I just have to say that this is by far my favorite classroom
party that we have done yet!!! This time I teamed up with my awesome friend from Memories by AnnaDawn that you may have heard me mention in some previous posts, she does all my cookies, who also signed up to be a room mom for her daughter's class.
To start things off we decorated the outside of our classrooms to look like an elf sized building, in this case Santa's Workshop. I love decorating the classroom doors for parties, I didn't do this last party and really missed it, I think it helps set the mood and gets the kids excited. Here is my little workshop:
and here is a little peek at Anna Dawn's door...
I love the lattice window covers and wood grain on the door!
Now back to the party details. Another kindergarten mom is friends with a local Santa so she contacted him to see if he would come visit the kindergarten classes for a little bit and he was more than willing too! How wonderful! So we gathered the 2 classes together in the other classroom, and teacher told the kids that we had a special visitor coming, when she opened the outside door it was so magical! All the kids faces lit up with delight
as they waved and cheered!
The teacher had a special chair next to a tree and fireplace set up for Santa to sit on while he visited with the children, so cute!
He was so sweet talking to the children and
read them a Christmas story,
and just before he left Santa gave all the little kids a candy cane!
As the our kids left the other classroom and entered their classroom we had it all set up for Santa's Workshop.
We told the kids that Santa needed some extra help at the North Pole so the kids needed to become little elves to help him out.
They each got a North Pole ID badge and an elf name...
The kids got an elf name by picking them out of boxes. In the first box there were names like Jingle, Holly, Kringle, Chipper, Puddin' and more on little stickers to place on their name tags. Then in the second box were last names like Gingersnaps, Floppy Feet, Merry Clause, Sprinkle Pants as such also on little stickers to place on their badges underneath their first name. They really
got a kick out of their new elf names!
They also got a standard uniform elf hat, complete with ears. The ears were made out of cardstock and attached with a simple stitch so the kids could take them off if they wanted.
My daughter's name was "Candy McRibbon",
I must say that kind of fits her!
There where 4 different JOBS (rotations) for the elves to do.
First: Toymaking and Painting
I can't get over how cute these place mats are!!! This is what made me fall in love with the Santa's Workshop collection from Loralee Lewis that inspired this whole party!
The kids each got to paint a little wooden toy car for this station,
we made sure to write their names on their plate that they painted their car on so we could set them aside while
they dried (just a helpful tip).
Next up was Cookie Decorating and Testing
Anna Dawn made up these super adorable place mats for this station based off the tool making station, How cute is
that cookie sheet border!
Each place setting had their own bag of frosting to
decorate with and in the center of the table were bowls of
different candies and sprinkles.
Some kids were very particular on how they decorated their cookies...
and some others just went fot it!
Then they visited the Wrapping Department to decorate and
wrap a Christmas present.
This department was divided up into 4 stations:
We pre-cut all the wrapping paper to the right size to
make it a little easier.
I wanted to give this rotation more of workplace feel so I create a backdrop using a large cork board pinned with all sorts of themed signs and pictures.
The kids decorated a little ornament to put inside their present.
The last JOB of an elf is taking care of Santa's reindeer so we had a 'make your own grain' station.
The kids got to create their own mixture of Magical Reindeer Grain to take home of oats, raisins, bread crumbs, coconut, and glitter.
Feeding reindeer is a messy job!
Making grain doesn't take very long so we created a little 'Don't Feed The Reindeer' game to go along with this station.
For this game the kids tried to shoot food (aka: pom poms)
into the reindeer's mouth.
We made little Pom pom shooters out of cups and balloons,
you can find the simple tutorial here.
"Look mom! The reindeer ate me!"
After all the elves finished working they visited the Break room
for some refreshments...
The kids enjoyed some Elf-sized morsels (cherry chocolates), Santa's favorite cookies, some candy gumdrops, a cup of Cheer (chocolate milk) and got a little Elf Toolbox to take home. We gave the cupcakes to the parents who helped out (and the cake was fake, just for looks).
I got an elf hat and shoes set from Oriental Trading and put
the hat on the chocoalte milk and the shoes on the
table legs just for a fun touch.
How stinking cute are these cups!
But my most favorite part were these little toolboxes
we made for all the kids!
Anna Dawn designed these little boxes out of foam core and then we covered them with wood patterned contact paper. The labels were from Loralee Lewis.
We filled them with some chocolate tools, candy cane hammer, and a little bubble gum measuring tape.
I hope you enjoyed our elf-sized party and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a New Happy Year of Parties!
Party and event styling: Sweeten Your day & Memories by AnnaDawn
Photographs: Sweeten Your Day
Banners, straw flags, party signs and labels, work station place mats, cupcakes wrappers and toppers, chair banners, reindeer grain signs and stickers: Loralee Lewis
Stuffed elves, elf hat and shoes (dessert table), twist candy canes, wooden cars, mini bubble tape: Oriental Trading
