10 Amazing Links to Christmas Crafts

Happy December! I, personally, cannot believe it is December let alone almost 2015! To start off the holiday season, check out the Top 10 Links below that include crafts, gifts, and food ideas to do with your kids and/or students! I made this list thinking about a variety of skill levels, amount of resources to create them, and of course...time. Depending on which of these you struggle with, hopefully you can find one...or two that will work well for you and your children/students!

Top 10 Festive Activities to do with Kids:

1. Popsicle Stick Ornaments
2. 36 Adorable Ornament Ideas
3. 30 Kid-Friendly Handmade Ornaments
4. 25 Kid-Friendly Crafts
5. Child Friendly Christmas Tree Ideas
6. DIY Holiday Wrapping Paper
7. Applesauce Ornaments
8. Easy Snowmen Crafts
9. Yummy Holiday Treats
10. All Skill Levels for Festive Treats for Kids  

The Gift of Giving
In my classroom, every year we make an ornament for students to share with someone at home.  They wrap it in a small bag, and take it home the day before Winter Break.  Students are really excited about this!  I also think it is important to teach them the gift of giving.  Since I cannot control what they do with their ornaments when they get home, or enjoy the look on their parents' faces when they give it to them...I do this at school as well.  We make about 20+ extra ornaments to pass out to administration, support staff, and other special helpers that help us in our classroom.  Students work together to complete the extra ones.  The last day before Winter Break, we walk around the school with the wrapped ornaments to give to these special people in our life.  Students are SO excited to see the faces of the teachers open their packages.  Students do a really great job walking around the building finding our gift receivers.  All-in-all, my goal is for students to feel the gift of giving, rather than receiving. My hope is they will continue to love the feeling of giving so they grow up to be well-rounded, caring members of their community.


Ornaments My Students Have Completed
As friends and family members are putting up their Christmas decorations, a great friend of mine sent me this picture below:

You just have to smile when looking at art of an 8-year old. Made with lots of LOVE!

It makes me happy, as I'm sure it would as well for my students last year, to know teachers are proudly displaying my students' work of art on their trees still! So we obviously made Christmas Trees out of Popsicle sticks this past year.  It was a total of 1 center a day for 3-days...so not much academic time was missed out to make these trees.  Day 1: Painting the sticks; Day 2: Gluing the sticks together & decorating; Day 3: Items are dry, so we write on the back & add a ribbon to hang! I leave a day in between the gift giving just in case someone is absent or something goes wrong.  By Day 5, students are giving out their gifts. 

A mentor of mine taught me how to make cinnamon ornaments with my students.  We have done this activity in the past, which makes my room smell wonderful.  It does take a little more effort as baking is involved.  One year, students made these circle-shaped foam ornaments one year.  They were able to draw, decorate, and glue tons of fun things on them and they only took a couple days as there was minimum amounts of drying.  So if you're running low on time, run to the craft store and pick up multiple shaped foam pieces and make some cheap and engaging ornaments.

Good luck finishing those presents and have fun sharing the holiday spirit with your students, fellow colleagues, and your own family!

Happy Holidays

and as always...