The Christmas season brings with it vibrant colors, sensational characters, and a sense of anticipation, making decorating for this holiday exciting and fun! Here's a fantastic (and festive!) Elf-themed display from Renée Glashow, educator and creator of the site Miss Renée’s Kindergarten Pad.

Christmas Gift Crafts

To duplicate the crafts made by Miss. Glashow's students, provide each child with a square or rectangular piece of construction paper or card stock as well as squeeze bottles of paint. Invite students to fold their "present" in half, creasing it, then decorate only one side using the bottles of paint. Encourage them to make various designs with the paint (i.e. large and small dots, squiggle lines, swirls, zig zags, etc.). For best results, have students use one color at a time. When finished with the color, demonstrate how to re-fold the paper along the crease, press firmly, and unfold to reveal the "mirrored" design. Invite students to repeat this process with each different color. When their prints have dried, provide students with gift bows and tags to complete their Christmas gifts!

You might also consider:

• Providing students with scraps of colorful wrapping paper to collage onto their gift cutouts.
• Having students collage their gift cutouts with scraps of art tissue paper (in assorted colors) that have been rolled into balls or bunched up.

Swirls of Color Bulletin Board

• Background: Light blue bulletin board paper.
• Title: "Holiday Gifts in SWIRLS of COLOR, Bring Joy to One Another" - Miss. Glashow printed the title onto a scroll cutout to be "held" by the elves, but you could also use traditional letters or word processing software to create the lettering.
• Border: Winter or Christmas-themed bulletin board border with a homemade icicle border (made from white bulletin board paper) to be hung at the top of the display.
• Decoration: 1) The Elves. These simple elf shapes are fairly easy to freehand; all you need are a few basic shapes. For the girl elf you'll need - one triangle body, two long, thin rectangle legs, two rectangle arms, one large circle head. For the boy elf all you need to do is swap out a large rectangle for the body and keep the other shapes the same. Add pointed elf shoes, hands (optional), hair, elf ears, a face, and an elf hat and you're set! You can draw all this on white bulletin board paper and color it in, or create the pieces from colored construction paper and use markers to add embellishments where needed. 2) The Gifts. Use your students' creations!

We love this design by Miss. Glashow! So festive and fun!

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