craft ideas for older kids with no food involved

[elf]

My SIL is a 5th grade teacher and the school this year has no outside food policy for crafts or parties. Every year she's done a gingerbread house, but can't do it due to this new policy.
Anyone have ideas for a holiday season craft, no food, but a bit more involved for 5th graders.
She knows about Oriental Trading and some other places, but thier crafts are more quick and easy.
Thanks

 

[lsayd]

Not sure what type of budget she has, but she can get those cheap wooden picture frames from a craft store and have each child decorate it with paint (acrylic paint and chunky stamps work great), markers, decorations (again depending on budget) bought at the craft store, cut outs from construction paper (kids can do themselves), etc. Then if she has the time and resources (camera, etc.) she can take a picture of each child that they can then place in the frame.

She can also take a look at http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/specialfeature/craftgroups-winter-crafts/
There's lots of ideas there.

 

[crisi]

How about keeping the gingerbread house, only making it out of clay or scultpy?

 

[korbbec]

You could make ornaments. Pipe cleaners and red and white beads make candy canes. Various sized styrofoam balls and fabric scraps to make ball ornaments- just use very small (like 1-inch) pieces of fabric cut in all weird shapes and push the edges of the fabric into the ball to get a quilted effect. You can poke sticks into smaller balls, wrap them in fabric squares, and tie with ribbon to make lollipops.

I also think doing something with Fimo or Sculpy is a good idea because it would be easier to encompass all of the winter holidays.

I would avoid the Crayola air dry clay though- it dries to a weird sponge like consistancy.

 

[jillyjoey]

Here is a great ornament idea -- my DS won 1st place at 4-H last year with this:

Ice cream cone ornament

Materials:
(1) glass/plastic Christmas ball ornaments (I found pastel colors at Michaels that looked like real ice cream)
(2) white and dark brown (think fudge) acrylic paint
(3) ice cream cones (we used both cake cones and sugar cones)
(4) sprinkles (we used both multi-colored and Christmas sprinkles)
(5) ribbon for hanging ornament
(6) glue -- I used my glue gun worked great

Directions:
(1) Hot glue ball ornament to ice cream cone -- let harden
(2) we then tied the ribbon through the ball ornament and hung on a clothes line tied between two chairs -- place lots of newspaper on floor
(3) spoon white (whipped cream) paint or brown (fudge) paint over ball ornament -- or use both
(4) before paint dries, sprinkle sprinkles over top

TA DA -- ice cream cone ornament

OR: try oriental trading -- tons of craft ideas & kits- - low cost too

 

[NotUrsula]

Um, wouldn't an ice-cream cone be food?

I second the idea of making a non-food gingerbread house. No one actually EATS a gingerbread house anyway, so making it with non-food things like clay, buttons and ribbons should work fine.

If a personal craft is good, the hands-down winner in every camp my kid has been in has been tye-dyeing.

 

[crisi]

I love ornaments, but if its a public school, not all families have traditions that involve trees. Ornaments are a little useless if your family doesn't put up a tree.

 

[momo3hods]

I think it is in Family Fun this month, a gingerbread house made out of a different material, kind of like a foam. Decorated with foam shapes and paint. It is very cute too.

 

[virginiamama]

In the past couple of days I have seen gingerbread foam houses and also cardboard gingerbread houses. I was surfing lots of sites so I don't remember where I saw the cardboard houses, but I know I saw the foam one in either a Michael's ad or a Ben Franklin ad.

 

[disneyfanfamily]

We are making Christmas pillows this year for my 4th grade son's class. You know, the no sew and tie method with fleece? You have to buy the fleece and the stuffing. It can get pricey if the fleece is not on sale, or there are a ton of kids in the class. But it would be easy and they would probably enjoy it. Plus they would get a soft, cozy pillow. My kids love them!

We tried to buy our school colors for the pillows, but the on sale fleece was out of red...so we used snowflake fleece for one side and white for the other.

 

[SaraMc]

What about knitting? My bestfriend has her class making christmas stocking and for the kids that dont celebrate christmas they are making scarfs. They all are so into it

 

[famofsix]

Candle craft from family fun
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11335
You can get vanilla candles from the dollar store.
This was creative and easy and can be adjusted to suit any holiday or non-holiday celebrating family. Ie. snowflake, christmas tree, star of David, Kawanza symbol

 

[jillyjoey]

Um, wouldn't an ice-cream cone be food?

My bad.

Anyway -- look at http://www.allcrafts.net/xmas.htm there are tons of ideas on there. However, you may be limited if you can't do a "Christmas" project as it may offend those who do not celebrate this holiday. I really like the German stars but I guess those would be considered an ornament too. My kids school make these for the school's Christmas tree -- maybe their school (public) is not p.c. since they have a tree.

 

[crisi]

Trees are fine and P.C. Sending ornaments home with kids and expecting everyone to have a place to put them isn't really thinking things through. If you are making ornaments to decorate a school tree or give to a nursing home, that's cool. If you are making keepsake ornaments and expecting everyone's family to be able to hang the keepsake on a tree....that just won't be the case for all the kids.

 

[luckey-lasvegas]

My DD class did Kitchen angels made from dish towels , pot holders and a wash cloth.

http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/towelangel.html

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

One year my DD's class asked everyone with babies at home to bring in a few clean baby food jars to make candle holders. They decoupaged tissue paper to it and put a tealight inside, they're pretty cute.

Another one they've done is a snowglobe: use baby food jars, glue a small figure/toy to the inside of the lid. Fill the jar with water, a couple drops of glycerin and glitter, then glue the lid on with a waterproof sealant (they usually sell these to repair fish tanks).

 

[elf]

Thanks everyone what great ideas. I'm going to pass them along tonight.
I don't think they can do ornaments, I don't think tree's either.
I'm going to look up the other types of gingerbread houses from clay. I know she was dissappointed not to be able to do it. I like the candle idea.
She is on a budget but I don't remember how much. LOL

 

[jenr812]

What a great thread The tealight candles in baby food jars would be VERY economical - tea lights and tissue paper are super cheap and the jars would be free if donated!

 

[famofsix]

What a great thread The tealight candles in baby food jars would be VERY economical - tea lights and tissue paper are super cheap and the jars would be free if donated!

has anyone tried this?
I think it's a great idea but I have put tea lights in non-designated candle jars before and the jars have gotten quite hot.

 

[luvsgrumpy]

has anyone tried this?
I think it's a great idea but I have put tea lights in non-designated candle jars before and the jars have gotten quite hot.

DS did this in 6th grade but they used small fish bowls. (like the ones they use at carnivals to throw the ping pong balls in to win a fish) I never tried to light it because of that same thought but they are really neat looking. His class put glitter on the outside which was very messy, but really pretty, when he brought it home I decoupaged over it to keep it in place. They tied a ribbon around the top of the bowl too.