this article (and most) on primary playground, does contain affiliate links that we do earn a commission off of. clicking these links does not cost you any extra but helps our website to keep great articles and freebies like this coming your way.

For this week’s Literacy Snack, we’re reading one of our Christmas favorites, The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg.

“A young boy, lying awake one Christmas Eve, is welcomed aboard a magical trip to the North Pole . . . Through dark forests, over tall mountains, and across a desert of ice, the Polar Express makes its way to the city atop the world, where the boy will make his Christmas wish. ”

The students are always excited about this one as am I. For our snack this week, we’re making a train just like the Polar Express.

ingredients needed

for each student, you’ll need

1 graham cracker plus another small piece for the stack

4 mini Oreos – mini Nilla Wafers work well too

4 mini marshmallows

6 Christmas M&M’s candies

assemble

To make the train, the students will break one graham cracker in half. One of those halves will be the middle of the train. Take the other half and break it in half again. They will go on each side of the middle cracker. Place the last small piece on one of the end crackers as the stack. Use the mini Oreos as the wheels. They can use the marshmallows to make smoke and put the candies in the back of the train.

While they are working on their trains, I play the Polar Express soundtrack. Everyone always sings along to the hot chocolate song. So cute! I also created a printable to go along with the book for them to work on while they are enjoying their snack and listening to the music. The students will number the pictures in the correct order as they happened in the book and color the pictures. It’s a great sequencing activity.

You can download it for free below.

If you’re looking for more activities to go with the Polar Express book or movie, you might like our North Pole counting mats. Your students will get to practice their numbers and counting by collecting the correct number of jingle bells.

Maybe you need a literacy center too, your student can practice their CVC words with this CVC word train sort.

And don’t forget the hot chocolate! See how we make it in the crockpot here.

You could really turn this into a full fun day of Polar Express activities, everyone wears pajamas, so many possibilities! I hope your students enjoy making the trains!