Christmas Crafts!

My goal this month has been to do a fun holiday project or craft each week with my daughter. There are so many AMAZING activities on Pinterest, but many of them were too much work for my brain to think about right now.  I wanted to do things that were easy prep, low mess and fast clean up.  So what have we done?  Here’s a look:

Cereal Christmas Trees

This was really easy to prep!  Everything I needed I had in the house.  I cut out the tree shape, trunk and star from construction paper(freehand).  I used craft scissors to cut the tree to give it a little pizzazz.  Then grabbed a handful of fruit loops for Isla (my daughter, 22 months) to glue on the tree like ornaments.  I put a dab of white glue on the tree and then she put a fruit loop on the glue.  It was a quick project to complete but she had a lot of fun!

Christmas Name Train

I picked up the foam train shape and foam stickers at the dollar tree.  We started with spelling out her name.  I gave her one letter at a time for her to place on the train.  We practiced saying the names and sounds of each letter while we were at it!  (Lots of fun to be had with those foam letters.)  Then she picked out the foam shapes she wanted, I peeled off the backing and she placed them where she wanted.  Both the shapes and the letters were sticky, so no glue mess to worry about.  We have a lot of leftovers so she can do this several times over!

Christmas Coloring Book

This counts right? ;)  I got this Christmas coloring book at the dollar tree. She really enjoyed coloring a few pages and then she was over it for the day.  But it’s a good sized coloring book so we have gotten it out quite a bit this month.  A quiet, non-messy, no prep activity is always welcome in this house!   

This was right before I had to run back around the table to keep her from spilling those candies all over the floor. 

Gingerbread Houses (Ok - not so easy prep, low mess, fast clean up but full of priceless memories!)

A family tradition!  Every year my family gets together to make gingerbread houses.  This was Isla’s first time making a gingerbread house.  My sister premade the houses so that they were ready to be decorated.  Every one brought candy and went to town decorating.  I put the frosting on for Isla and she picked out the candy and stuck it on her house.  She didn’t eat as much of the candy as I thought she would have, but I think that’s only because she tried one of those red oblong candies and then decided she didn’t want to try any more candy, haha!  If you are going to make gingerbread houses be sure to check out your local 99 cent store.  They have Christmas tree and Santa shaped gummies that are perfect for this project! 

So, that’s what we’ve been up to around here.  What projects/crafts are you doing with your little ones this time of year?  I’d love to hear about it!  

Apple Tree Craft

Last week I did this cute little apple tree art project with my daughter and I wanted to share it with you!  It's SUPER easy and fun for a wide range of age groups.

 My daughter is 19 months old, so I keep things really simple.  I pre-cut the leaves, trunk, and sun from construction paper.  My daughter (with help) used a glue stick to glue each piece.   After she put the glue on, I placed them on the blue paper and she patted down the pieces.  For the apples we used red Fruit Loops.  I put a spot of white glue on the tree and then she put the "apple" on the glue - this was her favorite part!  For the sun rays, I put white glue around the sun and she placed the rays on the glue.  Fast and simple!  It's now hanging on our refrigerator and I love looking at it every day.

Here she is with her project!

This project would be great for primary grades and would be a cute classroom display! Here are some more ideas for this project:
- use red, green and yellow "apples"
- have students write the number of apples they have on the trunk
-use two colors of apples and have students write number sentences to go with it
-add grass to the bottom with a strip of green paper cut to look like grass
-add white clouds
The possibilities are endless!

Here is a copy of the template I used for this project.  Click on the picture to download.

If you are looking for more apple projects and fun with Johnny Appleseed, you should read my post HERE.  Have fun!

 

Recycling a Panda Plate

The moment I saw the new paw plates at Panda Express I knew there were endless possibilities for using them in my classroom!  The people at Panda were very kind and gave me enough plates for a class set.  But you could just use a few for a small group or center activity.  Here are a few ideas:

CVC Word Building

Number Order

Art Lesson with Primary and Secondary colors

Put each primary color in the top three spaces and use the bottom for mixing up secondary colors.

The plates also come with lids which would make it easy to store the letters or numbers with the plates.  When school starts up again I will post pics of these plates in action!  Have a great day :)



When I Am Old with You Mom

Here is my new Mother's Day project just posted on Tpt.  It uses When I Am Old with You by Angela Johnson as a mentor text.  It is a story about a boy who tells his granddaddy all the things they will do when they are old together - so cute!  When I Am Old with You Mom comes with a writing project and two craftivities - a perfect gift for moms!

Piggy Banks

This week we started our money unit.  Students always love learning about money.  I bought these ceramic piggy banks for students from Oriental Trading Company.  When I first ordered them I had worried about them breaking during shipping and then being short a piggy bank. However you can see from the picture that they are very well packaged.  For the two years that I have been doing this project not a single pig has arrived broken! 

The first day students paint their pigs a solid color and the second day they decorate their pigs.  They LOVE these pigs and take good care of them.  The part I like best about this project is knowing they'll be practicing counting coins over and over again :).

My friend Mr. Jones also did piggy banks this week.  For more examples head over to his blog at First Upon a Time.