I am in charge of a Dec. craft project for a group of about 20-25 kids in the 6-9 yo age group. It will be the beginning of December. I have done smaller things with a few, but with that many, I'm not sure the logistics of, say, a painting project. Does anyone have a fun Christmas type craft idea? I'm open to any ideas! Thanks!
I dont know how creative you want to be, but last year I had to do a craft for 15 to 20 4 and 5 yr olds. We save old Christmas cards so I gathered them and bought some construction paper, ribbon and glitter. I played Christmas music and had them re create their own Christmas cards. The glitter was controlled by me and only me. I wrote out Merry Christmas with glue and then sprinkled the glitter on top and tapped the remaining back into a bowl. I also had my scrapbooking scissors along. I can dig out my Christmas craft book and give you more ideas. Oh, I remeber making reindeers out of candy canes and santas out of empty toilet paper rolls.
Will you have other adult help? If so, you may want to break into four different projects, and the kids can pick which one they want. Or, if there's time, they can pick two and you can rotate midway through. You can limit how many kids can do a project at a time, and put one adult at each one.
Last year I did the hand wreath project. It would work a ton better if it would have been older kids. The ones I was working with were 6-7 yr. olds. You have the kids trace there hand, cut it out and glue it on a wreath (paper plates). Use either construction paper or foam for the hands. It worked really well! I hung my sons up for Christmas and made one for my daughter too. There are a lot of ideas out there. hth
Depending on how much time and how creative you want to get, you can take pine cones and milk cartons (the half-pint ones) and make a Christmas Village. Have them paing the milk cartons like houses and spray fake snow on the pine cones for trees. Use cotton batting for a snowy landscape. This is a good project for helping children to learn to work together for a common goal. Also, depending on time, small candy canes and Halloween-sized Sugar Baby-type boxes make great sleds to add to the Village. Lisa
christmas card with flaps I made this craft with our HS group at one of our monthly dinners. I know this works well with large groups because I did it with about 26 (5 - 11 yr olds). All you need is markers, stickers, scissors, and card stock. Have them fold the card stock, in the color of their choice, in half. They can cut a flap or two or three, on the "front" of their card. When they fold the card closed they can see where the flaps will open up to and then draw a picture, a saying or place a sticker, on that spot on the inside of the card. They can also create an envelope for it by using construction paper. They can decorate that too. If you want to get creative they can make a pop up figure for the inside. All you do is fold a narrow stip of paper accordian style. glue (or tape) one end to the inside of the card. glue (or tape) the other end of it to the figure they made. fold it gently so it stays in the card when it is folded shut. when the recipient opens the card they will have a surprise! sorry this is long but I thought I would help. I hope it does. :wink:
A couple of years ago I led a church kids craft thing for Christmas. We seperated into four tables, did a relief of the praying hands in gold foil, another did an angel out of cardboard cones, paint, glitter, styrofoam balls, and gold foil for wings, another did beaded christmas trees out of black "bead yarn" and green beads on a keychain, and the last did the what i called complex craft- making a stained glass picture out of black construction paper and various colors of tissue paper, scissors, and glue. But then I had several adults helping. What to do alone. Ok, once we used butcher paper in my class for 3-4 yr olds and traced their entire bodies with a marker (they love to see what they look like on paper!) and decorated the "bodies" with yarn, glitter, crayons, glue, you get the idea, I guess you could focus this with Christmas too. Love, Carolyn
Deena, It really depends on how involved you want to be, if you have help, etc... I recommend the little craft kids that you can order from Oriental Trading www.orientaltrading.com most of them will end up running around $.50ea and all you have to do is supply glue or...I've discovered glue dots. Glue dot's are really cool and work great. O.T. sells them, too. If you have help and are looking for some more labor intensive projects let us know and I'll post a few.
Thanks Everyone! Great ideas! I DO have help with the kids, so that's not a problem. Anyone think of Christmas-based (not Santa though) ideas? I am planning on talking with the leaders soon, so I can get an idea more on what they might be expecting, though they're leaving it pretty open. It might be nice to do something that could be a gift for parents, or some ornament type thing to hang on the tree..... Please keep the ideas coming. I am mulling them over, and I did go to the Oriental Trading Co. site. I bought things from them before they had a website. No, I'm not old!!! Thanks again!
Have you checked out the crafts on the Family Fun page? http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftSearch What about a mobil? We made a fall one but, you could do it for anything. You need 1 8x13 (whatever size it is) of the fun foam in whatever color you want your spiral to be. Take this rectangle and cut in a circular pattern so it's a continuous piece. Understand? Then you can hang whatever you want from it. We did ours with fun foam fall leaves hanging from it (about 4-5" down). We cut ours in about 1" width spiral and it hangs about 36" long. You will need a needle to sew the pieces on - that's the only dangerous part. ) You could do a mobil with a; metal clothes hanger (gotta get them from dry cleaning), a round wood (cheaper) embrod. hoop paper towel empty tube with the hanger and the hoop you could make shapes with self hardening clay to hang on them (if time isn't an issue) Just remember to punch a toothpick in it for hanging. You could have them make a book about "me" hand stamp, likes, dislikes, etc... Snowmen with white pom poms Snowmen with cotton balls Weave placemats using construction paper Make napkin rings with clay, make special pens covered in clay Make napkin rings with beads. Ok...that's enough for me for now.
Sheila, Is that ALL you come up with? C'mon girl, THINK! :lol: Thanks for all the ideas! I haven't been to that website, I'll go check it out too!
You didn't say what your budget was. winter collage (provide different materials & textures for use - cotton balls, speciality paper, cellophane, pop. stick, you get the idea) Paint the ceramic tree ornaments that you can get at Wal-mart for $.30 - $.50 ea (must get them early or they are all gone) I paint one of these each year for my boys. Who knows maybe when they are adults they will think it was really dumb but....maybe I'll get lucky and they will treasure it. making shapes with clay (sled, snowmen, tree, present) making hand prints in plaster or clay Someplace I have a recipe to make ornaments from cinnamon & apple sauce. It's a messy project but, fun. angels out of that twisted crinkle ribbon (forget what it's called) personalized thank you cards to give for any gifts they might get bath fizz stuff (salt, glyceren(sp?) and scent) - I have a recipe for this too someplace
Here's some websites FULL of ideas, too. http://www.scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/Program/CraftsGeneral1.htm http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/christmas/ http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/christmas.html http://www.allcrafts.net/xmas.htm#freeprojects http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/christmas_crafts.htm
Hi Deena, I'm so glad to see you here! I was also out of the loop for a long time . It's great to be back. Here are two websites that you may find helpful:- www.sundayschoolcrafts.com www.mssscrafts.com/crafts Have a wonderful weekend, blessedmom
