Kindergarten Holiday Party

We had our holiday party on Monday and had so much fun!! It was the same day as our field day...talk about tiring! But, somehow we survived it.

I know I've said this before, but things change when you have kids of your own. One thing that has changed for me is that now I am all about keepsakes!! 

For our first center we made these cute snowmen out of socks.  We cut the top of the sock down a little then filled the bottom of the sock with rice (this weighs the snowman down).  We filled the rest of the snowman up with filler then tied it on with a rubber band.  The second sock then became the snowman's hat.

We decorated the snowman with accessories from Oriental Trading.  I left pom-poms, buttons, and fun googly eyes at the center. The kids used fabric glue to adhere everything; however, I ended up reinforcing it all with the hot glue gun later that day.

Then we made these cute and simple decorations (you can turn them into ornaments by adding a ribbon when they are dry). We used tongue depressors, stickers, and sequence from Oriental Trading to decorate. The kids loved this one!! I think next year I will have to take pictures using a fun SnapChat filter or cute props!!

I left out a couple of 'easy' centers for the students to do while we were busy with some of the more hands on centers.  This activity my kids have done before so they were able to play independently.  This center is from Oriental Trading as well and is all set and ready to go!

I do this center every year, reindeer food.  It is a must for the little ones!

I didn't take many pictures in class because I was busy making the salt dough ornaments with the kids.  At this center the kids can't do much, so I called them back one at a time here when I was ready.

They pressed their hands into the dough then I pressed a hole in the dough for a future ribbon.  

I took all of the prints home to bake. The recipe can be found here.

After they were done baking I ended up painting them at home instead of letting the kids paint them (just no time!). In the future I would let them paint their own.

I sprinkled them with glitter and painting a layer of mod podge on top.  When they were dry, I hot glued some cotton balls to the bottom to make them look like mittens and tied a string on to turn them into ornaments.

Then, I wrapped them up and they are ready to give out as parent gifts!

You can see last years holiday party HERE.

DIY Ornaments

I wanted to host a little DIY ornament night at the house and needed an easy ornament for the kiddos and one ornament for us moms to make!! We picked up these ceramic ornaments in the Target Dollar spot for the kids to paint.

 We told the kids they were like little elves in their ornament workshop. They loved it!! We gave each one of them a cute elf hat they I picked up on Oriental Trading. The table decor and the hassle banner I also found on Oriental Trading.

I still need to get the kids to go back and decorate their ornaments. I was thinking of having them add more color when this layer dries.  Maybe using paint and a q-tip.

 Then the kids sat down for some ice cream while the moms got to work on their ornaments!

 I am SO glad I tested these ornaments out at home before trying them in the classroom.  First of all, I thought I had the clear ornaments that came apart into two pieces, but I didn't. So it was very tricky getting the kids pictures inside of the ornament and into the place where we wanted them.

 It was basically impossible to get the tree where we wanted it because even tweezers were hard to maneuver in the top of the ornament. 

 But, we finished and I love them! I think they will look cute with a big bow on the top to add some more color! 

Next time I make these I will have to use the clear ornaments from Oriental Trading that you can find HERE. Those come apart and would be way easier! You can also find the fake snow HERE.