what you need so you can be sure you have everything in one place.

I took a 3 ring notebook, printed out each page and slipped it inside a photo protector sheet. That way it was easy for me to see what we had and it protected pages from getting torn up. If I needed extra supplies, I just tucked it into the sleeve of the page.

I divided mine up into Songs, Games, Art projects and Finger plays.
You could also divide it up by Themes. Reindeer, Snowman, Gingerbread Man, Santa.

I have also included some Hanukkah pages and some religious themes, so you can choose whether or not you want to download those.
With or without them, you will have enough to keep you busy.
There is nothing like sharing the joy of Christmas with children!

Merry Christmas

The Creative Nanny

The majority of art used in these projects is from http://www.pccrafter.com/
They have wonderful graphics and ideas and I highly encourage you to check them out.
You won't be sorry.

Here are the projects: You should be able to click on the links and go directly to the page where you can print your projects.

Christmas Fun!

Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer
Song and Fingerplay

Reindeer Hokey Pokey
Song and Dance


Color the Gingerbread Man


Color Santa

Snowman Soup

Snowman Soup for someone else


Tic Tac Toe Board


Tic Tac Toe Pieces




Gingerbread Man Fingerplay

Gingerbread Man Song and Dance

Five Little Christmas Trees


Eight Little Reindeer

Five Little Snowmen




If you are a Christian and you celebrate the birth of Christ, here are some simple activities related to the Nativity.


Mary and Joseph Paper Dolls


Color Baby Jesus


Angels we have heard on high


Away in a Manger

No comments: