Christmas Jigsaws To Print

Our Christmas dog jigsaw, assembled, with the heart shape in the centre.

A specialty of Activity Village, these cute printable jigsaws come in 15 Christmas designs and 4 levels of difficulty - and each jigsaw features a hidden "shape" at its centre. They make a simple, quick and easy portable Christmas activity and you can find one suitable for all ages of children!

Instructions:

1. Print the jigsaws out onto printer card, and cut carefully around the large and small jigsaw (either a rectangle or a square, depending on the design).

2. Choose one of our Christmas jigsaw cutting guides (see below). Print onto paper (scrap printer paper will do), and again cut out the rectangle or square. Do NOT cut the inner shapes yet!

3. Place the cutting guide over the jigsaw, matching the edges up carefully. Cut through both layers together on the inside lines to make the jigsaw pieces, discarding the paper pieces of the cutting guide when you are done. Store the jigsaw in a box or bag with the small image stuck or stapled on to help your child recognise and complete the puzzle.

Our jigsaw cutting guides and full instructions are here:
Jigsaw cutting guide

Why jigsaws for kids?

• Jigsaws are wonderful for developing logical and spatial ability
• Jigsaws encourage sorting, matching and problem solving skills in children
• Jigsaw content can be educational
• And of course, jigsaws are just good fun!

 These jigsaws can also be laminated and kept for future use.
Print here at Activity Village

Enjoy!

Vanessa

Christmas Stories

Story telling is wonderfully enjoyable for children and has many benefits including:

- increased school readiness for reading and learning

- increased communication

- increased opportunity to teach concepts such as letters, shapes, counting and colours

- improved listening, memory and vocabulary skills

- increased opportunity to discuss social skills

- further development of imagination and creativity

- increased understanding of narrative structure eg. beginning, middle, end.

The festive season is a great time of the year to go through Christmas stories with children.  Children everywhere are often interested in the story of baby Jesus' birth especially during Christmas.  Here are all sorts of free printables that will help them understand the story in an enjoyable way.  We have also included other printable Christmas stories and blank templates for the kids to write their own story.

Activity Village has colouring pages,  the nativity story with captions and pictures, foldable booklets, felt board pieces and finger puppets.  There are even blank nativity story pages so that the children can retell the story in their own words - a wonderful narrative task to work on expressive language and literacy.

 Print here at Activity Village

 Print here for Christmas Stories & Poems

Print here for Christmas story lined paper

Here are some story telling tips to increase children's language skills:

- Focus on special Christmas vocabulary items such as Christmas, tree, Santa, reindeer, Jesus, Mary, sleigh, shepherds etc.

- Use describing words such as colours and sizes eg. red, green, white, large, small etc.

- Ask children to retell the story using their own words and the beginning/middle/end structure.  For a higher level task, you can get them to retell the story and to change one or more parts for some variation.

Happy Story Telling & a Merry Christmas to all!

V

DIY String Ornaments

Credit: Alison Czarnecki via Holidash

Supplies

white string

Elmer's glue
glitter
pack of small deflated balloons
ribbon (to hang finished ornament)
wax paper and safety pin

Credit: Alison Czarnecki via Holidash

1. Blow up balloons to around the size of your palm. Set these off to the side.

2. Measure around the width and the length of the balloons with your string to see what lengths you need to cut to fully cover the balloon. I recommend cutting a little longer than you think you'll need. 

3. Mix together two parts water to one part glue in a bowl until completely combined. Use warm water or your glue will harden when you mix. Now add in your glitter. The glitter will get really diluted with the glue and barely show up, so if you want a lot, now's the time to get crazy with your glitter.

Credit: Alison Czarnecki via Holidash

4. Soak one string at a time in the glue mixture. Let the string get completely soaked with glue before removing.

5. Lay the string carefully across the balloon, making sure it meets the other end of the string on the opposite side. Pinch the two ends of the string together, set the balloon down on your waxed paper, and repeat with string #2.

Credit: Alison Czarnecki via Holidash

5. Repeat this until your balloon is completely covered in glued strings. Make sure your pattern doesn't all go one way or another or it will all slide off when the strings dry.

6. Once your balloon is all glued up to your satisfaction, set it the waxed paper and let it dry for 24 hours. Do this to as many balloons as you want for ornaments. Go really crazy here, these are cheap.

7. When your balloons are dry, it's time to pop your balloons. You're going to pull these out of the balloon (very, very carefully) so no one knows they were even there. It'll be our little secret.

Credit: Alison Czarnecki via Holidash

8. Tie on a ribbon to hang the ornament, and you're done. So cute and easy.

Thanks to  Allison Czarnecki for the wonderful inspiration!

enjoy x

Christmas Craft- 3D Ornaments

via Family Fun

Download this adorable Penguin PDF printable from Family Fun

 here. 

Via Family Fun

Download this 3D Elf PDF printable from Family Fun

 here. 

Via Family Fun

Download this lovely angel tree topper PDF from Family Fun

 here. 

