Santa is coming to Derby written by Steve Smallman, illustrated by Robert Dunn and published by Hometown World is such a fun book. A very awesome thing about it is that you can change the place name to where you live before you purchase the book, so it is relevant for who you are buying it for. We received our copy as a gift and we love reading it at Christmas time. It mentions places that we are familiar with, is fun and exciting to read and the pictures are lovely.
Activities
Santa-nav activity
Blind fold game
Visit the places and landmarks mentioned in the book
Write a letter to Santa
Make a reindeer
Make a gift for someone
Sort and donate things no longer used
Make mince pies
Make and decorate cookies
Make hot chocolate
Outdoor
Santa uses a Santa-nav to help him navigate his way round so you could make a pretend one with your child/children and then you could go for a walk and they can tell you which way to go. If you have more than one child then they could take it in turns. This will help them learn directions, it's fun because you don't know where you will end up and it gives them a sense of leadership as they get to be the boss for a bit. If you have more than one child you could blindfold one of them and then get the other child/children to direct them to a particular place. The older the children the more complicated the instructions could be and for younger children you could hold their hand and guide them until they feel comfortable enough to do it on their own. A final outdoor activity could be to visit the places listed in the book and the landmarks that are mentioned. Your child/children could take photos them and then these can be talked about and shown when you read the story.
Indoor
The book starts with Santa's list being looked at so the first activity to go along with this book could be to write a letter to Santa. There are lots of different ways to do this. If your child/children are young and can't write yet or you have older children who don't like to write they can cut pictures out of magazines and catalogues of things that they would like for Christmas and stick them down. You could do lists of things with your child/children of things they would like or you could get them to write a traditional letter using the proper letter format and then this is a skill they can use in the future. On the internet I saw someone who got their child to take a photo of things they would like for Christmas throughout the year. This is a good idea and you can discuss with them how they change their minds as they get older and how they start to like new things as the year goes on. Another fun activity could be to make a reindeer picture. Get your child/children to paint a paper plate brown and then you can add a red pom pom or some red card for the nose and then black and white paper or paint for the eyes. You can get as creative as you want for the antlers and you could use card, paper or pipe cleaners and stick them on the back. Don't forget to make some little brown ears to attach too and then paint on a mouth or make one out of card. You could use them as Christmas decorations if you wanted to. A final indoor activity could be to get your child/children to make a present for someone using things that they find around the house. They can be as creative as they want and make a present for someone they choose. If they have lots of things then you could encourage them to sort out things that they don't need or are not used anymore and then they can donate these to a charity shop. This then makes space for new things but also helps them to see how lucky they are and how easy it is to help someone else feel happy.
Food/Cooking
Christmas is all about food so there is normally lots around to eat. You could make mince pies with your child/children. There are lots of recipes on the internet and it could be nice for you to have some home made ones a swell as bought ones. It's tradition in some people's homes to leave out a mince pie and carrot for Santa and his reindeer and even very young children can have fun doing this. You could make some Christmas cookies/biscuits and then decorate them. These could be a simple round shape or you could do stars etc. and your child/ children could decorate them with icing, chocolate, sprinkles etc. If you are struggling for ideas for gifts then you could give people some homemade cookies as a gift. Hot chocolate is also a nice thing to have around Christmas time and you could teach your child/children if they are old enough how to use a kettle properly and how to be careful with hot water.
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