It's Beginning to Look ALOT like Christmas!

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!  Oh...my...goodness...the Christmas merriment is EH-VUH-REE-WHERE!

We have been baking (see Cakes and Elves or Coooooookies!!!), decorating, partying with our K team, and making ornaments like we are in production for Hobby Lobby! ;) 

Seriously, I think our kiddos will be taking home 6 ornaments.  And they are darn cute...not the kind that you hide on the back of the tree...WAY down in the branches accidentally lose, but REALLY, REALLY cute ones!  I mean seriously cute!  Like you will actually be HAPPY to put them on your tree.  And they might even make it to the FRONT!

The key here is to find ornaments that they have a big part in creating, but that they can't really mess up too much!  You know...anything involving paint is probably gonna end up looking all jacked up and get left in the box when the ornaments get pulled out! ;)

So here are 5 of our top favorite ornaments to make.  They are ALL kid made (except the North Pole one...that's our example ornament because we haven't made them yet this year)...for real...no teacher fixin' them up, really, really done by the kids!

We have been making these ornaments for the last couple of years so we can't remember exactly where we got the ideas (some of these are PP...Pre-Pinterest...gasp...how did we EVEN survive then???).  We think we found some of them at Family Fun and others from some ideas we saw and tweaked or combined.  Anywho, we hope you find one that will work perfectly for your own little kiddos!

First up...the ice cream stick snowman! 

So cute and so easy!  Paint the ice cream sticks white (you can get a parent to volunter to do it, or you can have the kiddos do it if you are feeling brave enough!).  Then they glue on a hat (pre-cut by the teacher...that felt is a BIT ridiculous trying to cut!).  They tie a ribbon around for a scarf.  They usually can help each other out, but you may to give a little assistance with your tieing-challenged kiddos! They glue a piece of orange foam for the nose and hole-punched colored foam for the buttons.  Finally, they use a black Sharpie marker to draw eyes and a mouth.  Some of ours even added eyelashes to create a snowlady!  Cute!

 Next up, the glue snowman!

Draw the shape of the snowman that you want to use.  Then we cut out the paper and stick it inside of a zip-loc baggie.  Write the student's name on the baggie.  Then have them use glue to fill in the snowman shape right on top of the baggie.  Remind them that the glue will spread, so don't use too much!  While it's still fresh and wet, they drop on the items on their snowman.  They need to have a foam carrot nose, 3 foam hole-punched circles for buttons, 2 black hole-punched circles for eyes, a pre-cut (by the teacher) felt hat, and 2 small sticks ready to go before they spread the glue!  Then they just drop all of that on the glue snowman.  They can use a small wooden stick or popsicle stick to move anything around once it's on the snowman.  WARNING...if they use too much glue, the eyes/buttons/nose...will spread out when the glue runs and the snowman will look CUH-RAH-ZY...and probably end up on the BACK side of the Christmas tree!  Fair-warning!  So no coming back to the blog and saying your snowmen turned out all crazy! ;)

 

Now Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer...Rudolph Ornaments

 Love, love, love these!  They are so stinkin' cute!  We have seen these on Pinterest this year, but I think we have done these for the last 2 years because we loved them as soon as we saw them!  We pre-cut the red and white circle and have those assembled.  The kiddos use a brown ink pad and stamp their thumbprint right smack in the middle.  Then they glue on a pre-cut red paper hole-punched paper circle.  They use fine tip markers to add the antlers, eyes, mouth, and bow.  Now matter WHAT kind of antlers or bow they create, it just turns out puh-re-cious!  Easy peasy!

This is a new one we found on Pinterest this year! - Another Rudolph Ornament

The kiddos put their thumb into gloss acrylic brown paint and made their thumbprint on the ornament.  The first ones we tried, the paint kept getting pulled off when the kiddos lifted their thumbs.  So we added a little cornstarch to the paint to thicken it up a bit and let it sit for about 10 minutes, and then it worked like a charm.  After the paint dried, they used Sharpie markers to add the eyes and antlers. Then a dab of glue, and a sprinkle of red glitter, and voila!  So cute and super easy!  Ours looks a bit different from the one we found at Little Bit Funky, but check hers out too!

Last, but not least, the North Pole sign!
  People..we are talking Santa's Workshop here! :)
Remember...this one is the teacher example.  The kiddos
will be making these cute puppies next week!

 You need to pre-cut the North Pole signs and holly leaves from green foam.  The kids can hole-punch the 3 berries from red foam or card stock.  (card stock is a little easier to punch!)  Then you can get the kids to paint their own stick or have them pre-painted by a volunteer.  Then the kiddos use Sharpie markers to write "North Pole" on the sign.  They use red paint pens to draw their candy cane stripes.  They can do this ANY way they want.  Some draw the lines straight across.  Some draw them diagonally.  Others make a fat line and then a skinny line and make a candy cane pattern.  We don't care...cause they ALL turn out way cute!  Then they use tacky glue to attach the sign, holly, and berries.  For the finishing touch, we call them over one at a time and put some hot glue on top of the North Pole sign and we let them sprinkle silver or "snow" glitter to jazz this baby up.  Unfortunately, or little sign has lost it's glitter after several years of cramming it in our Christmas box!  The kiddos go to town on the sprinkling of glitter and they turn out waaaaay cuter!

Well...we really hope you get some great ideas from this and give it a go in your own classrooms. Please leave us a comment and let us know how turned out for you!

****We had this post ready yesterday morning before the day's events unfolded.  Among all of our merriment, we know that this will be the MOST difficult time of other's lives.  Our hearts are hurting for the love and loss of so many in the Sandy Hook Elementary family.  To honor and pray for the families touched by this horrible tragedy, we will be joining forces with other bloggers in a Day of Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary  tomorrow...Sunday, December 16th.  Please join us in prayer!