Looking for an Australian themed Christmas craft to compliment your end of year activities? Well look no further! This is one of my most favourite Christmas crafts to do each year with my kiddos.
Probably about this time of the year we spend a few afternoons a week searching for gumnuts around our school grounds (note: if you don’t have an abundant supply of gumnuts around your school – because you will need plenty – then why not check out your local parks). The kiddos love searching for gumnuts and are intrigued by the mystery of what we are going to do with them (I don’t tell them why we are collecting gumnuts, just that we are going to need LOTS!!!).
Once enough buckets of gumnuts are collected we begin our craft project.
To get started yourself you will need the following: – gumnuts – LOTS of them!! – thick cardboard – Like from old boxes. Not cereal boxes as this is too thin. The thicker the better! I pre-cut mine to the circle shape provided in the template but up to you. If you are using thick card you will most likely need a Stanley knife to cut it well so I would definitely recommend you pre-cut them! – craft glue – spray paint – I like to use gold and silver but you can choose any colour you like – Christmas ribbon
With all these supplies you will be able to create with your kiddos a wreath that looks something like this:
To get your kiddos started: 1. Separate the gumnuts between them. I use icecream buckets and place a half-filled bucket between a small group of three or four. Each table will also need glue and each child will need a pre-cut cardboard wreath.
2. Demonstrate how the gumnuts are to be glued to the cardboard wreath. Emphasise gluing the gumnuts REALLY close together – you may like to say that the gumnuts need to be touching one another. I can assure you that most won’t glue them close enough so you will need to monitor carefully to continue to remind ones to keep them close. You will always have the kiddo who races through the craft super quick and shows you their wreath with only 6 gumnuts glued to it. EVERY. YEAR. THERE. IS. ONE!!!
Make sure you demonstrate wiping a small amount of glue to an area, placing a few gumnuts on the area so they are touching one another and then placing another amount of glue to an area, etc…
3. Once their wreath is completely covered, allow to dry.
4. After the kiddos have left for the day spread out the finished wreaths onto newspaper and spray with your chosen colour. Make sure you wear a mask while doing this!
5. Once the paint has dried you can either tie the ribbon to the top yourself or, if you are brave, have your kiddos try.
And then you are done!
A super easy craft but oh so beautiful and effective!
With the end of the year drawing near I know how time poor we as teachers become. Reports to wrap up, curriculum to complete, swimming lessons to coordinate, end of year parties and concerts to prepare, next year planning to begin, children to keep alive… The list goes on!
So let me lend you a helping hand and share with you some of my favourite free Christmas resources to help keep your kiddos busy while you attend to other pressing matters like pulling posters off walls and cleaning furniture…
Six White Boomers Art Templates This fun art idea has been inspired by the song by Rolf Harris and gives you the opportunity to bring a bit of reality to your classroom regarding the Australian Christmas experience.
Christmas and Holidays Around the World STEM Challenge Passport This FREE Christmas and Holidays Around the World STEM Challenge Passport enables you to track your student’s progress through a variety of Christmas and/or Holidays Around the World STEM challenges.
Naughty or Nice – Who Stole Santa’s Toy Sack Naughty or Nice is a no prep freebie Christmas activity involving a simple alphabet/number code. The aim is to find out who hid Santa’s toy sack. Eight suspects have been identified by Santa. The two naughty culprits have owned up and the sack has been returned, but their identities will remain a secret unless you can decipher this clue. Answer is included. Only two responses can be justified from the information provided.
Christmas Math Word Problem Prompt Cards These Christmas ‘What’s the question?’ cards are great to help your students create their own Christmas themed math word problems. Differentiate this card set by setting the challenge to make word problems involving either multiplication, division, negative numbers for higher grades OR keep it to basic addition and subtraction for lower grades.
Christmas in Australia Workbook Looking for a fun, yet educational activity for your student’s to complete this Christmas season?This workbook is filled with fact sheets, reflection sheets, creative tasks and fun activities for your students to complete.
Christmas I Spy: Find and Colour These I Spy mats are fantastic laminated and used as a placemat for Christmas celebrations. The black and white version can be used the same way, and laminated after all the images have been coloured in.
A Christmas Riddle A riddle for Christmas is a fun freebie activity to challenge and increase vocabulary skills. Your students use their critical thinking skills to decipher the clue and find the word.
Snowman Tens Frames Printable Ten frames are simple tools that allows kids to build strong number sense. Using them will help them to see numbers and connect their understandings about a number name or digit to the matching quantity. These Snowman themed Tens Frames are sure to engage and educate at the same time!
Christmas Spin and Graph Activity Teaching data and graphing has never been so much fun! This freebie contains 2 no-prep graphing activities that are Christmas themed.
Kindness Kris Kringle Christmas Tree Activity This resource is for students to explore the idea of being kind and completing random acts of kindness, especially leading up to the Christmas season. It focuses on showing kindness and recognising kindness in others.
And for the older learners…
Christmas Employability Skills Checklist for Teen and Adult Learners For some learners, having a plan for how they will organise their Christmas break can be really useful, as it avoids leaving large chunks of time in their schedule where there is nothing to do. Help your students work out a plan for their Christmas break, so they are able to make the most of their opportunities and come back to learning in 2019 full of newfound talents and feeling energised and positive.
I hope that help you out this year as you are looking at ways to occupy your students in the remaining weeks of term 4!
I used to loooove celebrating Christmas in my classroom!! And even though I am not in the classroom anymore I am always on the hunt for great Christmas activities to complete with my daughter at home.
What I always found difficult when looking, was finding Christmas activities that had more of an Australian theme. I used to feel a little weird getting my students to colour in, paint or draw, reindeer, woollen mittens and snow themed pictures when they really had no relevance to our Christmas experience here in Australia.
So I thought I would share with you one of my favourite Australian Christmas art activities, inspired by Rolf Harris’ Six White Boomers.
You will need:
– A3 Cartridge Paper (this paper is thicker than normal A3 paper and will be more resistant to ripping once the Edicol Dyes are added)
– Edicol Dyes (Blue and Orange)
– Oil Pastels (Green and Brown)
– Acrylic Paints (Red, White, Brown, Yellow/Tan)
– Paintbrushes
– Sponges
– Kangaroo template
How to create your own Australian Xmas Masterpiece:
Using your brown oil pastel firstly lightly draw a rough line 2/3 of the way down your A3 paper. This is your horizon line. Then draw the outline of a tree using the same oil pastel. Add small tufts of grass on the ground using the green oil pastel.
Now you can fill in the ground with orange Edicol dye paint and the sky with the blue Edicol dye paint. Be sure not to paint inside the tree. You can paint over the other oil pastel lines though as the oil will resist the dye and show through.
Paint inside the tree layering the different colours (brown, tan and white) to give the tree a textured look).
Cut out the inside of your kangaroo template. Discard the centre of the kangaroo and place the remaining stencil on top of your Australian landscape painting.
Using your sponge, paint the inside of the stencil white.
Remove your stencil to reveal the white kangaroo.
With a thin paintbrush add a red bow around the neck of the kangaroo.
And you are finished!! Well done!
Be sure to grab your free copy of the kangaroo outline from our Free Resource library so you can complete this artwork in your classroom this Christmas season!
