Rocking December with Rudolph

I love teaching the letters R and S in December - between Rudolph and Santa, there's plenty of awesome activities, books and crafts, and the children are so eager to do them all!  Today I thought I'd share just a few of our favorite Rudolph activities, besides reading the Classic book by Robert May and singing the Christmas carol that almost everyone knows.

Another fun song for the preschool and kindergarten crowd is a variation on Head and Shoulders: Hooves, Belly, Antlers, Nose.  I found an adorable video of children singing it here, your kiddos will quickly make it their own!  I like to add a red sticky dot to the children's noses when we sing this one - and it makes a really cute picture for their families!

You've probably seen the painted hand print reindeer included in my photo above, I recently found a version via pinterest that also included Santa in his sleigh - that's one to try this year!  While some children aren't eager to have their hands or feet painted, I've found that most do warm up to the idea, and then enjoy the tickly sensation of the wet paint brush on their hands.  It's a fun sensory experience, and a quick one on one time with a teacher - hand prints are one of our favorites!

I've also made the construction paper hand and foot print reindeers for... well, for ever!  I began making these with my preschoolers when my own children were tiny, and each year I still bring out these treasured ornaments - we have a slew of them, one for each year that the boys would still go for it, showing their hands and feet growing incrementally year after year.  These make fantastic gifts for parents, and trust me, even if they have had one every year since their children were born, they'll be thrilled to have another!  (Teacher tip: trace the children's hands a day or two before you want the children to assemble the reindeer, so you can cut them out.  Nap time is a great time to sit and prep for this!)

I wish I could claim the Surprised Rudolph idea as my own, but the idea came from a faithful attempt.  She in turn found her inspiration on Artsonia.com.  Have you met Artsonia yet?  Check out our school gallery, then look around at all the other amazing lesson plans that are there to inspire you!  This cute project not only looks adorable, but gives the children a lot of fine motor practice with scissors

 and glue,

plus tracing around a circle shape, and talking about squares, triangles, rectangles and positional words. 

That's a lot of learning for a holiday decoration!

Let me know if you have some other fun reindeer activities to share - I'm always on the look out for more fun learning ideas!