R is for Reindeer!

We had some exciting fun this week!  We learned about the letter R which follows our reading series that our county uses.  I don't like that the story is about ducks.  I like to do themes with each letter! Its MORE fun and makes more sense to the kiddos! What's more perfect than... reindeer for letter R week!?! 

I found SO many awesome fun ideas from teachers pay teachers and made up a few of my own.  I wanted to share the activity packet that I purchased from TpT. 

We learned reindeer facts and then made a chart of what reindeer ARE, what reindeer HAVE and what reindeer CAN do.  The next day I asked the kids to look at the chart and write down three things they learned about reindeer. They had to write three COMPLETE sentences example Reindeer can live in snowy places.  I told them they had to include a fact from each section of the chart.  The children blew me away!  It took a little while for some of them to catch on, but they were able to do as I asked.  I wanted to challenge them a little bit ;).  One things I've learned is to NEVER underestimate what they can do.

I stole this idea from a little sister who is also teaching kindergarten for the first time this year!  If we worked in the same building who knows what would happen! She told me to give each child 1piece of brown paper, a piece for the background,  a small square red and a small piece of white paper. I made a sample to give the children a guide to make their own reindeer.  They turned out SO cute and funny!

Here is a color reindeer book we did! It helped my kiddos learn their color words AND rhyming words!  It was a three day Writer's Workshop activity. 


The first day I modeled how to cut out and order the pages. They colored the cover and the color words on the second page. The second day we read the rhymes to fill in each color word.  They colored the nose. 

We did only about four pages and I let them color Rudolph on each page.  The third day we colored another four pages and finished the book!  What a clever little idea for changing Rudolph's nose!

The last thing we did was make reindeer food.  I have never done it before so I didn't really know what I was doing I just thought it was a cute idea.  Well I didn't use glitter which is the whole point right?  So it shines on the grass so the reindeer can see it on Christmas Eve?!  Well I used whole oats, baking peppermint pieces, and chocolate mint chocolate chips.  I told them that real reindeer like the oats but Santa's magical reindeer love sweets and goodies.  Once I mixed up our mixture it smelt SO nice and minty. Orginally was I going to put the "reindeer food" in a plastic baggy, but I was lying awake the night before thinking of what I use to make it look like a reindeer.  Then this came to me!

The children colored a coffee filter with brown crayon (or I'm sure you could the recycled brown filters) and place the reindeer food in the middle.  I folded one side to the other like a taco or semi circle and folded the rount side a little to keep the food from coming out.  Then I twisted the sides and secured it was brown pipe cleaners to look like antlers.  They children drew the face. BOOM! It was Rudolph!  I hung them in our little classroom Christmas tree until our last day.  I knew that if I sent them home they'd lose it and be sad they didn't get to sprinkle it on Christmas Eve.

I found a poem online to go with the reindeer food that used glitter.  Well this didn't work for me obviously so I made up a new one!

Tthe best way to attract a reindeer is with their sense of smell,

and for the taste of reindeer food,

they’ll travel through rain, sleet or hail.

Ssprinkle on your lawn the night of christmas eve,

Tthe reindeer will smell it

and visit those who truly believe.

Websites:

http://www.teachersmousepad.com/Christmas/reindeer_fun.htm