January Crafting with the kiddos Month...

January

1. Salt Painted Winter 

• First, we cut wavy lines for our landscape and glued them to the bottom of the blue paper.
• Then, I helped the kids paint their hands brown and make a print on the blue paper for the tree. Make sure that you hold on to a young child's wrist through this whole process to reduce the risk of getting paint everywhere :) You'll also want to have a towel or baby wipes nearby to wipe off their hands until you can get to a sink.
• Next we used the paintbrushes to paint the trunks of the trees.
• Once the trees dried, the kids used their paintbrushes to paint glue dots all over their pages to look like snowflakes.
• We then sprinkled salt onto the glue and let it dry. Once the glue dries, gently tap your page to remove the excess salt and it will leave you with a beautiful winter scene.
• Print the poem: See the pretty snowflakes, Falling from the sky, On the trees and housetops, Soft and thick they lie.

 2. Handprint Snowflake

• I painted the kids hands with blue paint using the sponge brush and helped them place their hands in different directions to create a unique snowflake design. We ended up putting more paint on their fingers a few times.
• Then, they picked glitter pens to decorate with or sprinkled their snowflakes with glitter.
• After they dried, we cut circles around them and mounted them on blue paper. Next, we hole-punched them and tied them with ribbon so they could hang in the windows. 
• On the back of each circle, I printed this poem: My handprint's like a snowflake, Unique in every way, Keep it close to your heart, I'm growing every day.

 3. Snowman Sock

• If you end up with larger socks, trim them down so the stretchy part is separate (this will be used for the snowman's hat).
•  Pour 1/2 cup of rice into the bottom of the sock. 
• Fill the sock about 3/4 full of polyester fiberfill (or until you have the desired size snowman). Securely tie off the top of the sock with a rubber band. Use a second rubber band to create the head of the snowman.
• Tie the red strip of felt around the middle rubber band to form a scarf for your snowman.
• Glue buttons down the side for the snowman.
• Cut a triangle out of orange felt for the nose and use the googly eyes to make the snowman's face.
• If you used a smaller sock, you can just fold the top of the sock over the rubber band to form the hat and glue a pom ball to the top. If you used a larger sock. you need to secure one end of the cut portion with a rubber band and then fold over the remaining side to form a separate hat. Glue a pom ball to the top of the hat
• Put the hat on the top of your snowman and use the puffy paint to create a smile.

4. Shape Snowmen

• After reading the story,  "Snowman at Night" give the kids materials to make their own snowman out of shapes:  3 white circles (2 large, 1 medium), 1 square, 1 orange triangle nose,
  2 googly eyes, 4 buttons, brown marker
• Using their materials, the kids assembled their own snowmen on blue construction paper based on what they thought a snowman would look like from the story. 

5. Marshmallow Igloo

• With a few numbered cups and bag of miniature marshmallows, we were able to do a lot of differentiated math lessons. :
• Identifying numbers - the kids told me what numbers were on each cup
• Ordering - we put the cups in order from smallest to largest
• Counting and One-to-one Correspondence - They counted the correct number of marshmallows and put them in the cup
• Adding and Subtracting - We worked with adding piles of marshmallows together and counting to 20
• Even work in some fine motor skills by using tweezers to put the marshmallows in the cups.
• Construct an igloo using the foam cups, white frosting, & miniature marshmallows
• To prep the cups, cut a small hole for the 'door' of the igloo. 
• Put each child's cup on a paper plate to help contain the mess and gave them a few spoonfuls of frosting with spreaders. 
• Spread the frosting on their cups (some of the younger ones needed covering the whole cup) and then stuck the marshmallows on.

6. Paper towel roll penguin

• To prep for this craft, cut out 2 black oval wings, 2 orange webbed feet, one orange diamond & a white 'dome' shape for each.
• Wrap the toilet paper in black construction paper and cut out penguin pieces.
• Glue the pieces on as shown in the picture. 
• Add googly eyes and a Popsicle stick (if desired) to make a puppet.
• Can read a Penguin story while the children are working.

7. Snowman Marshmallow Painting

• First, model how to use their marshmallows to make large circles for the snowman and small circles for the snow and dragging the marshmallows across the bottom to make a snowy landscape.
• Once they dry, use the other materials to decorate snowmen, making eyes, nose, and hats.

8. Cotton Ball Snowball FIIIIIIGGGGHT!

9. Painting with Icicles (on construction paper)

10. Snowman Treat

• Place 3 snowman on a toothpick
• Use a fruit roll-up for a scarf, and edible markers to decorate

11. Create a winter sensory bin (cotton balls or packing peanuts or popcorn or icicle paper)

12. Waterless Snowman Globe

• Small paper plates, cut out the natural center of them, use one half of a resealable bag glued to the edge of the hole on the inside and cut off the extra plastic, then cut one extra plate like that and cut it in half to make the toques.
• Paint the toque, & add glitter.
• Allow to dry.
• Glue onto the snowman head and take the full plate for the backing of the snowmen, fill it with fake snow and, match toque, use glitter and glue the front of the snowman head onto the backing with tacky glue.
• Chose pompoms to go on top of the toque .
• Next glue googly eyes, and trace glue shapes on the face for the nose and the mouth.