Most people wouldn't consider winter to be their favorite season. There's less sunshine, the air gets colder, and the sky starts filling with clouds. But winter is so much more than just chilly weather and gray skies. This winter, celebrate the changing seasons with the FamilyCares Winter Celebration, and share your creations with people in your neighborhood or with seniors in a nursing or retirement home or a nearby homeless shelter.
Materials Needed
Old shoelace or yarn
Disposable pie tin
Water
Pieces of nature — pinecones, twigs, leaves, shells
Steps Involved
- Fold your yarn or shoelace in half and place the ends in the middle of the pie tin so a loop hangs off the side of the tin.
- Arrange your bits of leaves, twigs, and pinecones however you want in the pie tin.
- Fill the tin with water.
- If you live in a cold climate, leave the tin outside to freeze; if you live in a warm climate, put the tin in the freezer.
- After the water has frozen, remove the ice from the tin and hang it by the yarn loop outside on a branch or somewhere you can see and enjoy it.
- If you have neighbors or friends who would like an icy suncatcher, make them one of their own! This is an especially nice way to give a surprise to elderly neighbors who may not get out much during the winter.
These handprint snowflakes are easy to make, and each one is as different as a real snowflake. Try different ways of tracing your hand, and different ways of attaching each handprint. Also, consider making lots of handprint snowflakes and bringing them to residents at a senior citizens' home, or visiting the senior citizens and making handprint snowflakes with them. Creating or receiving a handmade handprint snowflake might just brighten their day!
Materials Needed
White paper
Scissors or tape
Crayons or markers
Steps Involved
- Trace your handprint on the white paper eight times, to make eight handprints.
- Carefully cut the eight handprints out of the white paper.
- Arrange four handprints closely together, pointing north, south, east, and west.
- Tape or glue those handprints together.
- Take the other four handprints and arrange them in an X shape on the edge of the first four handprints (see picture). Tape or glue them securely.
This is another project you can make and share with friends, neighbors, or the less fortunate. It's easy enough for children of all ages to play a part, and the materials required to make it are inexpensive. Talk to a local homeless shelter or senior citizens' home and see if they'd be interested in having your family come and teach this craft to their residents. It's a fun, easy project that helps keep cheerful birds singing around the home all winter long.
Materials Needed
Large pinecone
Peanut butter
Cornmeal
Shortening
Birdseed
String
Steps Involved
- Mix equal parts of peanut butter, cornmeal, and shortening together in a bowl. (Often people just use peanut butter; however, the Forest Service recommends equal portions of all three ingredients, because straight peanut butter can glue birds' beaks shut.)
- Roll the pinecone in the peanut butter mixture, making sure to cover the entire surface. Then, roll the sticky pinecone in birdseed.
- Attach a string to the pinecone long enough to be tied around a branch. Make sure the pinecone isn't too close to the tree branch, unless you want squirrels eating the birdseed, too!
- Find a tree branch you can see easily, and attach your pinecone bird feeder. Then, wait for the birds!
Spinelli, Eileen. Now It Is Winter.
A young mouse misses springtime, so his mother helps him find beautiful things to see and do during the winter.
Mahoney, Daniel J. A Really Good Snowman.
Jack wants to enter a snowman-building contest, but he doesn't want his little sister to tag along. She makes a snowman on her own, but when bullies try to destroy it, Jack comes to his sister's defense and realizes she might not be so bad after all.
Christiansen, Candace. The Mitten Tree.
An old woman who lives near a bus stop notices a young boy has no mittens. She begins knitting for needy children at the school — and ends up with a surprise of her own.
