December Activities
Wreaths from Nature
Take a walk into a field, woods, or vacant lot. Collect dried seed pods, leaves, pine cones, dried berries, evergreen branches, or sturdy vines. Make a Christmas wreath or spray using only natural materials. Add a ribbon and hang it on a wall or door.
Paper Snowflakes
Materials – (paper, scissors, glitter – optional)
- Start with any square piece of paper. If you are using a standard sheet of paper, take a bottom corner and diagonal fold it across to the opposite side of the page. Cut off the 2.5 inch strip at the top of the page to create an 8.5 x 8.5 sheet of paper. Fold it in half. Fold it in half again creating a smaller square.
- One corner will be all folds, the other three corners will have some open edges. Finding the fold corner is key to making a snowflake.
- Turn the paper so that the fold corner is at the bottom. Fold the corner on the right side over to the left side. You should now have a long, triangular paper, with the fold corner still at the bottom.
- Depending on the thickness of the paper, and the children’s skill with scissors, now may be when you start cutting out the snowflakes. Older children can continue folding the sides together to get narrower pieces of paper.
- Cut off the tip opposite the fold corner. It can be point or rounded depending on the shape you want for your snowflake points.
- Continue cutting out bits of the snowflake, but be sure to keep intact enough of the fold lines running out from the fold corner.
- Open up your snowflake when you are finished cutting.
- Use glitter glue to decorate it if you want.