Adorable Holiday Gifts for My Students

        Each year our preschool teachers make gifts that we give to all the students at our holiday program. I love the VERY simple, inexpensive light up snowman ornaments we made this year. These have been all over Pinterest but I'm not sure where they started.
        For each ornament we used a battery operated tea light (from the Dollar Store), a small piece of thick holiday scrapbook paper cut in the shape of a hat, a small pompom,  and 2 pieces of ribbon (each about 4" long).  You will also need a black permanent marker and a hot glue gun.

 
We tied a knot in the middle of the wider piece of ribbon (for the scarf) and made a loop with the narrow ribbon (to hang the ornament) .  We added face details with the marker (and put our school name and the date on the back of the hat) and then hot glued the ribbons and paper hat to the tea light.  When it is lit, the nose is orange! So cute!

I also made little elf ornaments for our classroom tree.  They were also very simple! After they decorated our tree, we used them as gift tags on the hand print calendars we made for our families.

I started by taking a picture of each child wearing an elf hat with their hands together above their heads (or just in a silly position if they preferred). 

I then cut the student out of the picture, laminated the picture, punched a small hole in the top and threaded a pipe cleaner with a bell on it to make a loop to hang the elf on the tree.  The kids love their silly elf ornaments (and I predict they will like them even more in future years when they look back at how cute and silly they were in pre-K).

Finally, if you'd like directions for the beautiful picture ornaments we made for the kids last year, click here.

If your looking for a really fun holiday idea for your classroom or home, check out our life-size gingerbread house.

I am linking up with 3rd Grade Thoughts' Ho Ho Holiday Gifts for Your Students linky party.

Moms Are Like Buttons...

Moms Are Like Buttons

They Hold Everything Together.

I saw the quote about buttons on Pinterest and decided to do a very simple button inspired Mother's Day Gift.  I cut out hearts from fun foam.  The kids glued on buttons and chose a pin or magnet for the back of the heart.  Inside the card they drew a picture of Mommy and wrote "I Love You!" and their name.  I also included the adorable survey about Mom that I found at The Crafting Chicks. I might laminate the surveys; their answers are so sweet.
Last year I posted several other cute and simple Mother's Day ideas here.
There are lots of other cute Mother's Day ideas at The Happy Teacher's Linky Party.

Great Gift for Volunteers (or for a teacher :)

            I love this apron that I made a couple years ago for a friend who came into my class twice a week to help with Kid Writing.  It was simple and inexpensive.  

Simple and Cute Mother's Day Gift

Finger Print Vase and hand heart

Love Bug Frame (instructions below)

Directions for making this plate are here.

          We made the cutest Mother's Day Gifts this week.  They are jars that Mom could use as a vase or for pens and pencils on her desk.  And best of all - they were really simple too!

           First I collected 20 smallish jars and soaked off the labels. (We collect this type of stuff all year so I just had to go to the closet to get them :) I worked with one child at a time and had them dip their finger in acrylic paint and then make little finger print flowers.  I don't have a picture of this because I was busy holding the jar and wiping off fingers between each color.  It only took a couple of minutes for each child to finish the painting.

vases drying

We also made each mom a flower pen to put in the jar.

wrapping a pen with green flower tape 

Finally, we made our cards.  I saw these cute handprint hearts on Pinterest. (They were from a Bulgarian site, Krokotak ... how cool is that?!) I traced each child's handprint with the child's thumb and pointer finger touching the folded edge of a piece of paper.  I then cut the hands out and glued them on to a card.  The children wrote MOM or "I love you" in the heart formed by their fingers.  VERY cute (and I love all things handprint because I know how tiny these hands will look in such a short time).

Handprint Card

UPDATE:  This is the adorable Mother's Day Gift the 3year old class made.  They are in the middle of a ladybug unit.  The kids each made cute little ladybug costumes that they are going to wear when their families come in and they go for a walk to free the ladybugs they have been studying.   The kids each made a ladybug out of model magic and pipe cleaners.  The teacher took a picture of each child in their lady bug hat and put these cute frames together.  Mommies always love gifts that include a photo :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Love Bug Frame

ANOTHER IDEA:

Mother's Day Card with Gift Attached.  Kids make card look like Mommy (with yarn hair and face details) and then add a flower to hair that is actually tissue paper wrapped around a bead bracelet the children made for Mommy.



Yet Another Idea: Diamond Pin (actually "dime on pin")
The kindergarten class I volunteer at is making these with this poem.

I just added a new post with a new Mother's Day gift idea.

There are several Mother's Day Linky Parties with lots of fun ideas. Check out these Blogs:
Kinder-craze
Wolfelicious
Lil' Country Kindergarten
Cool 2 Craft