Seeking Ideas for Games and Crafts for a Kindergarten Winter Party

Another idea would be "Toss the Snowball" ball up a bunch of white paper and have the kids line up and try to make it into a pail or box.

Another neat twist to musical chairs would be to have the kids sing a Christmas song and then do a hand signal for stop and that is when they sit. You get to hear them sing, while they have a blast trying to get a seat.

I am still fairly new to the room mom thing but i helped put together my daughters fall party and we got the crafts at Michaels craft store. They have a ton of neat things for the kids to do and we also spoke to the manager and got a discount since we were buying so many.

One fun craft would be to make candy canes out of pipe cleaners for the kids to hang on the Christmas tree. And, depending on the school, you might even be able to tell the story behind the candy cane while they are making them. It doesn't take that long to do, but it's one idea to fill the time.

They could also make a card for someone in their family or a friend. Maybe have some fun colored markers and stamps for them to pick from. I have never bought stamps, so I'm not sure on the cost of them though.

If someone is bringing snacks, they could bring in gingerbread cookies and get some tubes of icing from the store for the kids to decorate their cookies with.

You can also spend some time singing carols. :)

Again, these things may not take that long to do, but they're just what came to mind right away.

Hope that is helpful. Oh, and you can find the directions for making the candy cane ornaments online pretty easily, I thing. I would just Google 'candy cane pipe cleaners' and see what you get. Or even 'candy cane crafts' as I know that one will bring some good results.

Good luck with the party. :)

God bless,
A.

P.S. The story behind the candy cane is really easy to find online as well.

We often do 'stations' for our class party. We break up into small groups and rotate.

We played a game once where you take a small box, wrapped where you can still open the lid. We put a piece of candy inside then played hot potato with it. Whoever ended up with it got the candy. Then they were out. We did this until everyone received a piece of candy.

I bought santa twister off of Oriental trading, it's quite large so you have to make sure you have room and use small groups, but the kids really loved that.

I have also made sugar cookies and let the kids ice and decorate. I have done this for all types of parties. I go to the dollar store and they have small container - 6/8/12(?) for $1, I put a small amount of icing in each one with a plastic knife. This way the kids each get their own and do not 'share', when you know they won't be able to keep fingers out. Then I have different sprinkles. They then can use this as part of their snack.

It's also nice to have a book or word search ready for the kids to do while you are cleaning up.

Pin the nose on Rudolf, was alway a show stopper. Raindeer races. Santa's Hot Gift (like hot potato). Making Raindeer hats, by having them trace their hands, cut them out, staple to a brown paperstrip, like a headband. Decorate a christmas tree with glitter, markers, buttons, etc.

Seven years owning day care centers...I've got a million ideas. Have a really great party!

Last year at my son's kdg party the room mother wrapped a cheap toy multiple times and had the kids play "hot potato" with it. Each time the music would stop they had to unwrap one layer. They LOVED it!!

Good luck! :)

Here is one that seems to always be a hit. You read the story of the Gingerbread man. Every child brings in a cheap book age and grade appropriate wrapped and as you are reading the book the children pass the books when you read the phrase Run Run as fast as you can. When they are done they each should have a different book that is theirs to keep. This is an idea I got from my sons preschool teacher and the kids really have fun with it.

J.

Have you thought about a craft, such as making ornaments or something? You could have the teacher provide a head shot of each student (often school picture companies provide these to teachers)

Cut out snowmen shapes from sturdy paper. Have the children paste the picture of their face on the "head" part of the snowman. Use two or three cotton balls per child and have them stretch out the cotton and glue (Use school glue, not glue sticks) on the rest of the snowman shape (and around the picture of their face). Decorate with a hat/boots/scarf or whatever decorations you want

Or you could always decorate cookies...be careful of food allergies though!

Some fun games/activities:
Relay races with a cotton ball on a spoon
"bubble wrap" races-try to run across bubble wrap without popping any bubbles
It would take some advance preparation, but you could make a bingo game with winter pictures (maybe a 3X3 grid instead of 5X5...)
Musical Chairs with holiday music (This gets tricky depending on how many students are in the class though...)

Good luck!

