Tis the Season for Child Development - 10 Holiday Activities

In follow up to my Holiday Career Planning post last week I thought I would share some fun child development activities to help bring in the New Year. 

Here are 10 ideas of how to incorporate the season into your lessons while keeping the focus on Child Development.

1.   Winter Wonderland!  Host a winter party with snacks, preschool activities, and a few fun games.  Ask students to bring a gently used or new toy to donate to a local charity or host a hat/glove drive.  What to do at the party?

·   Decorate Cookies – Let the students take a few to share.  In the past, the foods teachers baked the cookies and my students iced them. 

·   Allow students to bring in snacks or purchase simple snacks such as a cheese and fruit tray, pre-made Chex mix, holiday cookies, etc.

·   Craft.  Students love to craft.  Let them make a personalized ornament or a candy cane out of a pipe cleaner and beads.  There are plenty of ideas on Pinterest!

·   Sponsor a few games such as Jingle Bell Toss, Christmas bow relay, or Candy Cane fishing in addition to a lot of other ideas on Pinterest. You can modify these games to be challenging by asking the students to use their opposite hand or feet to complete the task.  This will help students understand how these games foster growth, can be challenging for kids, and how easily a preschooler may become frustrated with an activity. 

·   Play Christmas Bingo, again plenty of free downloads on Pinterest.

   

    2. Holiday Decorating!  Let students make ornaments for the class tree.  There are a lot of great ideas on Pinterest.   Have students complete the task with their opposite hand our 2 fingers on each hand taped together.  For this activity focus on fine motor skills and how challenging and frustrating they can be for toddlers and preschoolers to develop.

 

3.  Holiday Shopping!  Have students create a shopping list for a toddler, preschooler, and or school-aged kid.  The student must identify age-appropriate toys and explain how they would benefit the child’s growth.   If your time is limited and you don’t have time to complete the project consider using it as a bell ringer each day.  Put a picture of the “hot” toys of the year up on the board or projector.  Start class by talking about if the toy encourages physical, emotional, social, moral, or cognitive growth?  The benefit of the toy versus the cost?  Any potential harm to a child’s physical, emotional, social, moral, or cognitive development?

    Download a free worksheet - Click Here!

    4. Secret Santa.  Team up with a Kindergarten or First grade class.  Have elementary students write a letter to Santa and your Child Development students can be the “Santa” that responds.  This activity will help your students focus on vocabulary that is appropriate to this age group and their language skills. 

5. Stockings hung by the Chimney.  Print stockings to color and decorate the room.  Explain the importance of coloring and all the benefits before starting class.  (color awareness, improve fine motor skills for writing, special awareness, improves eye/hand coordination, stress relief, self-expression, etc.)

  

   

 6. Catch me if you can! Read ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story to your students and reinforce the importance of reading to children.  Then explain how to build, support, and improve active comprehension strategies.  Allow the students to work in small groups to determine a way they would help support cognitive growth and reading comprehension.  Examples may be to build gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, make a trap to catch the gingerbread man, rewrite the story, etc.  Once students find/create an activity allow each group to lead the class in these activities. 

7. Holiday Memories.  Ask students to share memories from their childhood by answering the following questions.  This would also be a great small group activity using the colored jumbo sticks in the Formative Assessment Tool Kit.

          Click on the image to download and print!

8.  Around the World with the Holidays!  Have students write  a  children’s book focused on educating American children  about the holiday season in another country.  You could also focus on the different religions and how they celebrate. 

   

9. What do the theorist have to say about Santa?  Have students respond to the prompt below, their responses should be from the perspective of a child development theorist.  Students can either pick or draw.  Theorist could include Piaget, Skinner, Vygotsky, Erickson, Gardner, and/or Freud. 

Click the image to purchase this activity from 
Teaching Success with FCS.

    10. Holiday Wish List.  Have students list 10 things parents could do with their children during the holiday season to give them the greatest gift, nurturing their growth and development. 

    

What activities do you facilitate in your classroom with your child development students around the holidays?

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