With christmas just around the corner my mind is totally focused on the magic, lights and joy the festive day brings. And so will most of the children in your classroom. I wanted to share with you, some of the ways I would make christmas in my classroom extra special this year for your early years with an extra special appearance from one of my favourite snowmen.

Disney isn’t just about the fun, you can learn from it too.

Now many educators might read this and think, there is no way you can learn anything from a disney film and that films are for fun, not for learning. But I’m hoping this post might just change your mind.

First of all some literacy ideas…

•  Frozen alphabet cards are a great way of getting children involved with literacy at all stages of development
• Get the children to write their own letter to santa on this paper – especially great if you’re a parent, guardian or carer! The children writing their own letter encourages use of language and fine motor skills holding their pencil
• Read one of the many many frozen related books that have been published which you can pick up dead cheap in poundland – or take the children to the library to find a book about a snowman and read it in the library
• Analyse the song “Let it go!” and write down key points about the song
• Writing a story about a Frozen character. Here’s some paper printouts to make it extra Frozen but here the children’s imagination can run wild!
•  Make up a crossword or wordsearch full of words relating to Frozen!

Some fun numeracy ideas…

• Having a memory game similar to pairs where the children have to match up characters and remember where they are hidden
• Do you want to build a snowman olaf game – using a dice can help children with their numeracy skills
• A Frozen jigsaw puzzle
• A which Frozen character is your favourite chart – which is a lovely wall display as well!
• Frozen addition flash cards which are great for children to get used to addition and what numbers look like
• Print out this board game on A3 card and laminate. Put on on every table and this can be a fun golden time activity!

Throw the ball into the numbered bucket is another fun game

Fun for the senses and craft table…

• Put ice in the water tray and learn about it melting or make Elsa’s frozen hands or put magnets in the ice
• Make play dough and put glitter it to make it that extra little bit more Frozen and then print out and then print out a playdough mat to enhance their imagination
• Make Frozen snowflakes to decorate the classroom
• Make your own snow
• Make Frozen bowling balls and then play bowling during P.E.
• Create Elsa’s Frozen castle for the role play area on the craft table and then play away!

A Frozen castle for the role play area

And lastly just for fun..

• Why not make hot chocolate from marshmallows from scratch, Olaf’s nose carrot cake or snow balls (white chocolate truffles which could be a good gift for the children to take home for the parents for christmas on the last day of term)
• Sing let it go (most children know all the words, so at least you won’t have to teach them or print out the words)
• If you are lucky enough to get snow this December make snowmen – great for some health and wellbeing outcomes
• Colour in some Frozen colouring in sheets and do some Frozen dot to dots

Overall my aim with this post is to show all educators out there that almost anything can be made educational if you put your mind to it and using the children’s current interests are the best way to gain their attention. Hopefully anyone who has read this has found something they find interesting or would use themselves. All ideas that are not my own have the link to the appropriate website and were all found by myself on pinterest – a website I highly recommend to all educators out there.