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...

Happy Birthday to YOU!

Birthdays are always something VERY exciting as a kid...and who are we kidding they can be pretty great as an adult, too! It never fails, on the first day students are looking for some sort of birthday chart, bulletin board, poster, or display with their birthday on it!

I really liked my simple idea of using a cupcake display from the teacher's store, and then adding my own flare to the wall. Students each get to take their cupcake home at the end of the year, while I can keep the rest of the display up for the following year.

Below, on the shelf, is a little blue bucket that has these great glittery/bendable sticks that can be used for crafts, put on bikes, decor, etc. that has a balloon on top [not shown in picture].

Along with the balloon treat, students get a piece of candy, and a Free Homework Pass. You can always give out other coupons, too.

As many of you know, it is extremely difficult for me to keep track of the birthdays. They are up on the wall, but since my desk is no where near this area, I don't look up at it every day. Because of that, I created a document that I keep right next to my desk that has each of my students' birthdays in order by month. This has been wonderful to keep track, and check off their name once they received their treat. In years past, I got the "Did you know it was my birthday today?" because I didn't look at the wall or the other method of birthday organization. Now, I can quickly look near my desk to put those special dates in my lesson plans/planner. There are two different versions you can choose from based on your own organization methods.

Check them out!

Happy {Early} Birthday to you all!