To target language or literacy goals while you play try some of these ideas: 

1. LANGUAGE:

Focus on verbs while you play

 e.g. "cut the paper" "fold the paper"

other verbs you can use:

- cut

- glue

- push

- pull

- bend

- fold

- hang

2. LITERACY / PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS:

Focus on the alphabet tabs while you play

 e.g. "A" says /a/ like in apple, "B" says /b/ like in ball

Have fun and Merry Christmas

 x

here

Christmas colouring pages and activity sheets

Enjoy these free printable colouring pages and language activity sheets - all Christmas themed.  Print them off in advance and set up with pens, pencils and crayons for the kids to complete.

1. Raising our kids is a brilliant site that is colouring in crazy! There are many colouring in pages available free of charge that are organised into specific categories eg. christmas, easter, learning colours, learning letters, learning numbers.

 

Click here to print

2. Activity Village - Christmas Language printables has numerous language based activity sheets including word searches, word jigsaws, X-mas vocabulary posters, X-mas flashcards and even X-mas bingo. The activities range from easy to more difficult tasks.

click  here for more word searches

Click here to print mazes

Click here to print these great word jigsaws

 

Click here to print X-mas vocabulary posters

 

Click here for more X-mas flashcards

**Be sure to visit Activity village - christmas language printables.  They have a very extensive range of activities - most are PDF format hence they are not very clear when uploaded onto the blog.  This site is great as it focuses on all things Christmas whilst enhancing receptive and expressive language skills.

Vanessa ;)

Christmas gift ideas for teachers

A little Christmas shopping help....

Essential Kids have recommended some fantastically festive ideas to thank your child's teacher for their support and hard work.
“One lovely, and very unique, gift I have received from a parent was food for the day! The mum wrote a little note thanking me for my hard work and told me not to bother bringing lunch the next day. I was utterly intrigued, but did as I was told and, sure enough, lunch was provided. The daughter brought in a paper bag (decorated) with a beautiful, homemade morning tea and lunch,” she says.

Here are the top teacher treat ideas for you to borrow this year:

• A platter of summer Christmas fruits for the staffroom is a great alternative to boxed chocolates.
• Homemade chocolates – you can buy Christmas inspired moulds from most Lincraft or Spotlight stores and you can add flavoured fillings or desiccated coconut for something extra special. Complete by wrapping in some coloured cellophane and ribbon.
• Personalised coffee mugs – Design a Cuppa is a great Aussie website that allows you to choose your own design and message.
• Christmas ornaments are always a hit – engrave or write your child’s name and year.
• Homemade rocky road – follow the Essential Kids recipe and to make smaller versions spoon into a cupcake tray before you refrigerate and then get creative with the wrapping.
• Homemade cookies – get the kids to decorate a biscuit tin and help you bake a yummy selection.
• Get all the parents to throw in for a Westfield gift voucher and add a huge card for all the kids to sign
• Charity donation – choose an education related charity gift for developing countries, UNICEF has some great options to choose from.
• A basket of home baked goods for the staffroom.
• Create a photo album of all the kids in the class and get them to write a personalised message next to their photo.
• Movie vouchers are sure to be a hit – You can purchase online at Hoyts and Greater Union or why not support your local family theatre.
• Personalised stickers – My Stickers 4 U has a great range to choose from.
• Make their teacher lunch for the day complete with a decorated lunch bag from your child.
• Choose a humorous T-shirt from Threadless - a great idea for male teachers.
• Frame one of your child’s artworks.
• A personalised notepad
• A bottle of wine - but remember not everyone drinks wine so best to do your homework.
• Stationary is always a necessity in teaching – Kikki K has a great selection.
• Scrabble fridge magnets
• Kids art hangers
• Beautifully packaged Flower seeds

Kids love to be involved in choosing presents and for an extra special personal touch: get them to leave their mark on the gift. Whether that is by making a card or painting a picture, it is the memory that the teacher will treasure the most.

Vanessa

Christmas Craft & Creativity

It is the 1st of December and we hope to share many more Christmas ideas with you all over the next few weeks!

Here are some wonderful and easy craft activities that will keep the kids entertained leading up to Christmas so that you can get those things ticked of your list!

1. At Essential Kids you can print and make your very own snowman. 

The kids will have fun dressing up Frosty the Snowman with this cute cut-out activity. Simply print-off and they will have hours of fun. 

Click here to print

 2. At Kaboose you can make your own pom pom Christmas trees.

Click here  for step by step instructions

3. At Kidspot you will find instructions showing you how to make potato-stamped wrapping paper.  

This is one for the big and little kids. Wrapping paper with the mark of the kids is a cute personal touch to family-member gifts and looks cute and cheerful mixed with an assortment of different wrapping papers under the tree.

Click here for instructions

4.  At Kidspot you can make your own snowmen with some cotton wool and foam balls. Click below to find out how.

 Click here for step by step instructions

5.  Another fun idea that can be used on Christmas day - DIY bon bons!

Kids can personalise them with names etc. to make them extra special.  

Click here for step by step instructions

 

6. At Kaboose you can make your own paper bag reindeer.

Click here for step by step instructions

Happy Crafting!

Vanessa X