Reindeer Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Reindeer Antlers Number Recognition Match

December 14, 2017 By Deirdre

Your children will have fun finding the antlers that match. Each pair of reindeer antlers displays the same number of points or branches off of the central area of the antler. They also display the number representation of that number of points or branches.

Getting Ready to Play Match the Reindeer Antlers

Printing Out the Number Matching Set

You will need to print out the Reindeer Antlers Number Recognition Match set. It includes to Rudolph cards that the antlers can be displayed above. There are also ten matching pairs of reindeer antlers.

This set was designed to be printed out on a color printer. The reindeer really doesn’t look right printed out in gray on a black and white printer.

Playing the Reindeer Antlers Matching Game

The first thing your children are going to need to do it explore the antlers cards. You will want to help them count how many points or branches are on each card. Then you can show them that the number of points matches the number on the card.

Next, you will need to give each of your children a Rudolph card. They will place each of their matches in a stack above the reindeer’s head.

Then you will need to turn the reindeer antler cards face down on a table.

Finally, they will take turns trying to find matching number antlers cards. If they find a match, they can place them beside each other above their reindeer’s head.

Alternative Game

You can give your children a stack containing each of the antler cards. They will need to sort through their stack to find matching cards. When they have found a match, they can place it over their reindeer’s head.

If you like this reindeer printable activity, here are some more you will love:

Straw Rocket Flying Reindeer

Exploring Printable Mazes with Reindeer

Reindeer and Polar Express Printable Puppets

Changing the Color of the Reindeer’s Nose Color Activity

December 11, 2017 By Deirdre

Rudolph was a red nose reindeer, but what fun it would be to change the color of his nose. Your children can create a reindeer. Then they can create a way to change the color of its nose. If you don’t want your children to craft a reindeer, you can use our printable one. Below you will find the reindeer and the color wheel printable set. Your children could always to create their own reindeer on paper plates and use our color wheel.

Reindeer’s Nose Color Activity

Getting Ready

Downloading the Printables

You will need to download the Changing the Color of the Reindeer’s Nose set. It includes a printable reindeer and two color wheels. The whole set will need to be printed out in color.

Gathering Supplies

You have a variety of ways that you can put this color activity together. Your children can create their own reindeer and use one of the printable color wheels. Another option is to have them use the printable reindeer and the printable color wheel. In either case, your children will need to create their own antlers.

Each Child Will Need the Following:

Large Paper Plate

Small Paper Plate

Brown Construction Paper

Black Construction Paper or Black Foam Sheet

White Foam Sheet

One Brass Fastener

Scissors

Glue Stick

Putting the Color Activity Together

The first thing your children are going to need to do is to cut out the reindeer printable or the pieces for their own reindeer. If they are creating their own reindeer, they will need to make the head, eyes, and antlers. They are are using the printable one they will just need to make the antlers.

Next, they will need glue the reindeer and the antler to the large paper plate.

Then they will need to cut out nose space.

The color wheel will need to be glued to the small paper plate and then cut out. (The color wheel with eight colors works best on a narrower nose hole.)

Finally, the color wheel will need to be attached to the reindeer plate with a brass fastener. It will not reach the end of the reindeer’s nose. This will make it easier to turn.

This activity was created to go along with the book Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It is the Virtual Book Club book of the week. Here are some more activities based on the book.

Reindeer Letter Matching Game

Fingerprint Reindeer Ornament

Rudolph Pipe Cleaner Circuit (Christmas STEM)

Paper Shapes Reindeer Craft

Here are some more holiday themed activities your kids will love:

Jingle Bell Counting Activity

Make a Paper Bag Gingerbread House

Rudolph STEM Straw Rocket

Flying Reindeer STEM Activity

November 21, 2017 By Deirdre

Earlier this year I shared with you a straw rocket frog leaping activity and one featuring fireworks. Since Santa and his flying reindeer are fun to read about and see in movies in time of year, I thought your children would like to explore flying reindeer. This fun flying reindeer activity invites children to find the best way to get a reindeer to fly a distance.

Flying Reindeer Activity

Getting Ready

Getting the Printables

The first thing you are going to need to do is to download a copy of the Flying Reindeer STEM Activity. It includes a recording printable for your children to place the distance each of their attempts went and a set of reindeer cutouts. You will find a set of colored reindeer and a set of reindeer your children can color.

Gathering Supplies

Links below are affiliate links.

You will also need the following supplies for this activity:

Paper Straws- Red/White
Plastic Transfer Pipettes
Glue sticks
Scissors
Measuring Tape

Building Background

You may want to read your children a book about reindeer before starting this activity. You will find some wonderful reindeer books displayed below that would be fun to read.

