As December kicked in, the Preschool 1 classroom at RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Patrick, have turned into busy bees exploring and enjoying lots of festive activities! Since November, the children have been talking about the incoming holidays, their plans, and how they would love to turn our classroom into one magical candy land! With this growing interest, we tailored activities around the holidays theme. We started with exploring and bringing a snowy small world into the classroom. The preschoolers were incredibly curious on how the snow felt in their tiny fingers and how they could form different shapes out of their own imaginations. The next day, the Christmas tree sensory play was a hit! We have noticed that them enjoyed anything sensory- exploring textures, using their hands to discover and create surprises. The excitement grew as they dug through the bin finding treasures like sparkly pompoms and colorful stickers to decorate their mini Christmas tree.
The children also had the opportunity to express creativity through their wreath making. They explored shapes, colors, and a variety of loose parts materials as they arranged it together to create their own wreaths. One of the highlights of our December fever is our Magical PJ day! What made it extra special was adding the photobooth session on that special day. The Preschoolers worked together to create our Christmas “photo booth” adding different sparks of each child’s creativity. We finished the photobooth session with P1 friends flashing their biggest smiles and silly faces as we froze memories into photos. It was a fun and memorable day as you could see the never been seen smiles and friends helping friends laugh for their photo session. Additionally, that day, we also put up our Christmas tree. Our friends were very excited to help as they all gathered around the tree. “We need to fluff it first”, Toviyah announced.
The next days, the children worked hard exploring their own imaginations and bringing it to life as they made personalized ornaments to hand up the tree. They made popsicle snowman with scarves measuring their heights for December 2025. They also made Christmas balls, gingerbread, candy canes- which we all used to decorate our classroom! Preschool 1 learned how to make salt dough, taking turns to pour and mix the ingredients, pressing, shaping, and cutting. Lastly, the children have expressed their love of music and rhythm as they start their own marching band. It has seemed to be an afternoon routine as Niko would pick up a tambourine, beat it like a drum (into Jingle bells rhythm). He would start marching around the table and peers would join, finding their own musical instruments, as if they are having their own parade!
Through these activities, the children were able to practice and enhance their fine motor skills, creativity, problem-solving, self-expression, musical, and social skills! The holiday activities supported sensory exploration and encouraged building meaningful connection, confidence, and a sense of belonging. Each learning experience gave the children opportunities to make choices, explore new materials, and express their imaginations and ideas in their unique ways. These activities also strengthened language skills as they shared stories about their creation, talked about home, and connected with their peers.
With this, we continue to wonder how we can keep building on their excitement and creativity as we move into the new year. What new materials, events, or experiences might spark their curiosity next? We can try and explore winter sensory bins, dramatic play with a wide variety of winter clothing, collaborative art projects that would support teamwork. We look forward to unwrapping what interests will guide our next learning adventures.
