AR's Super Epic Out of this World Amazing Preschool Christmas Party 2016

Today we celebrated Christmas in AR's preschool class. I'm the designated Wednesday party room mom. Here's a quick run down of the activities we did. We had an hour which included snack. Man, let me tell you that if you don't pay attention, the entire hour could've been used just with this 3-5 year olds eating! We had "snow" aka popcorn in a clear cup with a snowman face drawn on it. The other snack was "Do you want to build a snowman?" kit with marshmallows, straight pretzels, and craisins. I got the label from here, thank goodness for Pinterest!

Some of the kids preferred to eat their snowmen while others did a great job building them!

Nanny was in town for the party and brought this super fun Pin the Heart on the Grinch game. Thank you, Ms. Edna, for making it for us. She even made the adorable shirts that AR and Nanny are wearing. When Nanny walked into the room, one of the kids said, "Hey, there's the Grinch!"

In my lifetime, both professionally and personally, I have attended many kids events with all kinds of crafts. It's amazing when you become a mother and are the one stuck carrying/holding/transporting these super adorable yet crazy glittery/messy projects, my mind has changed on what projects to make. At the Harvest Party, I bought dabbers for the class and found that the kids loved them, they didn't make too big of a mess, and they were easy to get home in one piece without glitter everywhere. I found the printouts for the Christmas party here.

I also had holiday lacing cards at this station. Only a few kids did them but at least everyone stayed busy. I found them for $3 at Target and left them for the class to use later.

OMG! This game isn't new but the kids loved it and it was SUPER easy. We called it Jingle Jangle. I took a Kleenex box and cut two slits on the bottom. Then I took a piece of ribbon and threaded it through. I used packing tape to hold the ribbon to the box otherwise it kept slipping out. I bought a whole container of about 50 big jingle bells for $2. We filled the Kleenex box with jingle bells and the kids went to town trying to jingle and jangle them out. The giggles and excitement from this station was the best part of the party for me!

We also had a photobooth! Super easy, super fun, and after I edited the pics and added Merry Christmas 2016, I printed a 4x6 for each kid to keep then I also put them in a Google Drive folder and shared with the other parents. Matt got to come help with this party as did three other dads, two moms, two teachers, a nanny, and a partridge in a pear tree! I actually really love this picture and all the other ones from the photobooth. They turned out so great!!!

We also had candy cane fishing. I didn't get any pictures at the party but here is a video of AR trying it out at the house. FYI-she dressed herself this day and it was below freezing outside but she still looks adorable! The kids each got to keep their candy canes that they "caught."



After all the kids rotated through each station, they opened a gift we'd gotten for the classroom off the teacher's Amazon Wishlist. Seriously, find out if your kid's teacher has an Amazon Wishlist. I always hear about how teachers get all these gifts that they don't need so last year when I discovered that Mrs. R had one, I started buying off the list. I figure then it's something she can take with her to another classroom, something she needs, and all the kids benefit from it too. It's seriously awesome and her list has stuff on there from under $10 to $100 so you could get something from just your family or have the class pitch in for a larger gift too.

After the gift was open, we did one more thing to wrap up the party... a science experiment!!! I made Christmas trees out of baking soda, green water, a little glitter, and some sequins. I basically just mixed it until I had a paste then I poured it into a cone I'd made out of a paper plate. Then I froze it which was the tricky part but I managed to get two out of it. I took it out of the freezer about 2 hours before the party and it held up fine. Then we poured some vinegar into a cup and used a syringe that you would use to give a baby medicine in. Mrs. R was great leading the experiment, letting the kids smell the vinegar, each one got to do a shot of it on the tree, discussing the fizzing and melting and she even let the kids touch it! All the kids were really excited to see what happened and it was a good group activity to end on. I found the idea for it here.

Overall, there were lots of giggles, lots of fun had by all, and it was a great way to celebrate the holiday season with our friends.