Recreating the joy of the festive season by bringing Christmas into the class is a brilliant way of engaging your preschoolers and encouraging them to learn. As preschool students see the bright Christmas lights and hear Christmas music they anticipate the magic of Santa Claus and the presents they hope to receive. This provides preschool teachers a really wonderful opportunity to use interesting and simple activities to engage students and encourage them to learn. Picturing the holiday from a preschooler's perspective, and exploring the sensory experience of Christmas through the eyes of a child, is a great way to foster the development of new skills and experiences. Research certainly indicates the central importance of play in education,Beijing escorts. There should be a strong emphasis on children being active in the learning process rather than passive because children can learn so much more through actually experiencing something as many studies have shown. The number of activities that promote creativity, teamwork, literacy, problem solving, and numeracy are virtually endless. Relationship building, problem solving, narrative and recounting, storytelling, drawing and painting, categorizing, classifying, and counting are just a few simple ideas that promote learning while having fun! Here is a great list of five fun Christmas activities that will encourage your preschoolers to learn through play! 1. Glittery Christmas Wish List This activity develops classifying, identifying and organizing skills using a Christmas wish list to develop and enhance these skills. Materials: construcion paper, glue, glitter, scissors, toy catalogs and magazines. To get these supplies and tons of others check out this online teacher supplies store. 1. Give students some big pieces of construction paper. 2. Have the students decorate the border by putting glue around the border and sprinkling glitter over it. 3. Color in the heading 'My Wish List' 4,Get Beautiful Looking Skin Now With Great Skin Lig. Ask students to hunt through the toy catalogs and select and cut out their favorite toys. 5. Students can glue images in order of color, shape, value, or size. 2,Beijing escorts. Hunt for Candy Canes - Outdoor Activity This activity is great fun and develops team building and problem solving skills using a treasure hunt outdoors. Rug your little students up and brave the cold! Materials: 6 identical treasure maps of the outdoor play area, clue sheets, candy canes, and a whistle. 1. Create 'Elf Teams' by dividing preschoolers into groups of four or 5. 2. Give each team a treasure map. 3. After you hand out clue sheets tell the preschoolers it's time to find the Christmas treats! 3. Art and Music for Christmas Enhance your students' design, art, and creativity skills using a range of incredible craft activities. Materials: CD player, Christmas CD, art supplies, cookie decoration kit 1. Play Christmas music to the class while they create and decorate Christmas cards for loved ones, make Christmas ornaments or decorate gingerbread cookies. 2. As they are making their artwork and having a good time encourage them to sing along to the Christmas music. 4. Making Fun Christmas Stories To inspire creativity and imaginations read a bunch of Christmas stories to your class. Watch Christmas DVD's and share favorite Christmas experiences in order to develop narrative skills, recounting skills and collaborative learning. Have the students sit on soft classroom carpets as they share their stories! Materials: colored pens, stories, DVD's 1. After dividing preschoolers into groups of 4 have them make a Christmas story. 2. Each group storyboards the tale on large sheets of cardboard. 3. Have students share their storyboards and share their Christmas tale to their classmates. 5. Christmas Clues 1. Make a list of objects, places, or people related to Christmas. Examples - star, elf, reindeer, snowman. 2. Students ask up to fifteen questions about the item and answer 'No' or 'Yes' depending on the relevance. For example: Snowman - 'Does he melt?', 'Does he love the snow?'