Children’s Holiday celebration

December is usually a hectic time for many adults as they prepare for the holidays. Young children are very aware of the excitement in the air. As guides we would like to ignore the exuberance that surfaces in the classroom, but we found that it is more constructive to channel the children’s excitement into purposeful activities. One popular idea with children is to learn about different holiday customs around the world.

We celebrated Hanukkah this week. Cooking and tasting latkes was a lot of fun. We will also be celebrating St Nicholas day, St. Lucia Day and Los Posada and Christmas.

The children will also create gifts for their parents and wrap them all by themselves. They will collectively glue a piñata in preparation for the Los Posada and Christmas party. We place little treasures into the piñata and the children each take a turn to break it open.

The party will take place on the last day before winter break. On that day the children can bring a small present for their classroom. This custom has evolved at CGM. Rather than exchanging gifts with each other, (including teachers) the children give a small gift that can be used by the entire classroom community. The children enjoy opening their presents and eventually seeing them used in the classroom. It becomes their contribution to their classroom community. This year the piñata party will be on Dec.20^th.

Dates to remember

Dec.9^th   St. Nicholas

Dec.13^th   St. Lucia

Dec.20^th   Christmas and piñata party. Open presents for the classroom.

Here is a wish list for our classroom.

Construction paper different colors

Card stock different colors

Soft color pencils

Stencils

Children’s atlas

Gift certificates for Montessori services

Happy Holidays.