Weekly Activities - Wreaths, Cards, Decorations and Snow.

Book of the week

The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg.

Synopsis

It's Christmas Eve and the Jolly Postman is delivering greetings to various fairy-tale characters - there's a card for Baby Bear, a game appropriately called 'Beware' for Red Riding Hood from Mr Wolf, a get-well jigsaw for hospitalised Humpty Dumpty and three more surprise envelopes containing letters, cards, etc.

Weekly Activities

Seeing as Christmas was only a couple of weeks away, we talked to the children about making a decorative wreath they could hang on their doors, a decoration to hang on their Christmas tree and a Christmas card to post home as a surprise to their families or carers.

To make the wreaths, we gathered our materials comprising of cut off Christmas tree branches, thick and thin floral wire, wire cutters, cinnamon sticks, ribbon and various small beads and bells. We cut the thick wire to size using the wire cutters and asked the children to bend it into a circle. We twisted the ends together to complete the circle and then set about threading the branches onto the thick wire and securing it using the thin wire which they weaved through the branches. They measured out a length of ribbon and tied it in a loop to hang the wreath from. We used the thin wire again to attach small beads and bells to finish the wreath off.

To make our mini Santa tree decorations the children used a saw to cut a small disc of wood. They painted half the disc red (for the hat), and the bottom half white (for the face and beard), drew on a mouth and stuck on some googly eyes. They drilled a hole towards the top using an electric drill and threaded a colourful pipe cleaner through it. They twisted the pipe cleaner together at the top and hey presto, one unique hand made Santa tree decoration.

For the Christmas cards, the children chose some colourful card and we helped them write a special Christmas message to their families. They decorated the card with festive pictures that they cut out from Christmas wrapping paper or stuck various shapes and stickers on the front. We gave the children an envelope each and wrote their addresses on the front. They stuck on a stamp and we went for a little outing to the nearest postbox where they posted their cards home - hopefully as a lovely surprise.

Our last activity was definitely one of the best - having fun in the snow! The children made snow angles, a snowman, we had many, many snowball fights (where the practitioners strangely seemed to always be on the losing side..?) and we pulled the children around the field on a saucer sled which was brilliant fun, very good exercise but slightly exhausting after a while - phew!

Aims and Objectives