Snowman Suncatcher

I've always liked how paper towels look after cleaning up after a painting activity, but I've never done a project with those paper towels before. After seeing the suncatchers on Simple Fun For Kids, I just had to have my little ones make one. For this craft I had the kids deliberately paint the paper towels. I wanted to use watercolors, but didn't have any with me. I ended up using tempera paint and told the kids to wet their paintbrushes often.

I reminded them to press gently with their brush so they wouldn't rip the paper towel.

And then I even sprayed the paper towel with water when they were done painting so the colors would blend even more.

The hard part was waiting for them to dry. They took a really long time so I ended up finishing this craft the next day. I found a simple snowman silhouette that I liked and used it as my template. I cut out the snowman from black construction paper and used a glue stick to apply glue all along the edge of the now missing snowman.

Then I flipped it over and pressed it onto the paper towel. Once it was set in place, I added some more glue to the corners just to make sure it was secure. They actually looked really good before they were even in the window!

And I love the design from the paper towels. I didn't think anything of it at the time we were painting them, but it added a whimsical touch to our snowmen!

Finally, I taped them to the window so they could catch the light. When we started this craft it was a very sunny day. So of course when we finished it, it was cloudy and even snowing. But they still look beautiful!

This is when I miss teaching in a classroom. I think a big window filled with these would be so pretty. I'd probably have the kids cut the snowman shape out themselves. And older kids could draw their own snowman shape first and then cut it out so each one would be unique. And if I was smart, I would have cut the snowmen out carefully so we could use them for another craft. But instead I stabbed each one right in the middle to get it started so it was easier to cut. Lesson learned!

Snow Cone Snowmen

The inspiration for this craft came from Oriental Trading. They have a snow cone snowman ornament craft that is flat and made out of craft foam. I thought it would be fun to make a 3D version. I was planning on using some snow cone cups that I had, but they were huge and I would have needed really big styrofoam balls to fill them. I didn't want to spend that much. So instead I opened up one of my cups to use as my template. Then I just rolled them smaller. While they were still flat, I had the kids decorate them with snowflake stamps and ink.

To make the snowmen, they took two styrofoam balls, one big and one little, and attached them together using a toothpick. Then each child picked a hat for their snowman. I brought in some of my daughter's old baby socks and cut them in two. The toe part would be a regular hat. For the ankle part, I cut strips for fringe on one end and used a rubber band to make a little poof.

They were adorable! I had cut strips of felt to make scarves, and I cut up some pipe cleaners for the noses and arms. We also used wiggle eyes and buttons and attached them with glue dots.

I set out a bunch of permanent markers for the kids to make smiles. They pushed the tip of the marker into the styrofoam a bunch of times to make little dots.

Ta-da! So cute!

Then I rolled up their snow cone wrapper to the perfect size, taped them closed, added some glue to the rim and set the snowman in it. I pushed down along the rim to make sure it would adhere to the ball. You want to make sure the ball fits snug inside, not just rest on top. I had to open up and re-roll a few because there wasn't enough of the ball for which the paper could attach. After doing that, I had to find spots around my classroom for the glue to dry while the snowmen were in an upright position. It was kind of fun seeing these guys all over.

I decided to add a drop of glue between the big and small balls, just in case. I was planning on hanging them from the ceiling so I wanted them to be secure. The scarves and hats clung to the styrofoam easily, so there was no need to glue them on. When they were dry, I hung them from the lights by sticking a paperclip right through the hat.

 Here are some close-ups of these cuties:

And of course we had to have snow cones (in little dixie cups) with our snack!

The snowflake stamps inspired me to make something else. I'll share that soon!

Waving Snowman Craft

Schools are closed today because of extremely low and dangerous temperatures. I decided to use this "bonus" day at home to make a craft with my daughter.

She takes after her mom when it comes to crafting. She loves it! First I had to walk around my house and find things to use. I don't have a lot of craft supplies here, but I did find a few things that would work. The snowman is made from coffee filters. I cut the top one a little smaller. I folded it into fourths (you can still see the crease lines) to make it easier to cut a near-perfect circle. I also doubled-up my coffee filters because one was too transparent and I didn't want the black paper showing through. I attached the coffee filters with double stick tape.

Here is what I had in mind for the snowman. Nothing was glued down. I was just getting an idea.

First I let my daughter play with all the supplies. She enjoyed spreading everything out. I may have let this go on a little too long!

But after cleaning it all up, we got to work. I helped her out with the face of the snowman. I put drops of glue on and told her to put the eyes on it. I did the same for the nose, which was cut from craft foam.

I ended up turning the nose to make room for the mouth. I had a bunch of craft foam hearts, so we used those for the smile. As for the body of the snowman, I let my daughter do whatever she wanted. She loved being in charge of the glue!

I decided to change things a bit for the arms of her snowman. I traced her hand on brown paper (which was not an easy task to say the least!) and cut out two. I taped them to brown pipe cleaners and shoved the other end of the pipe cleaner under the coffee filter. I was glad I had used double stick tape because I could easily pick up the coffee filter, stick in the pipe cleaner, and put the filter back in place. (I'm lacking pictures because it's really hard to do while helping a toddler!) I had cut a hat from red card stock and she glued that to the head, then we found a neat button and she glued that to the hat. We found some craft foam snowflake stickers and added them around the snowman. And for snow, we tore apart white tissue paper, scrunched it up and glued it to the bottom of the paper.

(Gotta love the wiggle eye on the belly!)
Once it was dry, we hung him up!

Because the arms are pipe cleaners, when you touch the hands they jiggle. It looks like the snowman is waving!

My daughter kept giving him high fives :0) Isn't he cute? Now it's time for some hot cocoa!

Reusable Snowman Building Activity

When I saw this snowman activity at Stir the Wonder, I knew I wanted to do something similar in my classroom. But I also thought it would be fun if the kids could make snowmen over and over again, and change things up each time! So I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and bought three different sizes of styrofoam balls and a flat styrofoam base. I also picked out two small hats from the doll section that fit perfectly on the smallest styrofoam ball. (I glued on a paper flower to one of the hats.) Once I got to school, I went through all my craft supplies to find different things for the snowmen. I found buttons, star confetti, beads and wiggle eyes, but I wasn't sure how the kids would attach them to the balls. Remember, I wanted this to be a reusable activity, so no glue allowed! Then I thought of my brass fasteners. Perfect! I used a glue dot to attach the items to the ends of the fasteners!

This way the kids could stick them in the styrofoam and pull them right out again! I also made simple scarves from felt, used brown pipe cleaners for arms, and had long orange beads and orange pipe cleaners for noses. The kids used toothpicks to attach their first ball to the base and then to attach other balls on top. (Please note that toothpicks are sharp so supervision is a must with a younger group. My four- and five-year-olds did great and never poked themselves!)

The kids LOVED this activity! On Friday they were just as excited to go to this center as they were on Monday. They never grew tired of it! At first they all made traditional snowmen, with 3 balls, but by the end of the week they were getting a little more creative.

I'll definitely have to bring this out again before spring. We also had little snow cones with our afternoon snack to start off our Winter week on Monday,

and we finished the week by acting out one of my favorite books, Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright. It's an adorable book with wonderful illustrations. Sneezy is cold and wants to warm up but he always ends up melting himself! When I read it, the kids always yell out "Make me brand new!" And the cardinals are hilarious! (Take a look at the inside of the book on Amazon. You'll fall in love!) So I picked a child to be Sneezy and the rest of the kids were the other characters in the book. SO CUTE!

I hope you all are staying warm wherever you are! Our schools have been closed the past two days because of dangerously low temps, but we head back tomorrow. I'm excited to get crafting again!

:0)

Dancing Snowmen

I got this snowman craft idea years and years ago from some book. You're supposed to use paper plates, but I find the kids have a hard time gluing things to the ridges of the plates. Glue sticks aren't strong enough. So whenever I do this craft with my class, I just use white paper circles. I cut out boots, carrot noses and hats from construction paper. And this year I cut out circles for buttons, since I didn't have any. One of my sisters gave me a big book of wallpaper samples, so I cut the mittens from that. The kids glued on all the pieces and drew eyes and a mouth.

Then I used a hole punch and some yarn to attach the head to the body. This is what makes the snowmen dance. They wiggle when you hold the hat and move the snowmen a little bit. It's very cute.

I hung them from the ceiling so they can dance around whenever the vents blow air.

The snowman book I read during circle time wasn't about a dancing snowman, but rather a very cold snowman.

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright. This book is ADORABLE! The snowman is cold and tries to warm himself up, but always ends up melting himself! The kids have to keep building him. And there are two cardinals that are hilarious!! They are my favorite part of the book. They end up taking a bath or swimming in his puddle or roasting marshmallows by the fire. You can see inside the book if you look it up on Amazon. SO CUTE! My kids always like finding the cardinals on each page and end up giggling like crazy! Maybe next time we'll have to make a sneezy snowman craft.

**Linking up to Two Succulent Sisters!**