Pencil Holder

This craft is a simple gift idea that can easily be used for other purposes. During Halloween, we made a similar craft to put candy in. Another year, we placed Easter eggs inside a similar craft. This year, we decided to make this craft for Christmas as a pencil holder. 

Materials

• Paper cup
• Foam boards
• Paint
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Glue
• Materials to decorate

Directions 

Step 1: Paint a paper cup. Allow to dry. 

Step 2: Cut out 3 circles from a foam board. When making these circles, make them large enough that the circles will overlap when attached to the paper cup and can be stapled together.

Step 3: Staple each foam circle to the paper cup. When stapling to the cup, make sure that: (1) the bottom of the circle is aligned to the bottom of the paper cup; (2) the circles are straight; and (3) the circles all overlap and can be stapled together.

Step 4: Staple each overlapping side of the circle together.

Step 5: Decorate

Decorative Pencil - Flower

Materials:

• Pencil
• small cardboard cut out of a circle 
• foam hearts
• pom pom 
• pipe cleaner - 2 
• scissor 
• glue 

Directions

Step 1: Glue the foam hearts to the circle cut out

Step 2: Glue the pom pom to the center of the circle of hearts

Step 3: Starting approximately 2 inches from the tip of the pencil, tightly twirl the pipe cleaner around the pencil. Around the eraser, tightly wrap and bunch together the pipe cleaner. 

Step 4: Cut a second pipe cleaner in half. This will be the leaves. Approximately at the middle of the pencil, wrap around the pencil and form the leaves by folding over the ends of the pipe cleaner. 

Step 5: Glue the back of the cardboard ( the foam heart flower is glued) to the pencil. Allow to dry. 

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Gobble gobble! Here come the turkeys! This craft is simple and so much fun.

Materials:

• paper plate
• construction paper - red, orange, yellow and brown
• giggly eyes
• scissors
• glue
• stapler 
• brown crayons or markers or color pencil or paint

Directions: 

1. Take red, orange and yellow construction paper. Holding the paper in landscape orientation, cut the construction paper into strips approximately 1/2 inch wide. For each paper, cut 2 strips for each turkey. This will be the turkey's feathers. 
2. Take a brown piece of construction paper. Holding the paper in portrait orientation, cut strips approximately 1/2 inch wide. Cut 2 strips for each turkey. This will be the turkey's feet.
3. Cut circles out of brown construction paper, one for each turkey. This will be the turkey's head. 
4. Using yellow construction paper, cut out one square for each turkey. This square will be folded in half to be used as the turkey's beak. 
5. On a red piece of paper, cut out the wattle. This will look like two ovals overlapping one another. 
6. Cut out 2 small triangles for each turkey that are approximately 1/2 inch in length at the base. This will be the turkey's feet
7. Color a paper plate brown
8. Fold the paper plate in half. The straight edge of the folded plate will be on the bottom. 
9. Staple the brown circle (step 3) to the top of the folded paper plate. 
10. Staple the brown strips (step 2) to the bottom of the folded paper plate. 
11. Staple the feathers (step 1) to the paper plate by placing one edge of the strip on the front of the turkey and the other edge of the strip on the back of the turkey. 
12. Glue 2 giggly eyes and one beak (step 4) to each turkey's head. Glue the wattle underneath the beak. 
13. Glue the feet (step 6) to the bottom of the turkey's feet. 

Pretty Peacock Craft

One of our students' favorite books is about a proud peacock who flew away from home. The peacock in the story was vain because he was so beautiful. The children wanted to be able to act out the story, and asked us to make a beautiful peacock. In response, we came up with this easy craft.

Materials:

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers 
• Glitter

Directions: 

1. On a piece of construction paper (we used teal) draw the the head (with feathers on top), the body and the wings of the peacock. Use a marker to draw in the feathers on the wings. 

2. On another piece of construction paper (yellow), draw the beak, eyes and feet. Fill in the eyes with a marker. 

3. On another piece of construction paper (we used purple), draw six ovals. This will be the tail feathers. Use another construction paper (we used green) and cut out small ovals to glue to the feathers. 

4. Glue the eyes and beak to the peacock's face. Glue the feet to the bottom of the body. Arrange the tail feathers around the body and glue. 

5. Add glitter to the tail feathers and around the neck. 

Paper Stained Glass Window

A craft that adds color to the room! This craft can be difficult for young children; gauge your child's strengths before starting.

Materials:
• black construction paper
• crepe paper
• scissors
• pencil
• glue
• stencils (optional)
• duct tape

Directions:

Before you begin, plan what you want to put in the windows. When making your plan, it is important that you leave at least 1/2 inch between images. When working with young children, it is recommended to leave 1 inch between images to help the child with cutting and gluing.

1. In a piece of construction paper, draw or trace the images you want in your stained glass window. Leave at least 1/2 inch margin around all images and the border of the paper

2. Cut out the images. This can be difficult for young children. We found that after making the initial cut and cutting out the center of the image. Preschoolers can cut the rest of the images out

3. Cut out crepe paper to fit in each cut out image. There are several important things to remember. This will be hanging on your window, so try to keep the back side as clean as possible. For pastel or light crepe papers, you may need to glue 3-5 layers of crepe paper for the color to show

4. Once dry, hang on a window with masking tape.