The links below are affiliate links.

Conducting the Flying Reindeer Activity

You or your children will need to place a measuring tape out on the floor. They will use it to measure the distance their reindeer travel.

Then it is time to place their reindeer pipette onto the striped straw and give it a good hard blow. (We found that the reindeer traveled the farthest when we lay prone on the ground.)

Flying Reindeer STEM Activity - Ready for Take Off

Next, you will need to measure how far the reindeer traveled and record it on the recording printable.

Then it is time to try to see if you can get it to travel farther. You can encourage your children to try holding the straw at various angles and blowing through it in different ways.

Flying Reindeer STEM Activity- The reindeer has landed.

The recording printable gives children the opportunity to record three flying distances. Your children can really attempt to get their reindeer to fly farther and farther as many times as they want.

Finally, your children will need to dictate to you or write down on their own what they did that made the reindeer travel the farthest.

If you like this STEM activity, here are some more activities your children will love:

STEM Christmas Building Shapes with Stickman

Building Shapes with The Stickman

Make Rudolph Fly Fast STEM Challenge- After constructing a flying reindeer, it is time conduct a science experiment to see how to make him fly fast.

Make Rudolph Fly Fast STEM Experiment

New Year’s Thaumatrope Printable Set

STEM Activity- New Year's Ball Drop: What fun it is to see what materials will help our homemade New Year's Ball drop fastest.

New Year’s Ball Drop STEM Challenge

Reindeer Games with Magnets

November 19, 2017 By Deirdre

Each of these magnet reindeer games can be explored with magnets above the mazes or under them. Your children will have fun exploring each of the reindeer games. Once they have figured out how to get through each of the mazes, they can find unique and fun ways to have the reindeer go through them.

Reindeer Games with Magnets

Getting Ready

Downloading the Mazes and Reindeer

Before your children can explore the reindeer games, you will need to download the Reindeer Games with Magnets set. It includes five different mazes and a set of printable reindeer. You will want to print the mazes and the reindeer out on card stock.

Gathering the Other Supplies

Links below are affiliate links.

You will need to create a workspace for your mazes out of an old cereal box. The box will need to be covered with wrapping paper on all but the top of the box.

Then you will need to clip a maze to the cereal box with mini clothes pin. It will help the maze stay in place.

Next, you will place a paperclip on the reindeer. This will allow the magnet to move him.

The last thing you will need to do is get a magnet wand. While you could use other kinds of magnets, the wand will be easy to use over and inside the box.

Playing The Reindeer Games

There are a number of reindeer games you can play with the mazes. Let me share them with you.

Over the Maze

You can pick up the paper clipped reindeer with the wand. Then you can slide or move the reindeer on the wand through each of the mazes. He can move through the mazes upside down or hooves at the bottom of the magnet. It is really up to you.

The wand can be held out in front of you or down over the maze. There really isn’t a wrong way to hold it.

Magnet in the Box

You can place the paper clipped reindeer beside start on the top of the cereal box. Then you can hold the wand inside the box.

You can slowly move the reindeer through the maze by moving the wand around inside the box. This can be a little tricky, but boy is it fun.

If you like this activity, here are some more you will love.

Magnetic Fireworks

Magnetic Astronaut

Christmas Themed Magnetic Sensory Bin

Crafting a Christmas Tree Magnet

Exploring a Jingle Bell Bottle

Make Rudolph Fly Fast STEM Challege

December 18, 2015 By Deirdre

We have all heard that reindeer fly! Some of us may have even seen them fly on T.V. or in a movie. What fun it was recently to make a Rudolph we had constructed fly! This STEM challenge had us focused on distance and angles.

Let me walk you through how we made our Rudolph and then how we worked through the STEM challenge.

Making Rudolph

Supplies

Tan foam sheet
Red foam sheet
Brown foam sheet
Waxed Cord
Packing tape
A straw
Glue stick
Rubber bands
Hole punch
Scissors

Directions

We cut the front fourth out of the tan foam sheet. It was used to make Rudolph’s head and four legs.

Then antlers were cut out out of the brown foam. We folded the foam in half before cutting out the antlers to make sure they were symmetrical.

A nose was cut out of the red foam. It was the only thing we added to Rudolph’s face.

We used an Elmer’s X-Treme School Glue Stick to put Rudolph together. I have found it does the best job of holding pieces onto a craft.

Make Rudolph Fly Fast STEM Challenge

After constructing Rudolph, it was time conduct the STEM Challenge science experiment to see how to make him fly fast.

