Quick and Easy Christmas Decoration - a Fingerprint Tree!

This is a super easy and super quick Christmas decoration or ornament. I found a tree template online, shrunk it so four fit on a page, and ran them off on cardstock. The children used their watercolors to decorate. Cut out after it dries, add some glitter here and there, and voila! Hang with yarn or a bent paperclip.

I'm using fun ideas like this one to "blackmail" my kids into doing their work first. Everyone's tired, but anticipating the holidays. Or they're not feeling well. So I've resorted to the old tried and true, "As soon as your work is done, you can make this!"

Oatmeal Wreaths

Right off, I'm going to say that this is a very messy activity, so be sure to lay newspaper down, and have all long sleeves secured above the elbows! But it's so much fun, and the kids had a blast doing it, that I had to share!

You need small paper plates, uncooked oatmeal, and green tempera paint. Toppers are red pompoms.

First, have each child cut out the center of their paper plates. Be sure they put their names on the back. Then lay a thin layer of glue over the outer ring. (I had them use their index finger to smear the glue around.)

Next, put the oatmeal in a container, and squirt paint on top. Let the kids mix the oatmeal with their fingers. (The neat thing is, they don't need to wash their hands BEFORE this activity!)

 

Next, have them pat a thin layer of colored oatmeal onto the glue and outer ring. (Child with gray sleeve did get it in the paint, but fortunately tempera is washable.)

 

Let dry. We did this activity in the morning, and didn't add the pompoms until right before the end of school. Next time, I'll have them dry overnight.

Voila! An oatmeal wreath they couldn't stop touching. The sensory input had a big impact! A fellow Kinder teacher said I should have done this while we were studying the letter O, since the wreath looks like an O, and we used Oatmeal, but I had run out of time before I could include it.

Quick and Easy Christmas Ornaments

We made these this year for our classroom tree, and to ultimately give to the parents. I would have loved to have put each child's photo in the middle of the trees (after glueing a backing on them), but the photos didn't come in on time.  Also, I used red ribbon to hang the trees after putting a gold star at the top.