Upcycled Snowman Lightbulb Christmas Ornaments

It's time again to come up with ornaments for our kids to make to hang on our school tree. I try to change it up every couple of years and have been searching for something easy and economical for the kids to make. I also wanted something a little different than the same old ornaments that you see every preschool class make. I saw these some time ago on Pinterest and knew we had to try them!

First, we painted the lightbulbs white. As we didn't have any glitter, this served as more of a primer than a real need to paint over the white bulbs.

We painted the tops, or hats, blue and dipped in cups of glitter.

We added eyes, nose, mouths and buttons with puff paint.

I had some fleece scraps that the kids could choose to use if they wanted to make a scarf.

After tying some yarn around the top, we took them up to the lobby and hung them on the tree.

It was a perfect time to pose with our class in front of the tree!

We will be reading lots of great snowman books during our winter theme, but "Snowmen at Christmas" is a favorite and goes perfect with this activity!

Happy holidays!!!!

Reindeer Stable Door Decoration

It's beginning to look festive around our school! This is our door that I decorated to greet the children and help them get into the holiday spirit this week. 

Santa-Tizer! A Quick and Easy Gift To Make For Christmas!

Here is a quick and easy idea you can easily make for a last minute gift. I made these this year as teacher/staff gifts and I'm making a few more to put under the tree for those "just in case" gifts. I think next year, I'll experiment a little more with them and add some white fur embellishments around the top and
bottom, and possibly think about laminating the outside label.

Initially, I made 2 to see how they would come out before purchasing all the bottles of hand sanitizer I would need. When I bought the bulk, I didn't realize the bottles were curved (ergonomically to fit the hand, I suppose). Be sure to closely check the shape of the bottles!

I printed the words "Santa-tizer" on red paper and glued it onto the bottle to cover the label. Make sure to match your suit label size to cover the packaging label completely.

I added a thin black strip of paper around the bottle for a belt. Use glue and ultra-fine craft glitter to make a buckle.

The friends and staff I made these for loved them!


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Trash To Christmas Treasure

We tend to use a lot of recycled materials in our class. We have two bins of lids that we use in our math center for sorting, classifying and patterning. Often, these lids make their way to other centers for various uses, like tracing shapes in art center. We cut out a tree shape out of previously used bulletin board paper and attached some of the colorful lids we came across to decorate it. Each day, the kids brought in small items they've rescued from the trash. As the days progressed, the tree began to fill up.

Our school chef, Ms. Christie saved us some of the tin foil to use as garland. 

We even have a few recycled Christmas bows for added bling! 

This little tree has brought a lot of color and cheer to our room and helped us turn some of our trash to a real Christmas treasure!



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Deck The Halls With Holiday Ornaments

Looking for a few ideas for holiday ornaments? I've got just the thing! Our preschool puts a large Christmas tree in the lobby every year and each class makes ornaments to decorate it. Here are a few of the cute ornaments adorning our tree this year:

School Glue Snowmen
These started out as those adorable "melted snowmen" I've seen all over Pinterest. It turns out that our floor is not quite level and the first few of our "melted snowmen" just didn't work out. The glue spread far and wide and the decorations all spread to the outer edges. We thought we'd place a plastic lid under the plastic wrap to help them retain some of their shape. Well, as they spread, they took on the shape of the lid. Not quite what we'd set out to make, but they did turn out pretty cute!

Cute As A Button
This it cute and simple! Arrange craft sticks in a triangle and glue on some colorful buttons!

Holly Wreath Frame
 Paper holly leaves glued on a painted paper plate circle make a cute frame for a holiday photo. This is also cute with puzzle pieces painted green as the holly leaves.

Reindeer Kids
Use a photo of your child has the reindeer face and add handprint antlers! Don't forget the red nose!

Collage Christmas Trees
These are cute with whatever loose parts you have lying around. I've done them with confetti glitter, too.

 

Handprint Wreaths
  Green construction paper handprints make the greenery and red handprints make the bow on this wreath.

And in case you missed it or need a few more ideas, there are several more in my December  PreK+K Sharing post, 10 Easy Gifts Kids Can Make For Christmas.

