Letter K Week

Letter K? Oh man, I couldn’t come up with any open ended activities for k. I would have done a selection of keys and locks, but we just didn’t have them lying around. I decided to just jump whole hardheartedly into Christmas activities – and Hanukkah too! As the week went on, we found a few extra activities too, that didn’t make it onto trays. Munchkin also had an updated writing cubby, with some Father Christmas themed notecards, Christmas stickers, old Christmas cards to cut up, and a felt colouring item.

Snowman Cutting Strips

I printed some strips from the Winter Cutting Pack from thisreadingmama.  These are great packs, with four different levels of cutting practice. She liked the level 2 strips a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d try the level 3 (which actually seem easier to me),  and she cut a few, but not many. We also had a few other scissor work items around through the week, so perhaps it was just overkill.

Santa Craft Kit

As mentioned, I picked up a ton of Christmas craft kits last year. We worked on a Father Christmas ornament, and will continue to add to our tree.

Dreidel

(I hope it’s not sacrilege to play Dreidel with Father Christmas erasers for counters!) Munchkin had been asking about dreidel, so I printed out some instructions from Wikipedia, and we played! We both enjoyed learning how to play.

Bells

This bell basket was more for Little Sister – a selection of jingle bells. So fun!

 

Snowman Playdough

I printed and laminated these playdough mats last year. This year, I presented the snowman mat on a try, with playdough and a few embelishments. Munchkin had access to this on her shelves all week, whereas last year, she would not have been able to use it unsupervised.

Winter Process Art

When browsing Pinterest I found a fun process art project – paint, glue, and salt. I didn’t have epsom salt, so we just used regular salt. Also didn’t have tempura paint, so we just used the poster paint we had. It’s great – how often to preschoolers get told to have at it and put as much glue as they want on paper? Slightly different tools, but we had a good time and made a great wintry craft.

Pomanders and Snowflakes

One of the cubes on Munchkin’s shelves holds a box of Christmas books – some are ones my mum had when I was little with all kinds of crafts, and things I used to be able to look through and make. Towards the end of last week, we looked through the box together and I remembered a few things. We read about pomanders, and I remembered making one from an orange and cloves when I was little (and I had cloves in the spice cupboard!). Munchkin did well for a while, but decided that the cloves hurt her fingers so we modified and used a toothpick to poke holes before adding the cloves.

I also remembered making snowflakes from folded paper. I showed Munchkin how to fold paper in half, in half, and then again along the diagonal and cut out little shapes. We had fun making snowflakes and she’s been making them ever since. We started out with scrapbook paper, but they’ve been going even better once I pulled out shiny origami paper.

Here’s our art wall for the week: