Wrapping Presents Playtime

As I am not the most organised person, I generally leave wrapping presents to the last minute. It then becomes such a chore, as it has to be done quickly and well. Darling Him loves doing it, so he generally has the pleasure of wrapping for both of us (well, I do wrap his, to keep it a surprise). When we wrote down "wrapping presents" as one of our countdown to Christmas activities, I wasn't actually intending Ju to wrap all my presents for me. The aim was to playfully experiment with matching different sizes of paper with different object sizes, to develop coordination with sticking sticky tape while holding paper, and generally discuss the point of wrapping presents at all. Also, did I mention Ju loves folding paper at the moment?

This is what I gathered for today's playful activity:

• jam jar lids
• several packaging boxes of different sizes: small cosmetic box, light bulb box,...
• pieces of wrapping paper of different sizes (use recycled paper from previous years/gifts)
• scissors
• small strips of sellotape (lots!)
• last year's Christmas card, main picture cut into small squares
• hole punch
• pieces of wool

Ju chose a jam jar lid to wrap first, and he folded it up inside some paper. He stuck sellotape, not necessarily on the bits that needed to be stuck together, but more on top of the paper. This allowed us to discuss the point of sellotape in closing any "gaps" and fixing the folds onto the main bit of the present wrap.

Wrapping a jam jar lid

He then cut some paper with his scissors and realised that it was too small for the box he had originally intended to wrap, so he chose one of the smaller boxes.

Ju cuts paper to wrap this box but then realises that the piece of paper is too small

Wrapping paper absorbed him for quite a while and he didn't really get frustrated until the fourth wrap. 

Holding the folded paper while putting the sellotape on is tricky

He then punched one hole in each of the tags and set about threading the wool into the hole to make the tag attachment.

Punching holes through the tags

Threading wool through the tag

Present ready: " I will put it under the tree now"

Snowy Landscape and Angel Hand Print Card

Today was all about making simple Christmas collages. Christmas seems to be an endless source of crafty inspiration, probably because there is such a brilliant range of colours and shades (monochrome white or red/green, sparkle), shapes (round baubles and snowmen, triangular trees, hexagonal snowflakes, stars), sensations (fluffy snow, cold ice, spiky holly), smells (pine needles, cinnamon, anise, ginger)... Collages could involve any of these and, as abstract as they might be, one would always recognize the Christmas spirit in them. Our theme of the day was a snowy landscape. I mixed some PVA glue with white paint and a little water; I put on the table lots of silver glitter, some cotton wool and the cut-out snowflake shapes we had left over from the Craft Workshop last Saturday.

I started painting Lilo's hand so he could make some hand prints on some black card paper. He enjoyed seeing the white impression of his hand on the black card, sliding his fingers in the paint and sprinkling everything with silver glitter.

Lilo painted his own hand as well and painted the paper using the brush too. He then explored the cotton wool and tried to shake it off his hands, where it had got stuck, as they were covered in the paint and glue mix.

Lilo paints his hand to make a hand print

 Some snowflake shapes were placed onto the landscape.

Lilo sticks some snowflakes onto his landscape

Glittery blizzard

Sticky hands and cotton wool

A finished snowy landscape... brrrr!

Some of the hand prints looked so dainty, all covered in silver glitter, that I cut them out and made them into snow angels, by sticking a little bit of cotton wool at the top of the picture for hair. Lilo glued them on some blue card and we will use these for some of our Christmas cards (still to be sent!!!).

Lilo puts glue on the back of the cut-out angel hand print

Lilo's angel hand print card