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When I was little......My Favorite Gift

My husband and I have had several big discussions this year about what we're getting our kids for Christmas. It's made me really think about the gifts I got as a child and the ones I both enjoyed and remember the most.  I was a fortunate child, and while I may not have gotten every item I wished for, Santa worked hard to make sure I wasn't disappointed. 


One of my favorite and most memorable gifts came from one of my aunts. She and her husband were fairly newly married, and we had a really big family. (There were 9 nieces and nephews, just on our side.) She was always so creative and gave the most wonderful gifts. That year, she collected Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets, one for each kid. She recovered the outside, and filled them with crayons (loose), scissors and a variety of papers. Looking back, it was the most fabulous present and kept each of us busy and entertained many hours that following year. 

 




I don't specifically remember any of the other gifts that year, but this one has stayed with me. It's a reminder to myself to make sure I don't get too caught up in the commercial side and really think about what brings enjoyment. It's good to remind myself that it's not always about how much you spend on a gift, but more about the thought you put into it. 


Did you have gift that you remember fondly? Leave a comment and share it! 


Happy holidays!

Pre-K Field Trip: A Visit to the Christmas Tree Farm

We took a very interesting field trip last week to Gay's Christmas Tree Farm.  We had some fresh popcorn....

and hot cocoa....

beside a 20 foot snowman!

   (photo from Gays Christmas Tree Farm website)

We took a hayride to see all the trees growing on the farm.

After the hayride, we had a little science lesson about how the trees grow.

Thanks, Mr.Gay, for letting us visit! We had a lot of fun learning about growing Christmas trees!

Christmas in Pre-K

We celebrate all the winter holidays in my Pre-K class.  I believe it's a great time to promote multiculturalism. Be sure to hop on over to Pre-K and K Sharing for more on what we do for other holidays and to read my post: "Using Holiday Celebrations to Promote Multiculturalism in Early Childhood Settings." 


Christmas is such a magical time, and I definitely take advantage of it! We had so much fun making giant gingerbread people, that we made a few giant candy cane decorations for the classroom.

 

 

We made a couple of ornaments for presents for the parents. We made cute snowflakes from foam die cuts and added a picture of each child on one side and let the kids decorate with winter foam stickers, glitter and sequins on the other side. They turned out beautifully, but somehow managed to miss getting photographed before being wrapped.(Had the kids not wrapped the gifts themselves, I would have definitely unwrapped for a few shots and rewrapped! ) We also made these cute snowman handprint ornaments for the tree in our preschool lobby. On the last day of school, parents were invited to take their ornament with them to use at home.

 I put seasonal items in our centers to make things fun.

And added a few props to change our scenery.

 


I saw this CUTE snowball toss game on Teaching Heart Blog in the post: Winter Party Planning Printables. It took me about 15 minutes to make and about $2 in supplies.  I simply cut a few simple shapes from construction paper and stuck them onto clear contact paper and applied the whole thing to the front of the pop-up hamper. I ended up stapling the contact paper to the front of my hamper, as it didn't stick well to the fabric for long. We played this all week and will probably use it in January for our winter/snow and polar pal units, as well! 

We made Santa Claus decorations from paper plates, cotton and a little red construction paper.

And these reindeer handprint puppets from paper bags and brown paper:

We did a lot of singing and dancing. Our favorite songs were The Tractors': "Santa Claus Is Coming On a Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train" and Raffi's: "Must Be Santa".

The morning of our party, we made these reindeer cupcakes from chocolate frosted cupcakes, pretzels and a few candies. We saved them for our party later that day. 

My absolute FAVORITE holiday idea this year came from The SEEDS Network. I found these adorable (and very yummy) melted snowman s'mores over there and immediately knew they would be perfect to include in my gifts to my students this year. I have shared this idea with every teacher I know! I am also making a batch to take to all of my nieces and nephews on Christmas Eve. 

I never know exactly what to get my little friends. I usually try to get them a coloring book, because we don't do any coloring "inside the lines" in Pre-K (to find out why, read here). These are the goodies I finally decided upon.

Our final day before the holiday was celebrated in true Pre-K style! We wore our jammies and had a Polar Express movie party while drinking very cool hot cocoa. A nice way to end a very hectic season!

My holiday wish for you, whatever holiday you celebrate,  is that your days are Merry and Bright!