Crafts! I'm willing to bet if you do a craft, it will take most of the two hours. Is it a Christmas party or a holiday party? Or just a party? That will depend on the kind of craft you can do. If you can find some of your old holiday cards that you don't want anymore, take them in. Get different colored construction paper. glue, glitter, markers, etc. You fold the construction paper like a card. They cut out the front of the old holiday cards and glue them to the front of the construction paper card, then decorate. If they don't use scissors, you can just rip the front off the cards. It's messy, but fun! Even my almost two year old thinks this is a blast. It's a great way to get rid of your old cards too! :D

As someone who grew up Jewish and was always upset at the Chrismas parties in school, I ask that you find out if all of the children celebrate the same religion. One great idea would be to talk about Christmas, Hannukah, Duwali, and Kwanzaa. Dicussing cultural differences is especially current and they are never too young to udnerstand that everyone is not like that.
The internet would be a great resource for information, as would the library and you could do a game, craft, etc. for each in stations. Please be sensitize to the children. The holiday time is a hard time to be different.

If you have two hours, you've got tons of things you can do. First and foremost, if I were in your shoes, I'd ALSO take/make time to make something for kids in a shelter, something for the troops or SOMETHING to remind the kids that Christmas isn't all about them. They need to be reminded that others don't have much.

Games.......Very simpe word seaches like TOY; make reindeer candy canes or reindeer out of oranges (cut out antlers and pin on oranges. Nose is a red pom pom and eyes are wiggly eyes; Ive also made one from craft sticks (V w/ one across about 1.5" from the top. Again, add wiggly eyes, pom nose and even a little holly on an "antler". We normally put .24 ribbon on these to hang. Santa face out of paper plate and yarn. Again, eyes can be wiggly eyes or drawn, nose can be larger pom. Make ornaments, ask kids to bring in canned goods or boxed food for a particular family in the community. Pick a specific family to help. Have the kids tell their favorite thing to do at Christmas, BESIDES opening presents (focus off presents); decorate gingerbread men (someone else bakes & they TAKE HOME) make "gingerbead houses" out of graham crackers and a variety of treats. Someone needs to make ROYAL frosting to hold these together or on the cracker. Hope this helps

Last year we made snowmen out of drinkable yogurt containers (I think the idea is from family fun - you might search their website). Anyway, the container is the body. I used blue felt to cut a circle about 2 or 3" in diameter and secured it to the top w/a rubber band for the hat. Use same blue felt to make a scarf to tie around the neck. We used an orange sharpie to color a nose and black for the eyes and buttons. We also filled it with hershey kisses. The kids loved them and they are easy at that age to make.

One game I played with the kids as room mom in my daughter's class was "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree." It is cheap and sooooo fun. I took red and green plastic drinking cups (Solo) and colored the inside bottom of a couple of them. Those were the winning cups. I then stacked the cups into the shape of a Christmas Tree on a little cheap tree skirt. We danced around the "tree" to the song "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." When the music stopped, everyone grabbed a cup. Whoever had the cups with the ornaments colored in the bottom won. I have also taken a piece of plywood and cut holes in it. Think pumpkin eyes for a jack-o-lantern or ornaments on a Christmas tree. Then I take holiday pantyhose and cut them up into 4-5 inch pcs, and fill with rice. Tie the ends with ribbons and use for a bean bag toss.

R.-
There are all kinds of great websites with tons of ideas. My favorite is familyfun.com. But if you search for school party game or crafts you will hit the jackpot! Good luck!

According to how crazy the teacher will let you go....I did my son's valentine's party a few years ago. I brought my laptop in with a mix of some kid friendly party songs....The kids LOVED it. There's lots of "Holiday" theme music out there. They did get a little loud, but it's worth it. The kids from school still talk about it (all of 3 years later).

For fast cute craft ideas, try a search for handprint or fingerprint crafts. Those are always my favorite to get. They can be a little messy....but very worth it.

Biggest advice. Don't plan too much. The two hours goes very fast. Especially after eating snacks. Once we had parents only send "packable" snacks, and sent it all home with the kids in bags so we could play the whole two hours....

I was surprised that I didn't see this idea. Have the kids trace their hands and a foot on construction paper. The foot print turns into the reindeer face and the hands the antlers. They can decorate them and then their parents have a keepsake. My kids love this. I actually made mine out of cloth and wrote Merry christmas on the cloth and now I have a wall hanging. You can make cinnamon clay and have the kids make ornaments or snow men to decorate. Cut small strips of cloth for them to put around the snowmans neck as a scarf. Kids love glue and glitter so buy some plastic round ornaments and have them go crazy decorating with glitter glue.
Have fun and so will they.

I'm surprised that a school is having a Christmas party (unless it's a private school). Most public schools have a winter party these days. If your daughter goes to a public school you may want to be sure that all the kids in class celebrate Christmas (my son had a boy who was Jewish for example in his class). You may want to consider doing things like snowmen, snow flakes not things with reindeer and Santa (many people don't do the Santa thing these days). For example Jingle bells (the song) doesn't mention Christmas and you could take bells and pipe cleaners and make your own jingle bells and sing the song.