FREE Shipping on orders over $250!
Christmas Programming Ideas
With Christmas just around the corner, it's time to start thinking about programming festive activities.
Here are 3 ideas you can implement in both your after school care and vacation care programs that will get your children excited for Christmas!
Create Your Own Advent Calendar
Counting down the days until Christmas is a common occurrence for children excited for Santa to arrive. Creating their own Advent Calendar is a great way to encourage their enthusiasm and create a buzz around your centre.
Children will need a large piece of cardboard to attach their individual pieces to, and this should be coloured or painted with designs pertaining to what Christmas means to each child. Once the design is completed, children should place numbers 1 through to 24 on the cardboard, signifying each day in December before Christmas arrives.
An ongoing project, children create 24 of their own advent pieces to stick onto the cardboard. They may need assistance drawing or colouring their individual pieces but the finished product will be thoroughly rewarding.
A few ideas of what these could be, include:
- Snowman
- Wreath
- Santa
- Star
- Tinsel
- Bells
- Holly
- Mistletoe
- Elf
- Presents
This is a perfect activity for the end of the term/going into vacation care, and will likely inspire a range of students to participate.
Christmas Baking Cookies
Children love cooking activities and why not get festive with it?!
Christmas cookies are extremely simple to bake and only require:
- Butter
- Eggs
- Flour
- Baking powder
- Vanilla
- Salt
- Sugar
Once the mixture is made, spooning it into various Christmas moulds such as trees, snowmen and bells and then baking for about 10 minutes will create a lovely afternoon snack. And if you wish to go one step further, children will love decorating these in red, green and white icing!
Elf Scavenger Hunt
Santa is extremely busy this time of year, and needs all the elves working around the clock to ensure the presents are made on-time.
But it appears some of his elves have gone missing!
Scattered around an outdoor area/ playground, hide a large number of print-out elves for the children to find.
Tell the children how many elves are lost in total and then let them explore the outdoor area in search of Santa’s helpers.
This activity can be replayed if children enjoy it, with the person who finds the most elves winning a prize.
Alternatively, children colour in and design their own print-out elf, and write their name on the back.
An Educator collects all the elves once they are finished, and hides them in the playground. Children then must locate their own elf and once they do, they can write a message to Santa on it or what Christmas means to them.
An exciting game with many possible substitute outcomes, the children will love immersing themselves in securing Santas production line.
Christmas is a thrilling time of year, and even if some of your children do not celebrate the occasion, modifying some of these activities to celebrate the holidays in general is always an option.
Join The Family!