My Most Favorite Co-op Day of the Year...

Christmas Craft Day

Maybe it’s because I love Christmas… or maybe it is because I love to see the look on each child’s face when they get ready to take their craft home.  Probably a little of both – but each year I truly look forward to this day.     

First I get to plan out what the students are going to make.  Then I get up early on the Friday after Thanksgiving – yes! – Black Friday – and do my shopping for it.  Sounds crazy… but that is the day that Michael’s and JoAnn’s give you 20%-25% off of your entire order – even on sale items.  After I buy my bargains, I go home and spend a few hours trying to find a place in my house for about 15 bags full of craft supplies.  My husband just shakes his head and says, "Here we go again!’   He says this because he knows that there will be something he has to do to help me make this happen. 

This year 18 of our 3rd -5th graders made Snowmen!   Not just any old snowmen, but candy dish snowmen. 

We used fish or ivy bowls that can be bought at any craft store.  My dear husband sprayed each of them with a matt base spray paint so that the children could paint them with acrylic paint and it would adhere to the glass.  (See my husband was right… he knew he would be helping with this project.)  He also helped with the hats.  They are made out of craft foam.  You can’t see it, but I used fancy scissors to cut the brims of the hats.  I used a salad plate to make the pattern.  Then I cut a tight hole in the center.  If it is too loose, the hat will flop.  From there, I cut straight strips of foam that would encircle the tops of the bowls.  I found another object in my house smaller than the salad plate to make a circle pattern for the top of the hat.  Then my husband wrapped the strips around the circles and stapled the strips so that the circle/tops could later be placed just inside the top of the circle/strip (to be used as a lid.)

We had the students use cut up kitchen sponges to paint a white acrylic textured pattern on the snowman.  The noses are actually wooden spruce trees – found at Michaels.  After the children painted their bowls, we had them paint the trees orange to turn them into carrot noses! 

While the bowls and carrots were drying, we started our sock snowmen.  (More on that later.)  Once they were mostly dry – about 20 minutes – the children worked on the faces.  For time sake, I found sticky googly eyes at JoAnns to use.  The eyes could easily be painted on though.  It is just that we had 2 projects to complete in 50 minutes with 18 students.  Time was of the essence!  Even though the eyes had sticky backs, they still needed reinforcing with a little extra glue.  While gluing the eyes, they also glued the  noses to the bowl.  [I found this great glue at Joann's called Beacon's 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue.  It drys super fast and works as good as hot glue.  It is waterproof though so be careful.]  After gluing, the children made their pink circle cheeks with some round paint brushes.  Finally they finished their part by using the back point of a paintbrush to paint dots of black for the mouths.  This was the suggestion of my daughter Amanda – who has quite a knack for coming up with great easy helpful hints when it comes to arts and crafts.   After the students placed their snowmen on some wax paper outside, two moms completed the projects by spraying high gloss finish on them and then sprinkling some sparkly glitter over it for a cute finish.  

As I was saying… They also made sock snowmen. 

We have 3 because Alexis enjoyed this project so much that she came home and made more!  Thankfully I tried making a demo of this before our craft day.  I used suggestions off of the internet, but had great problems combining rice with  fiberfill.  I also had problems keeping it steady using just rice.  I almost scrapped this project, but then went on the internet one last time to see if I could find one more idea to help keep the sock snowmen supported.  The Lord is good!!!  I found an idea that worked!  Wide mouth canning jar dome lids – this size worked well using men's ankle socks.  First place the lid down into the sock before you add the rice  Next add 2 cups of rice to the bottom of the snowman.  Straighten and adjust as needed, then place a rubber band around the sock.  After that we added 1 cup of rice and then last, another rubber band.  To finish, you just pull the remaining part of the sock down over the head of the snowman to make it look like they have ski type hats on.  The children decorated them by gluing buttons on the body, and wrapping a scarf around the neck.  They also used fabric markers to create their faces.  Some children used googly eyes, some drew their own eyes.  Some decorated the hats with pom-poms too.

As each child came back to my room at the end of the afternoon to pick up their snowmen, they seemed so pleased with their work.  I was pleased too, that their projects turned out so well.  I love working with homeschooled children.  We are so blessed to have a great group of them in our co-op.  We are blessed too, that our church allows our co-op the opportunity to use the facilities for fun times such as these.  Above all, we are blessed that God sent His only Son down to us, so that we can have eternal life – and a Christmas to celebrate each year.