Homeschool
Christmas in July Craft: Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes
We had a Christmas in July event with our homeschooling community a couple of weeks ago. I brought supplies to make pipe cleaner snowflakes. It was super easy to put together and relatively inexpensive. And it went a long way for a large group craft (we had close to 40 kids).
I got a pack of 200 white pipe cleaners. Kept to just one color to keep it simple. And picked out 6 bright, Summer-y colors of pony beads. I picked up those supplies at Hobby Lobby on a week when the beads were half off. But even when not on sale, I’ve found Hobby Lobby to be the most cost effective place for those particular items.
Creating the snowflakes is pretty easy, but younger children might need help combining three pipe cleaners to make the basic snowflake shape. I just twisted every other short stem tightly around the middle.
All these photos are from snowflakes we made at home before and after the event, so they are a few different sizes (and we used a few different beads than the original 6 colors). But for the group, I cut pipe cleaners in half (a small pair of beading wire cutters is super handy for that). That way only 5-7 beads was needed per stem. I saw multiple ways to finish these off on Pinterest and gave the kids the option to finish it however they wanted. A lot chose to use more beads and wrap the very end of the pipe cleaner around itself to keep the beads from falling off. In that case, the ends were just straight. Some, like myself and my children, chose to add one or two extra small pieces of pipe cleaner to the ends for more of a traditional snowflake vibe.
This was an easy and pretty quick craft. And it was fun to do with the “Christmas in July” theme to change it up. My kids and I have made 3 or 4 each, and I’m actually planning on us putting together several more and making them into a garland for real Christmas season!
PS - If you’re doing this at home or in a smaller group and would like a book to go along with it, I recommend Snowflake Bentley.
Co-op Tuesday
Learned about minerals and rock characteristics.
Also did some rock painting with these cool acrylic paint markers (pictured) and got free basalt stone arm massages from our in-house masseuse (aka a homeschool mom). 🙌🏼
Shuttle Pen Valentine’s Day Exchange Gifts
On Monday, a precious homeschool group we are part of met up for a Donut Shop Valentine’s Party. A family in our group owns a donut shop, so they invited everyone to come see the process of making donuts on a large scale, and then, the kids decorated mini donut king cakes (‘tis the season in Louisiana). It was so sweet (in more than one way) and special!
After the tour and decorating fun, the kids all exchanged Valentine’s cards and little gifts. Side note: homeschool kids still get to do all the fun things! I kind of had an idea of what Brigsby would bring, but didn’t make a final decision until the night before (with his help). Honestly, that’s usually how I roll.
His gift and Valentine’s card came together sooo cute, and I was proud because I created it myself. Super easy. So, thought I’d share. And bonus: IT’S NOT CANDY!
I searched Pinterest a week or so ago for some Valentine’s exchange ideas. Found some cute things, but not a combo of anything I liked (or wanted to pay for). In searching, though, I came across these cute shuttle pens! I ordered them just in case since Amazon returns are pretty simple.
I moved on from them thinking we’d do some cute stickers with a card that said, “Stuck on you.” But the night before, Brigsby and I decided we preferred the pens for the exchange.
So, Monday morning, I quickly (which isn’t usually the case) pulled up a flash card template in Canva, deleted everything except the layout, and made these “cards” that say, “You color my world.” Perfect for the colorful ink in the shuttle pens! I printed them on card stock, and they came out so nice!
I should’ve pulled out my paper trimmer to probably speed up the process a bit, but it actually didn’t take long to cut them out. And I would’ve had to do the rounded corners (which I think make things look extra nice!) with scissors anyway.
After I got them all cut, we stuck the cards in the pen clip, and voila! Homemade, purposeful, and not super cheapy Valentine’s gifts!
A Book and a Craft: "Because of an Acorn" + a Collage Paper Acorn
I recently (and very in the moment) put together a quick craft to go with the book, “Because of an Acorn.” I sat down at the table one morning and read the book to my kids. Then I pulled out blank paper and jars of cut up paper organized by color so we could “paint with paper.” By that, I mean that we made collages. In all honesty, I thought the kids might really want to make acorns. But their creative minds started drawing other Fall-ish things from the book (and beyond). So, I am the one who made the paper collage acorn in the photos here. And thoroughly enjoyed doing so, I’ll add.
The best part of making paper collages is that it can be tailored to different difficulty levels, so it’s great for multiple ages. It’s also soooo inexpensive. All the pieces of paper we used were scraps from previous projects. You could also cut up old magazines, newspaper, etc.
We chose to freehand our designs. The kids did trees, pumpkins, and a rabbit. 😊🐇 But I’m sure it would work great to find some simple pictures of what you want online then print them to use.
We used white card stock as our base, and the paper scraps were a mix of card stock, tissue paper, and construction paper. Gold construction paper is what I used as the main portion of my acorn.
Hoping to do more and more simple book/craft combos. My biggest hindrance is me. For some reason, I think it’s going to take a long time to plan and pull everything out. But it really, really doesn’t. And it never needs to be perfectly staged or anything like that. Just do it. Hear that, Kalena? Just do it!
