Ideas for School-Aged Winter Themed Crafts

Hi L.,
I know the Winter parties vs a Christmasd Hanukkah Party can be tuff.

The things I did when I taught in Day care were some of these. A Wreath with cut out candies for the kids to decorate. The 12 days of christmas song... cut out all the "things" and have cut out trees to doecorate... a Menorah with the 8 candles.

I did green paint and white paper for hand print wreathes and then red paint for the berries of the children's finger prints. Very cute. can do this for a tree as well.

you can also do hand prints to create a Menorah. Play games with a dreidle. Have a cookie decorating station.

Cut out Santa shapes and have the kids add the cotton balls and the "face" for Santa. Elves also work well for this idea.

Pin the tail on Rudolph

A pinata is a way to add the Hispanich community.

a cool punch to make could be Sprite, orange juice, pineapple jiuce all mixed together and no caffeine.
You can freeze the juices and have a "ring" that slowly melts if you buy some extra juices.

It's hard to separate the TRUE meaning of Christmas from the commercial part of Christmas, but I would read the Night Before Christmas and find a story about the Menorah and why Hanukkah is also celebrated.

I hope this helps.
B.
deaffmommie

Our school has the 1st grade kids make 1 'edible art' during the party (think large sugar cookies with icing/sprinkles or ice cream cones upside down and iced green for trees). They will have white soda and water to eat with their artwork.

Our game is holiday music playing with 2 identically 5-layered wrapped presents (2 presents with 5 boxes each wrapped). After the fifth kid unwraps the present there will be a small present inside for that kid and the other kids will have an identical present in a side stash for passing out to them. Previous years have used small seasonal candies. This year we are melting broken, used crayons into crayon-snowflakes using a candy mold (now a crayon-mold) from the hobby shop.

Then the kids will be giving out penny presents to each others bag. Think small erasers, pencils, dollar store items.

Hope this helps.

My first suggestion is to go to the library. In their arts and crafts section they have a tremendous amount of info (the main library off of Battlecreek, Clayton Co.). I create all types of items and I have learned so much by checking out books to get ideas. Otherwise, some ideas are of course mobiles using hangers and various items found around the house. Another is buying small clay pots and gluing them bottom to bottom, top to top to form a figure; then you just paint them. These are just a couple of ideas but like I said, the library has wonderful information. Also, have you ever looked at the Kid Concoction books? They are full of arts and crafts using inexpensive items from around the house.
I hope all of this helps. Have fun with the kids!

A great idea is to get wagon wheel pasta and dye it green (put in ziploc with vinegar and food color- let sit until desired color). Get pipe cleaners and create a wreath with the pasta. Tie on a red bow and voila you have a Christmas tree decoration!!
Good luck!

Here is an idea I did with a kindergarten class one time. The focus was on Christmas, but perhaps you can still use the idea. Since this is a season of giving, I bought fleece (solid colors) and sewing scissors. I went ahead and cut out scarves (the right width and length), brought them in and let the kids cut the fringe on the ends of each scarf. Then, they made a Christmas card to go with each scarf, we rolled them up, tied them with jute, and boxed them up to go to a local homeless mission, where the scarves could be given to the homeless. It was a great experience and the kids loved being able to do something for someone in need. Hope that idea helps!

A great idea is to make snow trees.
Gather pine cones, paper plates, cotton, glitter and glue.

Glue the pinecone to the plate 1 pinecone plate for each kid. Then have them drizzle glue all over the pinecone. Next put cotton on their table for them to be able to add their own snow. Show them how to stretch the cotton thin. They can choose how much or how little snow they want. Once the snow is on have the child add some more glue (drizzle all over fashion works best)..then the use glitter to decorate..can be just plain silver or even red and green in the spirit of christmas. Then have a few trashcans handy for them to shake the extra glitter off...let dry and they have a beautiful tree! :o)

I suggest doing the pinecone to the plate with a hot glue gun in advance to the project start...but I have seen it done both ways. Happy Tree Making.

O-and as a teacher before becoming a stay-at-home mom...another great thing was creating items the students ate and did not have to carry home.

We had the students act out the play of the gingerbread man (Can be found on the internet..search reader's theater gingerbread man--we found a lot of WINTER reader's theater...I have one in a box somewhere if you can't find one) which is educational...fluent reading skills as well as fun.
Then we decorated Gingerbread men, I found a local grocery store bakery made the cookies(slightly costly) as long as I gave them a cookie cutter of what I wanted. I bought a gingerbread man cutter gave it to the store and picked up 90 cookies (4 different classes)--make sure you get extra in case of breakage..no kid wants a broken gingerbread man. Then I got the little tubes of sqeezable decor icing. One box per table. The kids decorated their little man, we took a picture (polarid) to show them with their gingerbread man for mom and dad, and the devoured them. The picture allowed parents something light and cute to have of their child's time during the party!

And both of these were ok in the "Winter" school theme instead of the Christmas emphasis...:o(