December’s newsletter
December in Kindergarten was a month full of joy, creativity, and festive learning. The children eagerly participated in a variety of Christmas-themed activities that combined play with meaningful learning experiences. They delighted in guessing Christmas sounds, decorating and writing cards, playing Christmas charades, and creating gift bags at the art station. Lively action games, such as “Santa, Santa, Where Is Your Hat?” and the Reindeer Hokey Pokey, encouraged movement and coordination, while drama activities like “We’re Going on a Santa Hunt” sparked imagination and expressive language.
The children also enjoyed sharing the story Stickman by Julia Donaldson, singing Christmas action songs, and continuing to develop letter recognition through educational videos, letter hunts, and creative crafts. Beyond these activities, they explored transforming dolly pegs into unique Christmas ornaments. They shared ideas, sketched plans, chose colors, and painted their designs, expressing their creativity every step of the way.
While making felt costumes for their characters, the children encountered a challenge: the safety scissors couldn’t cut the material. Through thoughtful group discussion, they suggested solutions and agreed that an adult would cut the felt while they focused on assembling and gluing their pieces. This experience nurtured teamwork, problem-solving, safety awareness, and creativity, culminating in beautiful and meaningful decorations that reflected the children’s ideas and effort.
During the second week, the children continued to explore Christmas themes through movement, literacy, mathematics, and creative expression. They participated in Christmas action games, freeze dancing, and balancing activities using Christmas trees, which supported physical development and coordination. Maths learning was integrated through a roll-and-add Christmas ornament game, while fine motor skills were developed through decorating ornaments using sequin patterns. The children also created Christmas wish list collages and listened to the Wombat Divine story by Mem Fox, which inspired discussion and laughter. We also introduce the children to a project involving sharing Christmas and New Year wishes around the world. Play & Learn kindergarten cooperated with another school in Poland. The group talked about where Poland is and discussed how we could travel there (most children decided we would need to take at least three aeroplanes!). It was suggested the children could make a New Year card and we would send it by post to Poland. Each child drew their own New Year wish and practiced writing ‘Happy New Year’and ‘Καλή Χρονιά’ and copied the children’s names to add to the cards. This was a lovely project that encouraged the children to adopt an awareness of communication, language, cultural practices, and friendships.
Our Christmas celebrations began! We were all so excited about having our families join us in our classroom and the celebration for our Parents Christmas Afternoon was a great success. Thank you to everyone who joined in the festive fun, it was a jolly afternoon filled with surprise, laughter and togetherness. The children’s crafts, which they were fully involved in making, were incredible and unique, showing individual personality and creativity. For the remainder of this week the children participated in lots of Christmas dancing, music requests and singing, in particular “Jingle Bells” and “Κάλαντα”. We continued to read some favourite Christmas themed books including ‘Mog’s Christmas’ by Judith Kerr, ‘The Special Christmas Tree’ by Catherine Walters and Simon Taylor Kielty and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas ‘ by Laurel Long. We wish you all a healthy and happy New Year and look forward to continuing our learning journey together in 2026.