Christmas is at the door: The Christmas holiday is fast approaching. This is one of the best opportunities to spend quality time with your children. It is a time to enrich their experiences, extend their vocabulary, experiment with their imagination and expand their creative minds.
The question is how?
Enrich their experiences: Most city centres will be decorated with Christmas lights.
• Take them out to the town centres, shopping malls, restaurants and churches. Then, talk about the colours on the different Christmas lights, the different tree decorations and ask them what they like about it, what they don’t like and how they can make it better if they were to design one.
• Take them to see Santa Claus/ Father Christmas, talk about the reindeers, where Santa comes from and where he lives.
• If you live in a hot country, take them to the beach, resort centres and carnivals.
• Start a tradition (if you don’t have one already) like Christmas dinners, Christmas party or Christmas service where your children pick something they don’t want anymore and donate it to charity.
Extend their vocabulary: Through the exciting experiences you create for your children, you could extend their vocabulary.
• Ensure they are describing what they saw, what they did and how they did it.
• Use interesting words with them like “the sparkly star, the magnificent tree, merry, joyful, peaceful, and jolly.”
• Talk with them, share stories of your own Christmas experience.
Experiment with their imagination: Through Christmas or holiday-related films and imaginative play
• At this time of the year, there will be lots of Christmas movies at the cinema’s and some would be in 3d. In addition, there is a good collection of timeless Christmas films. Watch these films with your children afterwards recreate the scenarios you have seen in the films like using a cardboard box to make a house, using cotton wool to make snow, making play dough for cake, use old kitchen cups and plates.
• Compare how children from different parts of the world celebrate Christmas.
Expand their creative minds: Children are very creative and we need to help expand their creativity.
• Listen to Christmas songs together, sing it and dance to it.
• Make Christmas cakes together. Children love to cook, let them stir in the sugar, pour in the flour or ice the cake.
• Make Christmas crafts together.
Have a Merry Christmas.
