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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Until you’ve experienced it first hand, there’s nothing quite like the joy of Christmas in the kindergarten classroom. Of course there’s the excitement and anticipation over which presents will be waiting for them under the tree, but there’s an overall feeling of joy about all that comes with Christmas; the music, the food, the trees and of course Santa. The jolly old elf should be a central part of your academics in December if you have any intention of retaining your students’ interest in the run up to the big day. This fun Christmas themed math center is a great way to help your students develop number sense while having some Santa themed fun at the same time.
Number Sense in Kindergarten
As a kindergarten teacher, your overall goal is to help your students master those essential skills that will provide a foundation for the rest of their school years. These include recognizing and writing all the letters of the alphabet, and developing an understanding of the number system. You also need to get them used to seeing different representations of each number, so these free number sense activities for kindergarten are a great way for your students to learn to recognize numbers, dice, tallies and the written form of each number from 1 to 10. They’ll build a number Santa in a jigsaw fashion, and you’ll have a Christmas themed math center that they’ll keep coming back to all month long.
Preparing Your Number Sense Puzzles
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Extending Build A Number Santa Activities
The idea behind these kindergarten Christmas activities is simple. Students will pick out the matching Santa body parts based on the number that they show and put them together. They will master this build a number Santa challenge fairly quickly, so try some of these kindergarten Christmas activities using the same packet:
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Timed challenge – the key to mastery of any kindergarten skill is repetition, and the key to making repetition fun is to add a layer of challenge. Give your students an entire set of all 40 body parts and then time them to see how quickly they can put all 10 Santas back together. Keep an individual record for each student so that the only person that they’re competing against is themselves, but chart how long it takes them to build a number Santa so they can see their progress.
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Fix the errors – another fun way to keep this activity fresh is to put up a set of 10 completed Santas that have a lot of body parts attached to the wrong number. Make sure you let students know which number is correct, and then have them work together with a partner to put all the body parts back with the right Santa.
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Scavenger hunt – as the excitement builds in your classroom, you’ll need to find ways to get movement into your Christmas themed math center. Turn this build a number Santa game into a scavenger hunt by hiding all the body parts around the room and have students race to collect all the pieces for a specific Santa.