Hint:

While it might be fun to give Rudolph a pom pom nose or wiggly eyes, they may have slowed him down. Each item added to the reindeer would have added weight and added drag to him.

When all the reindeer parts were in place, we taped a straw on the underside of the reindeer.

We then punched a hole on either side of the Rudolph’s body between his legs. Rubber bands were laced through the holes and tied together. We did this to give Rudolph a cylinder shape. (You could easily tape the two ends together and get the same shape.)

Finally we threaded the end of the cord not tied to our deck through the straw. (We used a cord with a waxy covering that really made Rudolph fly fast.)

STEM Challenge

The STEM challenge was to get Rudolph to fly fast. Before starting the challenge we talked about several variables that needed to be considered.

How long did the twine need to be?
How high on the deck did we need to tie one end of the twine?
What position to be in when holding one end of the twine? (Sitting, kneeling, standing)

Our STEM Challenge Results

We found that as long as there is an downward angle Rudolph will fly.
Being down low to the ground helped Rudolph fly the best.
Sitting close to the deck and holding the twine down low helped him fly the fastest.
He traveled the slowest when incline was slight and Rudolph had a distance to travel.

Here are some more STEM experiments found here on JDaniel4’s Mom and some of my favorite blogs.

Building a Bridge to Cross a Road

How Can You Make Water Flow?

Melting Christmas Trees

Dancing Raisins

Hot Ice

{Christmas Craft} Candy Cane Reindeer

December 12, 2013 By Deirdre

I saw candy cane reindeer like this in the hall at my school. I knew immediately that we need to try to make one at home. They were just too cute. I am not sure if it was the hand print antlers or fact that it combined to wonderful Christmas elements. Candy canes and reindeer are such a fun!The ones I saw at school had paper noses and paper eyeballs. Ours needed more of a 3-D effect I decided. Thankfully we have giant wiggly eyes and red pom-poms on hand. Actually, we had everything we needed on hand. I love when things work out that way.

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers.

If you want to make one at home, here is what we did.

Trace two hands (One right and one left will work best)
Hand tracing will need to be cut out.
Then cut out a red candy cane shape
Next cut out white stripes for the candy cane
Glue the white stripes to the red cane
Cut the extra white paper of the edges of the red cane
One wiggly eye will need to be glued onto the red cane
Glue the brown hand antler in place on the top of the cane
Glue a red pom-pom in place if you want a Rudolph like candy cane reindeer ( A brown pom-pom could be used if you want to make a non-Rudolph reindeer.)

I think our candy cane reindeer Christmas craft is as cute as the ones I saw on display in hallway at school. Our little deer herd has only two deer as opposed to the large herd that is displayed in the hall at school though. Maybe you could make some candy cane reindeer at your house and we could have a virtual herd.

If you decided to make candy cane reindeer, let me know on the Facebook post featuring this craft. You can paste an Instagram link to a picture of yours if you like.

Are you looking for other reindeer Christmas craft and snack ideas?

Handprint Reindeer created for Hands On: As We Grow.

Creating a Reindeer Lunch

Treats for Santa and the Reindeer

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers. They will also love the pom pom nose and the wiggly eye.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Christmas for Kids- Creating a Reindeer Lunch

December 10, 2012 By Deirdre

This post contains affiliate links.I usually share with you JDaniel’s reaction to lunches I have created or how I put them together. Today I thought JDaniel and I would walk you through how we put this reindeer lunch together in a bento box.

Christmas for Kids- Creating a Reindeer Lunch

JDaniel used a barely sharp plastic knife to cut antlers out of Swiss cheese. He ended up cutting out about four antlers for our reindeer. Why? Well, he kept eating the antlers. I thought it would be a good idea to cut everything we needed first before we constructed the lunch. That turned out to be a very bad idea.

Cutting out the bread didn’t pose the same problem that cutting out the cheese did. We had scraps we didn’t need and JDaniel was able to snack on them.

Slicing the tomato for the nose was a little tricky. The tomato kept rolling around. Finally I started out the cut and JDaniel was able to finish it.

Once the foods we needed to cut out were done, we started to construct the sandwich. The cheese antlers when into the box first. The bread head was placed on top of them. JDaniel’s favorite sausage slices leftover from dinner were placed on the head for the eyes and the tomato slice was placed on as his nose.

Black olives were added to the deer for his pupils. I gave the reindeer lunch. JDaniel didn’t think kids would like them for Christmas and even reindeer might not like them. I put them in anyway. The reindeer was also given homemade granola and an abstract art bell.It turns out reindeer eating children eat everything, but the carrots. I guess JDaniel was right!