Sweet celebrations: get ready for the holiday season with crafts your students can share with friends and family - Brief Article

Instructor, August, 2002

Peppermint Candies

Turn your classroom into the "Land of Sweets" with these festive ceiling decorations.

For each decoration, you will need two dessert-size paper plates, red markers or paint, pink plastic wrap or cellophane, and ribbon or yarn.

Give each child two paper plates and then guide the class through the following steps:

1. Staple two paper plates together, top sides facing in.

2. Using red markers or red paint, draw spirals or stripes on each side so the plate resembles a starlight mint.

3. Wrap the plates in pink cellophane and tie the ends with ribbon. Punch a hole in the top and hang from the ceiling with string or yarn.

--Kathy Cunningham, Morgan Road Elementary School, Liverpool, NY

Peanut Butter Bird Feeders

These feeders make great gifts for winter birds!

To make the bird feeders, you will need sliced bread, cookie cutters, craft sticks, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, string or yarn, and scissors.

Guide your class through the following steps:

1. Using cookie cutters, cut shapes from slices of soft white bread. Poke a small hole in the top of each one with a pencil. Let the bread shapes dry overnight.

2. The next day, when the bread is hard, use craft sticks to spread peanut butter on each shape. Sprinkle on the seeds.

3. Loop the string through the hole in the bread and tie it at the top.

Hang these easy bird feeders outside your classroom window, or wrap them in foil for safe travel home.

Cool Cookie Jars

Practice measuring skills and more while making great holiday gifts-- homemade cookies-to-go!

For each cookie jar, you will need a clean one-quart canning jar with a lid; fabric square; the gift tag Reproducible, page 14; ribbon, scissors, and markers; and cookie ingredients. (For the full list of cookie ingredients, see the gift tag Reproducible).

Set up your recipe-building station with clean jars, measuring implements, and containers filled with ingredients. Copy the recipe gift tags onto card stock for each student. Then guide students through the following directions:

1 Cut out and color the recipe gift tag on the Reproducible.

2 Measure each ingredient, layering them in order in your jar, one by one, following the recipe. As you add each layer, pack it down with a wooden spoon.

3 Twist the lid onto your jar. Then cover it with an 8" x 8" piece of fabric cut with scissors or pinking shears.

4 When your jar is done, return to your gift tag. On the inside of the tag, write a holiday greeting to your chosen recipient. Then, punch a hole through the tag and string ribbon through it. Tie the ribbon around the neck of the jar to hold the fabric in place. If unopened, your jar of yummy cookie ingredients will keep for two months, but you'll want cookies before then!

--Pat Resseguie and Joni Gray, Palmer Elementary School, Baldwinsville, NY

Super Snow Globes

Capture the season and enhance your winter study units with paper snow globes.

For each snow globe, you will need construction paper, markers, plain white paper, scissors, hole punch, glue, and the Reproducible on page 15.

1. Trace the globe pattern onto blue construction paper and cur it out, then trace the base pattern onto brown construction paper. Glue the globe onto the base.

Give each child a copy of the snow globe Reproducible and then guide your class through the following steps:

2. Using markers and scraps of paper, create a winter scene, such as a snowman in a forest, to place inside the globe. Add snow by glueing on white dots made with a hole puncher.

3. Cover the globe with plastic wrap, taping the wrap securely to the back.

--Barb Roberts, Walberta Park School, Syracuse, NY

Winter Cardinals

As you learn about the habits of winter birds, make and hang these colorful cardinals in your classroom window. For each bird, you will need construction paper, tissue paper, markers, string or yarn, glue, hole punch, scissors, a ruler, and the Reproducible on page 15.

Give each student a copy of the Reproducible and then guide the class through the following steps:

1. Trace the cardinal shape onto red construction paper and cut out.

2. Cut out the bird's head and glue it in place. Color the beak yellow or white.

3. Fan-fold a 2" length of tissue paper for a tail, stapling the "fan" at one end. Then glue the tissue paper tail to the bird.

4. Cut a 4" length of tissue paper for the wings and fan-fold lengthwise.

5. Cut a slit in the bird as shown, and insert the tissue paper half way. Fold it open on each side and glue the inner edges against the body.

6. Punch a hole high on the bird's back and thread a piece of string or yarn through it.

Gingerbread People

These scented sandpaper gingerbread people smell almost as good as the real cookies do! For each student, you will need two squares of extra-fine sandpaper, a cinnamon stick, white, fabric paint or rick-rack, glue, scissors, a hole punch, and the gingerbread people Reproducible on pager 14.

Give each student squares of fine sandpaper and a copy of the Reproducible. Then guide your class through the following steps: