Holiday Gifts for Parents

In my class this year for a holiday gift my co-teacher and I are having the students create paintings on a canvas to give to their parents. Luckily a family donated over 20 canvas for we have enough canvas for each student; however, if you are not as fortunate a good place to go for canvas is Michaels. Right now there is a sale going on 50% off canvas, 2 canvas for $4.49!  The canvas that are on sale are the same canvas that I am using in my own classroom. The students are given the choice of what painting they want to create for their parents. They are given the following 5 choices to pick from:

1. Christmas tree
2. Snowflake
3. Angel
4. Snowman
5. Gingerbread man 

Micheals even has its own blog that discusses various topics such as project ideas, tips, how to, and much more. 

The following images are ideas that I am using in my own class as well as other ideas that you could use for holiday gifts. The following images were all found on Pinterest. 

For my students I created stencils by tracing the image of a snowflake, angel, snowman, and gingerbread man all on their own piece of cardboard and then cut out the image. That way I can lay the stencil on top of the student's canvas and the student will paint inside the stencil so the child is painting independently with little help from the teacher! I want this gift to be child-done instead of the teacher creating a present for the child to give to their parent. If you do not want to create your own stencils any dollar story usually have holiday stencils around this time a year. My favorite dollar store is The Dollar Tree . Martha Steward also makes excellent stencils with different patterns, which can be purchased at Michaels, Walmart, and Jo-Ann Fabrics just to name a few.

What holiday gifts have you done in your classroom?