Salt dough Santa

Tree ornaments!

Have seen so many different Christmas crafts going on this week in the day homes that have been visited that it seemed a good idea to blog about some ideas for Christmas tree ornaments!

Such a great idea for the children in your day home to give as gifts to their parents and you know they will be well loved and adorn the family tree for many years to come!


Candy Cane Ornament.

All you need is 3 pipe cleaners and a piece of ribbon to make these cute Christmas tree decorations - and they should last longer than real candy canes!
You will need:
Red, green and white pipe cleaners
Cord or ribbon to hang
Instructions:
Take a pipe cleaner of each colour and twist them together. Cut the length in half.
Shape each half into a candy cane. Tie a piece of cord to the top of each cane to hang it. Simple and quick!

Santa handprint ornament.

Material needed for child's Santa hand print Ornament

A sheet of red craft foam large enough to trace your child’s hand onto
* a small piece of pink craft foam
* a small piece of white felt large enough to trace your child’s hand onto
* one small white pompom
* two goggle eyes
* glue
* red marker
* one pipe cleaner, your choice of color
* a one hole paper punch

Instructions for your Santa Handprint Ornament:

Trace your child’s hand onto the piece of red craft foam. If your child is young and it is difficult to hold his hand steady in order to trace, first trace his hand onto a piece of paper. You can then use the cut out paper hand to trace onto the red craft foam. This simply prevents a lot of stray marks on the red craft foam.
Take the cut out red craft foam hand and trace it onto the piece of white felt. You will need to trim this down to fingers only for use as Santa’s beard. Also from the white felt, cut out a strip to be the fuzzy edge of Santa’s hat. (see photo for guidance)
From the pink craft foam, cut an oval to size to fit on the palm of your child’s hand print. This is Santa’s face. (see photo for guidance)
As necessary, trim all pieces to fit onto your child’s hand print and glue into place. (See the above photo for placement of each piece.) Use the red marker to add Santa’s rosy red nose. With the one hole paper punch, punch one hole near the top of Santa’s hat. Insert the pipe cleaner through the hole and bend into a hook as an ornament hanger.
Now you have an adorable Christmas tree ornament and a keepsake of your child’s hand.

Popsicle stick trees.

These craft stick Christmas tree ornaments are a really simple craft to do with the kids or your class. They'll look great hanging on your Christmas Tree.

Materials:

• green craft sticks or Popsicle sticks(or paint your own)
• glue
• brown paper or felt
• scissors
• sequins, spangles, dazzle stars, sparkly stickers etc.
• ribbon or plastic cord

 

Directions:

 

1. Color your sticks green beforehand or buy colored ones.
2. Glue three craft sticks together in a triangle.
3. Cut a small rectangle from brown paper or felt and glue to the back.
4. Glue spangles and other decorations on the front.Bu a sparkly star on top. Allow to dry.
5. Tie a ribbon or cord on top to hang on the tree.

Candy Cane love heart.

 

You will need:
2 candy canes
Double sided sticky tape or glue
Wide ribbon
Instructions:
Stick the ends of the candy canes together to form your heart shape.
Tie a ribbon bow around the top of the heart.
If you want to hang the heart, tie the ends of the bow together to make a loop. Or you can give the heart as a quick and easy gift.



Snow painting!

Snow Painting


Here is a fun activity that you can do in any kind of snow. It doesn't cost a lot of money or require a lot of equipment.

First you will need to get these supplies:

a water bottle with sprayer for each color food coloring (different colors) water snow (of course!)

The next step is to put water into each bottle and add the food coloring.

Once your bottles have water and food coloring in them, put the top on and shake it to mix up the color with the water. Make sure that the top is on tightly so that you don't get food coloring on your clothes.

Then go outside and have fun painting the snow!

Frozen water balloon activity!

This morning at our weekly gym time session, some of our providers were discussing this quick, simple and fun activity to do with the children!

All you need is some balloons, water and food colouring!

1. Fill the balloon with water
2. Add a drop of food colouring and tie balloon
3. Place balloon in freezer or on a cold day even outdoors
4. Once frozen remove balloon to reveal a frozen, colourful ball of ice that looks like a giant marble!

Could be great as an outdoor Christmas decoration!

Christmas stars!

With the countdown to Christmas having begun our thoughts turn to Christmas activities and crafts! Below are two great and simple ideas for Christmas stars! These ideas came from www.activityvillage.co.uk, check out this great website for other Christmas ideas!

Even the youngest children can make a very impressive star painting with this handprint technique! And of course gold paint is a real treat to paint with.
You will need:
Construction paper
Gold or yellow paint
Instructions:
Keeping your fingers together, print 5 handprints in a circle, palms overlapping and fingers pointing outwards.

Once you have made your Christmas star decoration with lollipop sticks, the kids can go wild with their choice of decoration!
You will need:
6 lollipop sticks (popsicle sticks) - we used pre-coloured but you could paint plain sticks before you begin
PVA (white) glue
Ribbon for hanging
Decorations - metallic pain, sequins, jewels, glitter, metallic pens etc
Instructions:
First make your star. Assemble two triangles, using dabs of white glue at the end of the sticks. Catch of loop of ribbon between two of the lollipop sticks so that you can hang your star.
When dry or nearly dry, position one triangle on top of the other and use large dollops of glue at the places the two triangles join. You will need large dollops of glue because the triangles don't lie completely flat!
When dry, decorate your star!

Great activity idea website!

If you are a visual learner and find it difficult to follow written instructions for craft and activity ideas then this may be the perfect website for you!

Cullen's ABC is a website that contains a vast number of instructional videos on you tube plus a variety of other activity ideas.

You get to see the craft being constructed from start to finish! You also see a variety of other activities being carried out!

A great website to add to your favourites!

www.cullensabc.com