Rudolph Movie Themed Day

This movie day was a super fun one to plan! There are so many cute Rudolph activities, crafts, and treats. We were all excited, and Nolan even shouted “Hooray it’s Rudolph day!!!” when we opened his door in the morning. 😍

The night before, I got a lot of things ready and set out, and Rusty was asking if I needed help. He said “that just looks like so much work...” and it is. But after being in a classroom for 11 years and pretty much planning out every single day, I’ve been kind of lost. I actually enjoy sitting down to plan our grocery list, homeschool lessons, and in December, planning movie themed days fills up my bucket. So even though it’s a lot to put together, it gives me a creative outlet I desperately need. So enjoy a look through our Rudolph day, and as always, steal some ideas for yourself! ☺️ 

We started the morning in reindeer jammies, eating reindeer pancakes, and reading Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. 

After we finished breakfast, we read a new book, Olive, the Other Reindeer. It’s super cute! We were able to get it free through Kindle Unlimited. 

Then, it was time for the reindeer games. This was by far the hit of the day. I had 4 “games” planned: Pin the Nose on Rudolph, Reindeer Race, Ring a Rudolph, and a scavenger hunt. 

When talking about Rudolph day the other day, Nolan said, “Mommy! I have a great idea!! We can do Pin the Nose on Rudolph, just like we did the heart on the Grinch!” Kid is so much like me. 😂 So of course we did it! And it was just as much of a hit. He even said, “I can’t wait to see where I put it!” all giddy when we put the blindfold on him at first. 

The next game, Reindeer Race, ended up being the favorite. We started with a little bit of a craft. We blew up a balloon and used a clamp to keep the air in. We used glue dots to put on eyes, a nose, and traced our handprints for antlers. Then we taped a piece of a straw on top. I taped fishing line to chairs on opposite ends of the living room. We put the fishing line through the straw, and lined up on one end of the room. We took the clamp off, held it in place while we counted down, and then let go! The reindeer flew down the fishing line! It was SO fun to watch. We did it several times! Sometimes the decorations fell off as the air came out, so we just taped them back on and kept going. It was a lot of fun! 

The next game was Ring a Rudolph. I glued some eyes and a nose on styrofoam cups, and wrote a number on them. I was going to do 10, 20, 30, but I decided on 1, 2, and 3 so Nolan could use tally marks and keep up with his own score. We threw jingle bells and tried to ring the cups!

The last reindeer game we did was a scavenger hunt. I actually had this planned for something else but decided it could be a reindeer game, and I found cute Rudolph coloring books and these precious little Rudolph chocolates, so it fit the theme perfectly! Nolan absolutely loves being a “detective”, so scavenger hunts are right up his alley. 

Once our reindeer games were finished, I painted the kids’ hands for their ornaments. These are 4x4 flat canvas tiles; I painted the palm of their hand and 4 fingers brown. Then they dipped their finger in green and red and made “lights”. I’ll show you the finished product later! 

When we finished the handprint, I sent the kids off to play while I fixed lunch. One of our favorite meals is ham and Swiss cheese sliders on Hawaiian rolls. I made those, and then stuck pretzels, candy eyes, and blueberries on to look like reindeer. Rudolph got a red raspberry nose, or course! We also had cheese puff “snowballs”. 

After lunch is Molly’s nap, so while she napped, Nolan and I did a few things that she can’t help as much with. We cooked cupcakes, made reindeer chocolate spoons, and made pretzel/Rolo reindeer. 

The reindeer spoons turned out SO cute! We just used melted semi-sweet chocolate, then added on candy eyes, red M&M nose, and mini candy canes for the antlers. We used these later in the day in some hot chocolate!

The Rolo reindeer are always a favorite too! Put them in the oven just long enough for the Rolo to get soft, then add pretzel antlers, eyes, and a nose

After Molly’s nap we all needed to run and stretch. We went outside and participated in some Reindeer Training! The kids had to do different activities to see if they could handle being a reindeer. Then the kids helped Daddy make a fire in the fire pit, while I made us some hot chocolate! We sat by the fire and enjoyed our drinks. (Just plain old regular milk for Molly. 😂)

We went in and had a cute little Graham cracker snack, then decorated our cupcakes. Molly’s decoration cracked me up! I laid several things out for her and turned around to grab my stuff and when I turned back around, she had it all on one cupcake. 🤣

When our cupcakes were done, we made reindeer food! This is always a fun activity. Nolan really feels like he’s “cooking”. We added oats (because that’s a reindeer’s main food), snow (because they like the cold), glitter (so it’s sparkly and they can find our house on Christmas Eve), and sprinkles (because sprinkles make everything better!) We put it all in a ziploc back, and turned it so it’s all in one corner. We twisted the top and put a pipe cleaner around it, and then bent it to look like antlers. Add googly eyes and a pom pom nose and ta-da! Reindeer food! We will sprinkle this outside in the yard on Christmas Eve.

We made some reindeer headbands (totally meant to do this first thing in the morning so we could wear them all day and completely forgot 🙈) and then I made dinner. I used pre-shredded rotisserie chicken (my absolute favorite food hack right now. It makes it so easy!!) and some shredded cheese to make some quesadillas. Added blueberry eyes, raspberry nose, and pretzel antlers to turn them into Rudolph! We also had Hermie’s healthy snacks (carrots), red noses (strawberries), and reindeer poop 😂 (raisins). Nolan thinks it’s hilarious. They also got to try their cupcakes! 

We watched the movie with dinner and all relaxed from a fun packed day. I put the finishing touches on our handprint ornaments and hung them on the tree. We ended the night with one more reindeer game, hide-and-seek! 

I have had such a blast planning these fun days! My house is a wreck but my heart is full.  I’m kind of sad December is coming to a close! We are going to do a Polar Express night, but we don’t have time to do another whole day of fun. I hope these fun movie days have brought a smile to you!