Five Christmas Crafts for the Classroom

The holiday season is approaching, and teachers will be finding fun ways to bring Christmas into their classrooms. From recipes to fun and easy crafts, there are plenty of easy activities to spread Christmas cheer. 

Education World has gathered a list of five, fun, and easy crafts for elementary school teachers to share with their students. 

1. Pom Pom Hot Cocoa Mug:

What you need: 

• Green, light brown, and red paper
• Ribbon
• White pom poms
• Glue
• Scissors

What to do:

• Free draw hot chocolate mugs on the red and green paper. 
• Cut out the mugs, and cut out an oval on the brown paper to be the hot cocoa. 
• Glue the white pom poms on the cocoa to make it look like marshmallows. 
• Tie the ribbon into a bow, and stick it under the brown paper. 

2. Pipe Cleaner Candy Canes:

What you need: 

• One package of green pipe cleaners
• One package of red pony beads
• One package of white pony beads

What to do:

• Use scissors to cut the pipe cleaners in half. 
• Slide one bead to the end of the pipe cleaner, turning the end around the bead to keep it in place. 
• Alternate red and white beads until the pipe cleaner is full. 
• Turn the end around the last bead, and bend it into the candy cane shape to hang on your tree. 

3. Paper Plate Elf Craft:

What you need: 

• Card stock paper (white, yellow and black)
• Black marker
• Glue
• Scissors 
• Paper plate
• Tissue paper
• Peach colored crayon

What to do: 

• Cover the paper plate with glue (using a wide paintbrush) and cover the plate with cut up pieces of red tissue paper. 
• Cut out an elf shape hat from the card stock paper and cover it with red tissue paper. 
• Use the black card stock paper to cut out a belt and boots. Cut out a belt buckle from the yellow paper. 
• Cut out a circle for the elf's head and color it in with the peach crayon. 
• Cut out black mittens and eyes, and tape its boots, belt, belt buckle, eyes, and mittens to the front of the elf. 

4. Frozen Olaf Cup Craft: 

What you need: 

• Two styrofoam cups
• Black Felt
• White felt
• Orange construction paper
• Black pipe cleaner
• Glue stick
• Scissors

What to do:

• For Olaf's face, cut out the mouth and eyes from the felt. The eyes are two small black circles and two large white circles. The mouth is a large black pocket shape and one white tooth. 
• Cut a large triangle out of the orange construction paper for the nose.
• Keep one styrofoam cup upright, and then glue the second cup on top with the two open circles connected.
• Glue Olaf's facial features on to the cups. The mouth components are glued to the cup that sits right up. The eyes are glued at the halfway point of the upside down cup. 
• Glue Olaf's nose on the upside down cup. 
• Cut a pipe cleaner into fourths and poke a small hole in the bottom of the upside down cup with scissors and place the pipe cleaners through. 

5. Egg Carton Reindeer Sleigh: 

What you need: 

• Egg carton
• Brown paint
• Googly eyes
• Red pom poms
• Ribbon 
• Construction paper
• Hot glue
• Pipe cleaners
• Black marker

What to do:

• Cut the egg carton in half. Paint brown and let dry. (We used watered down brown paint to make it stretch farther since the carton soaks it up.)
• Cut out small circles for reindeer heads. Add googly eyes, pom poms for noses, and pipe cleaners for the antlers using hot glue.
• Attach a ribbon to the side of the carton for the “reigns”.
• Using a black marker, draw the hooves on the reindeer legs.
• Make the back of the sleigh by attaching red construction paper to the carton.

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor