These icicles are a wonderful fine motor activity for children, an exercise in hand-eye co-ordination and an opportunity to explore color and patterns. It’s a lovely sensory experience, and often they’ll stop to talk about the particulars of a bead they’ve found: the color, the shape, how shiny it etc., so while this is a very simple Christmas craft, it still presents lots of opportunities for learning. Supplies needed; Metallic pipe cleaners, pony beads, a thread for hanging
Directions; Twist a loop at the top of the pipe cleaner, this will be used later to tie on the string. Thread as many beads as desired onto the pipe cleaner. Once the pipe cleaner is sufficiently beaded, twist the bottom of the pipe cleaner around the last bead, to prevent the other beads from falling off. Take the beaded pipe cleaner and twist it around a pencil to create a spiral effect. Finally, tie a 4-6" piece of thread through the loop you created in the beginning and hang. Supplies needed; Styrofoam ball, white yarn, white felt, pink felt, pencil, glue, festive ribbon, 2 blue beads or micro pompoms, small black pompom.
Directions; Wrap Styrofoam ball in yarn, until the ball is completely covered and Styrofoam is no longer visible. When the yarn completely covers the ball, tie a knot and cut off the excess yarn. Using the white felt, use your pencil to draw two long oval shapes (for exterior ear), then draw two slightly smaller shapes using the pink felt (inner ear). Cut out both sets of ears. Glue the pink felt to the center of the white felt, to create the ears. Once dry, glue the ears to the desired location on your yarn wrapped foam ball. Glue your small black pompom in the nose location, next glue on the blue beads or micro pompoms as the eyes. Finally, cut about 6-8” of ribbon and glue it centrally between the ears. Allow to dry before hanging. |
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December 2014
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