Simple Kid Holiday Projects

This year I wanted to keep it simple with my student projects. I am at two different schools and it is not fun lugging materials around. Especially not in the snow. So as I mentioned I wanted to keep it simple. So this year I decided I would have my Kinder Kids decorate a tree with their name in ornaments. Super simple. The hardest part was making the tree.

I started by cutting strips of green butcher paper and laid them all out. I cut each one shorter than the other. Then I cut a piece of brown construction paper in half and used that as the bark. I found this great free font called CK Tree Ornaments to type up the students names. I game each student a sheet with their name. They colored it and cut it out. The following day we added the ornaments to the tree. The smallest name going at the top, and the largest name at the bottom. The final step was to add the star at the top of the tree. I think it looks great, and my ELL students that have never in their lives decorate a tree got to experience what it is like. :) 

Here is what they look like.

The smaller tree is from School B where I only have 6 kinder kids.

The larger tree is from School A where I have 14 Kinder kids.

I wanted something different for my 1st graders. School A is not finished so I don't have pictures to share, but it will look just like School B's down below, just more.

For this activity I use the DJ Inkers font called DJ Twinkels. I bought this font last year on an whim and did not find a use for it until this year. If your interested I believe it is on sale now. So I printed the students names again. These should be in color, and had the students cut them out and attach them to the Twinery's Bakers Twine. I let the students choose the color twine they wanted to use.

Here is how it turned out.

A close up.

Again I love how simple, yet cut it came out.

Other Holiday items are our Menorah and our Kwanza chain link.

On another decorating tip. You know all those wonderful holiday subway art print avaliable. Well, I don't use them at home, I use them in my class. It is an excellent way to decorate the room while teaching my students some holiday vocabulary. Eighteen 25 is having a "Where in the world, is your Christmas subway art" linky party and I just happen to have mine up in my room. Take a peek.

 My students love coming up to the poster during writing time to use the words in their seasonal stories.

All I did was punch two holes and add a ribbon, and Ta-da!

So whatever you do to decorate your class or home I hope you enjoy the season.

More holiday decor

Yesterday, I brought you my Twinery door garland. Today I will show you what I did for my 2nd classroom.

I have been seeing these lovely floating ornaments hanging on fishing line all over the place. They look so nice I knew I wanted to recreate them with a twist.

This door decor was much easier than my previous one. I once again use the Twinery's bakers twine and this time I used some dollar section ornaments from Target. I saw them in the Dollar Spot and knew I had to have them. I bought 2 sizes, the small miniature size and the larger size. 

Again, I took the ornaments and laid them out in the pattern I wanted. Next, I cut out some twine. I did not measure them, and I cut them all different lengths. Oh I have to mention that I did make the twine match the color of the ornaments in this project. Same colors as before, Buttercream, Stone, Maraschino, and Peapod.

 After I had everything prepared I just tied the ornament to the end of the twine and cut the excess string.

 I have 2 doors in this class so I did it again. Then came the easiest  part! All I did was attach it to the door frame with tape! I had an odd number of ornaments so started in the center.

 Next, I did the two outside ornaments, and worked my way in.

 Just a note, I didn't want the ornaments to be the same length. When I wanted one shorter I just pulled it up and cut off the excess twine.

 See it coming together?

 Now, I just cleaned up the extra twine. To cover the ugly tape I put some ribbon over it. It was an instant clean up. Sorry I don't have a picture of it. :/ I kind of missed that shot.

Here is a shot from the outside.

It looks so festive, I love it. I like the twine instead of the fishing line better than the fishing line because we all see the fishing line anyway, why try to hide the string? I like that it matches. :)

I have yet one more door decoration I want to share but I have not yet created it. However, it is like this one but way easier! Stay tuned...

Hope you've had a great weekend. I have a formal observation tomorrow, and while I am not nervous about it, I am still wracking my brain thinking about all the little things I want make sure I have ready. I'll be glad when it is over and I can concentrate on enjoying my students and our holiday celebrations. Cross your fingers for me.

Holiday Decor

 If you are a regular reader you know that I occasionally drift into the land of the holiday decor. This time I have made some holiday decorations that I use in my classrooms, but can be easily  done for your home!

Here is what I got. Want to make one for yourself?

Here is how I made it...

I grabbed some Twinery bakers twine. Have you ever used it? It is wonderful, I love it. I also used some small, mini tree, ornaments I got at Hobby Lobby. The ornaments were 4 colors so I decided to use the matching twine colors, but not have them match. No reason why, you could make them match if you wanted to.

Here are the colors I used... Buttercream, Stone, Maraschino, and Peapod. I measured the door way, and cut some twine a bit longer than the door way so it would hang a bit. I then tied the 4 strings of twine in a 1 loop knot together at the end. The next part was the most difficult. I wanted to make some kind of pattern, but not too predictive. so i laid out all the ornaments down on the twine, to give me an idea of what I would get. I did have to make changes so I am glad I did a trial first.

Once I was ready to start I took the first ornament and strung it on the twine and tied a knot. At first I thought it would be easier to do one color at a time. However, it did not work well. I was not able to space the ornaments the way I wanted. So I went back to the drawing board. Instead of doing one color at a time I just followed the pattern. I chose the next color in the pattern and strung that ornament, then tied a knot. I continued to do the same until I had attached all the ornaments. Once done I tied another loop knot at the other end of the garland, to close it off.

 

I wasn't done there. You can see in the  twine is all intertwined. All I did was grab each end and twist it around. Kind of like swinging a miniature jump rope. I know that is not very clear but I don't know how else to describe it. :/

 Finally I attached it to the doorway with a thumb tack but you could also hang it on a hook.

 Here is a shot of the doorway.

Then I added a large ornament I had laying around and viola! It's not perfect, but I don't mind.

 

I really like the way it turned out. Not as much as my spider web but it is nice. :)

Come back tomorrow for another kind of, simpler, door decoration.