Sequins Galore!

Winter and Christmas means it's time to sparkle!

     In any setting, glitter can be a trap. Meaning that once it gets released, you can never truly clean it all up. Any teacher, especially the crafty and art-inclined, would warn you to think twice before you go down that fabulous but often treacherous path. That's why I decided to go with an equally shiny art supply, the sequin!

So shiny!

     They're less hassle to clean, but still just as fancy and special! For an especially wintry activity, we used snowflake sequins to cover the letters in our names. I paired this activity with Millions of Snowflakes by Mary McKenna Siddal and we related the snowflakes landing on the book character's nose, chin, tongue, etc. to the sequin snowflakes landing on the letters of their name. I cut a piece of construction paper into thirds (hamburger style) and then just wrote their names with a sharpie.

Snowflake Cover-up!

     This activity is SO easily extended, also! You could do any of the following:

• place snow flakes on differently body parts that snowflakes could actually fall
• count how many snowflakes it took to cover all the letters and compare it to other names
• compare how many snowflakes it took to cover each letter 
• cover letters of winter/snow type words 
• let them pinch and drop snowflakes and see where they land, graph the results!
• write letters on snowflakes and match letters to names

     After my kids completed the initial activity, I let them choose to stay in the small group or go to a center. If they chose to stay, they could pick a different word to cover or use different sequins, such as red/green/yellow/silver circles, random Christmas patterns (Santas, stockings, trees, candles, etc).

Use those pinchers! 

     I loved incorporating fine motor skills with letter recognition and formation, with a wintry twist! The only thing I could improve for nest time would be to use sticky paper or possibly felt. I didn't want to glue the snowflakes because then they wouldn't be reusable for all students, but then whenever someone sneezed or accidentally moved their paper, all their sequins would fall off or get messed up and some would get extremely discouraged. Using sticky contact paper or felt would help keep the sequins on, but not permanently. 

Be safe and sweet, y'all! (and Merry Christmas!)