Yes, it is possible to learn in the weeks leading up to Christmas! These Christmas book activities are just what you need for your preschoolers. Thanks to research, we know a lot about how young children learn best. Whenever I am giving trainings or planning lessons for my own PreK classes, I always go back to the basics. Children learn best when they are doing something social, the learning is active, and we are building on prior knowledge or experiences. This is why I love using books as launching pads for activities and lessons. It gives children a base to connect new experiences and knowledge to. Also, it’s fun to have a shared read-aloud experience to make the next activities that much more meaningful, especially around the holidays when it seems like learning may be hidden somewhere under excitement and sleep deprivation!
10 Christmas Books with Matching Activities for Preschoolers
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The Book
10 Trim-the-Tree’ers (Holiday Counting Books) by Janet Schulman . This book is part of a series that includes Halloween, Easter, and Valentine’s Day versions as well. In this particular book, a group of little friends is decorating a Christmas tree, and readers can count along as they add their items to the tree, all with a rhyming text. Although I found the text a little awkward, the students never seem to mind. We love counting as we read.
Activities for this Christmas Book
The Book
Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner is a sweet look at how the snowmen we build celebrate Christmas. I love this book and the magic it spreads and my PreK students feel the same way. It’s so much fun to imagine that snowmen come to life while we sleep especially at Christmas time.
Activities for Snowmen At Christmas
The Book
Georgie the Gingerbread Fairy by Tim Bugbird is a fun and glittery book about entrepreneurship. Georgie is an enterprising fairy who makes gingerbread but when a new shop opens her business takes a hit. My students love this book, particularly for quiet reading time. They love to pick out which fairy they like best on every page ( I’ll give you a hint: it’s always the one with the most fabulous outfit), and I appreciate the message of problem-solving and women-owned businesses!
Activities for Georgie the Gingerbread Fairy
The Book
Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney is the holiday book of the popular Llama llama series. Like the other books not only does this book rhyme it also connects with its readers because it shows the challenges preschoolers have even when adults don’t view them as important. The story is all about something that we adults feel but maybe forget that our kids do too, that Christmas is overwhelming and being patient is really really hard! We used this book to talk about frustration and patience yesterday and I will refer back to it often in class leading up to break. Your students will relate to how overwhelmed Llama is feeling and hopefully realize that it’s OK to slow down and just sit with someone they love and let the excitement calm for a bit.
Activities for Llama Llama Holiday Drama
- Christmas Slime ( this is a great calm-down activity)
- Make your own wrapping paper to wrap gifts like Llama llama
- Christmas Counting ( just like he counts the days til Christmas)
The Book
Oh, What a Christmas! by Micheal Garland is a story about how Santa was forced to make do when the unexpected happened. As we all know reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh but when the reins on Santa’s sleight break, the reindeer are nowhere to be seen! Thanks to some eager and helpful farm animals who step in and save the day Christmas is saved. The message that it’s not the reindeer but rather the magic that makes the difference is loud and clear. I like how this book can also open a dialog about how even special days can have unexpected bumps, and you make do with what you have, just like Santa in this story.
Activities for this Christmas book:
The Book
Christmas in The Manger by Nola Buck is a shiny, simple little board book that my toddler class adored but I still use with my PreK class too! It’s the perfect length for a lesson about the manger! It’s simple, but that’s exactly what we need this time of year when attention spans are especially short.
Activities for this book about Christmas
The Book
Cookiesaurus Christmas by Amy Fellner Dominy and Nate Evans This book, Cookiesaurus, is hilarious and I promise that your students or children will find it equally amusing. Cookiesaurus is eager to be chosen as one of the cookies left for Santa, but when he is not selected, he tries his best to change that! As a preschool teacher, I know how much kids love anything related to dinosaurs, and this book cleverly taps into that interest with heart and humor. I highly recommend getting this book. I cannot wait to read it to my students tomorrow!
Activities for Cookiesaurus Christmas:
The Book
Gingerbread Mouse by Katie Bratun. This is a sweet story about Mouse and how she became homeless after a tree wrecked her house. Mouse discovers a new home that she can truly call her own. There is only one problem: it’s a gingerbread house! Your students will definitely enjoy reading this story over and over again throughout the holiday season, and it’s a great launching pad for all kinds of activities!
Activities for this Christmas book
The Book
A Cookie For Santa by Stephanie Shaw is a sweet story to get into the holiday spirit: On Christmas Eve, some children leave a gingerbread boy for Santa. When Santa arrives, he joins in the cleanup, and instead of eating the gingerbread boy, he invites him to help him for the rest of the night. While awaiting his fate, the gingerbread boy saves Christmas by distracting two destructive puppies who are intent on ripping up everything.”
Activities for this book about Christmas
The Book
The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston is a story about the hardships and love of one family torn apart by the First World War as they prepare for Christmas with no resources. The mother does the best she can with what she has, treks through snow to cut that big old Christmas tree down all by herself, sacrifices her wedding dress for her daughter’s angel costume for the pageant, and uses the silk stockings her husband sent her from the war to make a doll for Santa to give to her daughter. The father comes home right as they are leaving the church service – ugh, even writing about this book years after I first read it makes me tear up. I have to admit I have always let my assistant teachers read this because I can’t get through it without crying.
Christmas Activities To Try:
Need even more Christmas Book Activities and Craft ideas?
Check out this post for even more great Christmas activities for preschool!
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