Whether you’ve got a case of the, “Bah-humbugs,” or the, “What do we do nows?” snowflake making is a great solution!
Grab a stack of coffee filters for young ones (easy to cut; already round) or paper for your bigger kids. With help, even young children can use safety scissors; in fact, it’s an important developmental skill. Here’s a hint: Tell them to keep their thumbs up.
Older children will enjoy exploring the internet to find patterns. This site is a good place to start. You can enlarge and print out the free templates. Fold and cut as indicated and….ta-dah! Not two are alike, so as long as you can keep your guys from cutting through the point, you can’t mess this up.
If you don’t have coffee filters on hand, just prefold the paper for the preschool set. Here is a site with a good, basic how-to. If the cutting is frustrating, give your guys hole punches instead. Regular or decorative ones are fine. Cupcake liners can also make beautiful, mini flakes if your kids have the fine motor skills to handle the smaller paper.
Just for fun, let them try the snowflake puzzle maker at National Geographic kids. For information on the geometry and science of snowflakes, start here. It’s run by some scientists at Cal Tech, which believe it or not, is the hot bed of snowflake research (Yep, there’s some funny stuff in that sentence).
Thanks so much to reader Lindsey for sharing this pic of her adorable, crafty girls!