The three Christmas crafts below are made with old Christmas cards. Ask parents to save their old cards for your classroom and you will have more than enough for your Christmas activities the following year. The kids especially like the ones with glitter, animals, shiny papers and embossed or raised cut out objects.
Children also love to use old Christmas cards in Imagination Station activities. They will often ask, “What does that say?” as they point to the words on the front and insides of the cards, providing good opportunities to make students aware of letters and words.
1. Christmas card sewing card
- old Christmas cards
- one hole punch
- 30″ pieces of yarn
- tape
Instructions:
- Ask a parent to punch holes around the card (no more than 12)
- Children print their name on the front
- Tape one end of the yarn to the card
- Show children how to make the yarn go in and out of the holes
- Cut and tape the yarn to the back of the picture when finished
For young children, wrap tape around the end of the yarn instead of using a blunt needle. This saves threading and rethreading the yarn.
2. Christmas card garland
Materials:
- old Christmas cards
- one hole punch
- 30″ pieces of yarn
- tape
- cut out images from Christmas cards
- punch a hole in each cut out image
- thread a piece of yarn about 30 inches long through four or five images
- spread pictures out leaving 4 inches of yarn between each one
- tape the back of the image to the yarn so they don’t shift or slide out
3. Christmas craft for kids - ornaments
- old Christmas cards
- one hole punch
- Christmas craft for kids tracers
- 8″ pieces of ribbon
- white liquid glue
- glitter
Children:
- cut the back off their card
- choose a tracer
- trace the shape on the opened card with a marker
- cut out the shape (tell them to cut on the outside of the marker line)
- punch a hole in each cut out card
- put little dots of white liquid glue on the cut out shape
- add glitter
- thread a piece of ribbon through the hole
Links to free tracers at the bottom of this page…