Winter Holidays, Day Thirteen

Today’s art is a silver bell. For this activity, each child will need a medium to large paper or Styrofoam cup, a pipe cleaner, a small jingle bell, and a large piece of aluminum foil. The children will need to wrap the aluminum foil around their cup, starting with the bottom of the cup, and completely cover the outside of the cup, wrapping the edges of the paper around to the inside of the cup. Once they have finished, they will poke both ends of their pipe cleaner through the bottom of the cup, making a loop to use as a handle. For this next part, the students will need adult assistance. Push the loop all the way up against the cup so that the ends of the pipe cleaner come out the top of the cup. Slide a jingle bell up a couple of inches on one of the ends, then wrap the ends together to secure and pull the loop back up. You can use masking tape to put each child’s name on his or her cup.

I like to send the Christmas crafts that we have made home in a shoebox wrapped up as a gift, so I have the children make wrapping paper. For fine motor, give each child a large sheet of butcher paper. Put out plates of red and green paint and Christmas-y cookie cutters, and let the students use the cookie cutters to “stamp” their paper. Once they have dried, these cookie cutter paintings make great wrapping paper!