Homemade Ornaments---$5.67

I recently saw this at another school and it was just soo cute we had to do it.
What you need:

Food coloring...green and red $1
Shredded Wheat large bricks $3
Tall Glue $1
ribbon $.67
Margarine tub lid x 18
glue gun w. glue stick

Place a 1/8 cup of glue in one bowl and the remaining in another. Combine red food coloring in the 1/8 cup of glue and green food coloring in the other. Add enough food coloring to give the green a pine look.

You can give a brick to each child in a plastic baggy and have them crush. One brick = one ornament. Then on a plate have them mix the shreds of wheat with the green glue to coat evenly. Take mixture and pack it around the plastic lid in the shape of a wreath. Let dry for at least 2 days. After the first day you can paint plain glue on the top to give a shiny look.

using the red you can put little slivers of red around the wreath or tiny beads for holly.

Carefully pop the wreath out of the plastic and turn around to add hanging ribbon for the tree. Attach using ribbon and hot glue.

You can also cut a piece of cardstock and place a picture of child and attach to the back of wreath. Attach a small red bow at bottom and it is ready to hang or gift.

Went to michaels and found some red ribbon and flowers for another $2 to add more glitz to our wreaths.

Chika Chika Boom Boom Craft...

My youngest are reading this adorable book, so naturally a craft had to come from it. So my gears were clanging thinking of what to do.

What you need..

Brown Paper Bag
Green construction paper
Brown construction paper
foam letter stickers
foam circles
fabric glue
stick glue
sand or sticks...
black crayon or marker

Using the bag is the foundation of your tree. On the non flap side paste a 2 inch wide piece of brown paper for the tree trunk. Then cut or rip out palm tree frawns about 5 per tree. Glue the leaves on top of the brown trunk and let dry. Mark xs from bottom to top of trunk to create palm tree look. Then have them decorate with foam letters going up the tree just like in the book. You can add enrichment by having them look for the letters in their name or sorting the letters by color, etc. As a final touch I wanted something that had a sensory feel so I took fabric glue and placed some on a foam circle and then glued some sand/use small twigs or even old grass to look like a coconut (I was considering using real coconut shreds died brown) then glue to their masterpiece. When dry, you can open the bag and the tree should stand up on its own.

Enjoy...my kids had a blast....