Santa's Workshop

Miss M's birthday was on Wednesday and we always spend birthdays together as a family so we celebrated with her school friends on Monday.  Mother Goose Time often sends special "extra" unit in months that have a particular holiday, like the Pumpkin Party we did with our cousins in October.  December's bonus kit was "Santa's Workshop" and it made for the perfect toddler party.

I started by laminating everything to make it extra durable and because I really love my laminator.  I assembled all my craft materials ahead of time so I wouldn't be running back and forth for them since it was just me with four kids under four.

We started with our normal circle time, then sang the new Santa song provided in the party materials.  After that, I read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" while they added the story pieces provided to our flannel board.  It was a little long for them but I like the idea that they are being introduced to classic literature.

This is Miss M "freezing".

Next, we played "Reindeer Training" after first reviewing the different types of movements on the spinner.  I laid out a kind of crazy path on the rug using tape but I probably would have been better just to leave them to their own paths because they were deliberately trying to run into each other by going opposite directions.  I think they would have done a little more avoiding (and therefore a little less crying on Littlest's part, who kept getting knocked over) if they had been free to roam.  The game ended a little prematurely when they couldn't heed the warning to leave Littlest alone.

Next, we made Santa spoon puppets.  I cut out hat shapes for them but they did all the rest.  Miss M immediately began using a deep voicing and saying "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! I'm Santa!" as soon as she finished hers.  It was adorable.  I was particularly impressed with Littlest's puppet; she put all the parts on by herself.  She turns 18 months today and has really, really good fine motor skills for her age.  I'm pretty sure that's why the majority of her expressive language consists of "eh", "dad", "mama", "cacaca" (that's kitty), "mmmm" (that's her sister), pointing and signing; she's too busy developing other skills to bother with talking.

We forgot the arms at first and added
them a little later.

I modified the snowman painting craft because I knew Miss M wouldn't like the shaving cream texture (and I'm pretty sure my husband is almost out...) so instead I let them choose what color of paper they wanted to use and drew three circles on it, emphasizing large, medium and small.  I poured white paint onto paper plates and gave them cotton balls to use to sponge the paint onto their circles.  They cut their own hats out of construction paper, and we used a variety of leftover craft materials from other projects such as split peas, jewels and confetti for the details.  I also cut a brown chenille stem into eight pieces to use for arms.  I think they came out beautifully.

While the snowman dried, we played Santa's Beard and practiced number recognition while we were at it.  It was a fun game and I think next time I bring it out, I will add in the use of tweezers or tongs to pick up the cotton balls so they can work on building a little more hand strength.

I didn't do the snack listed in the party instructions simply because Miss M had requested donuts and it was her birthday party but I think the snack idea was really cute and can see us doing it another time.

I didn't have time to make play dough for the Christmas tree activity during the party but we did it just the three of us the next day.  It was actually the first time I had ever made "cooked" play dough and it was much easier than I thought; it was also a lot softer and better to use than other, no cook recipes I've tried.  I left the room for 10 seconds to grab a package at the door and I came back to find Littlest grimacing and trying to spit; apparently it wasn't super tasty.  They both loved pushing beads into the dough to decorate their trees.  Miss M wanted to cut out her own shapes.  She has really little hands and it was hard for her to flatten out the dough with them (we didn't have a good rolling pin, although I have since corrected the problem) and was so proud of herself for doing it on her own.  It was a great semi-supervised activity for them to do while I got things ready for dinner and will definitely be making another appearance soon.

So, if you're looking for a great party that's already been planned for you on top of super fun preschool learning opportunities, you might want to give Mother Goose Time a try.  :)