Making Christmas Wreaths with my Students!

I LOVE making little Christmas gifts for my students to give their parents.  I always think about what I would love to get from my kiddo at Christmas time - something hand made with a picture of them! I love looking at my mother in law's tree and seeing all of the little ornaments and crafts my husband made as a kid.  These types of things are my favorite!

These wreaths are SUPER simple and inexpensive to make!

 1. I bought puzzles from the a local thrift store for a total of $7. You could also get some from the dollar store.  A total of 2,000 pieces!

2. I had a doughnut shape template cut out (by a parent volunteer!).  I knew I wanted to make the child's picture 3 inches (because I have a 3' punch), so I used that as a guide and had the doughnut shapes cut out of cardstock.

3. I had a green piece of construction paper cut out that was the same size as the outer circle of my doughnut shape (this is for the back of the ornament).

4. We had our "4th grade big buddies" help us glue the puzzle pieces to the doughnut shape.  I told the kiddos to make 3 rows of pieces (to make sure we had enough pieces for everyone).  Some kiddos did 3, some did 8!!!!

 5. I took the wreaths home and spray painted them green.

 6, I took the kiddos pictures, got them developed, and punched them out with my punch.  I put an address label on the back of each green construction piece that said "Christmas 2016 Mrs. M's Kindergarten Class." Then I had the children write their name in sharpie above the sticker because it's fun to see how children wrote their name in kindergarten! I glued these pictures in the middle of the green construction paper back.  Then I laminated them and cut them out!

 7. I used an 18' strand of garland beads from the dollar store - I cut between each bead.

 8. I had the kiddos put a black sharpie dot where they wanted me to put a red bead.  I stayed after school one afternoon and hot glued all the beads on while listening to Christmas music!

9.  I hot glued a string to hang the wreaths on the back of the original doughnut shape.  Then I hot glued the laminated green construction paper on with the child's picture.

10. Lastly, I had the children pick out a bow they wanted to put on their wreath and then hot glued those on!

In years past I usually try and find little gift bags on sale for the children to wrap their gifts for their moms and dads, but this year, I used brown paper lunch bags!  I printed out a "MERRY CHRISTMAS" image that was in bubble letters so the children could color it.  They wrote "To: Mom and Dad" and "From:" on it after coloring.  They wrapped their wreath in tissue paper and I put them in their bags, folded down the edge and stapled it shut! I'm sure there are much more elegant and classy ways to wrap these gifts, but honestly, I love how simple it was to do it this way!!