The Ugliest Parent Christmas Gift Ever

Have you ever had an idea you thought would be adorable….awesome….creative…only to find out it it actually didn’t work AND it’s really ugly?  

I have.  It’s called: Mrs. Wagers’ 2012-2013 First Grade Christmas Gift To Parents. 

Try not to be too jealous that you didn’t make these with your own kids. (Although, you may not be able to help it.)  

You see, in my head I was envisioning a dough of some sort that was deep red with tons of glitter in it.  In fact, this was the picture I found on Pinterest for inspiration.  How cool does this look?

DIY Galaxy Playdough by fairydustteaching #Playdough #Glitter_Playdough #Galaxt_Playdough #fairydustteaching

In reality, this is what my dough turned out to look like:

What is it? Is it a strawberry fruit dip?  A bowl of pink cream cheese?  A big wad of gum? 
No, it’s just the way MY ornament dough turned out.  That jar of glitter is actually pretty large in person and I dumped the entire thing into the bowl.  That’s a lot of glitter, people. Then, I did what a good reader does – I compared and contrasted it to the Pinterest picture, and finally decided I would need to start progress monitoring my crafting abilities.  
It didn’t get much better.  We attempted to roll the very sticky dough into a ball, flatten it, and press our fingerprint into it. Let’s just say when I look at the ornaments, I have no idea there is a fingerprint on them.  

The ornaments half dried and we wrapped them up today with a poem about growing up and our fingerprints changing.  Truly, the idea in my head was cute. But when the kids wrapped them up, the poem became wrinkled and the ornaments started cracking. It was about that time that I just had to tell myself parents like anything their kids make them.  Even pink, half-soggy, half-cracked, weird-looking fingerprint ornaments that have attempted to make themselves look sparkly. 

…It’s the thought that counts, right? 🙂

Like all of you, I have given my beautiful first graders tons of hugs and smiles over the past two days and have been truly cherishing our school days.  Below are some pictures and captions of some Christmas activities we’ve been completing together.

We made Teri’s adorable reindeer from A Cupcake for the Teacher
I found a great informational reindeer video on United Streaming.  We watched the video and practiced retelling facts we learned.  Then the students wrote informational pieces about reindeer.  
During our Around the World trip to China, we made these cute paper lanterns.  
The kids loved them!

Yesterday, we “traveled” to Japan and made origami Christmas trees.
These were very challenging for some of my kids but it was a great lesson in following directions because they had to stay with me step by step. 

 Our elf has still been hiding and participating in our room.  This week we are revisiting the skill of making connections while we read.  We learned this funny song about making connections and found Christopher the Elf singing along this morning! 

We have three more days until Christmas break.  I’m definitely ready for some time off but I have to admit I will miss all of the fun Christmas activities with my kids.  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Learning,

Similar Posts

3 Comments

  1. Oh you sound like me….I was so disappointed with one of the gifts my kids made for their parents that I just tossed them! It was the snowman ornaments and I have done them for years…this year they just looked BAD-the paint pens were running and it just looked like a hot mess! Oh well, I was able to hook them up with 2 different ornaments that worked out great! LOL, we tried!

    kellybrown28021@gmail.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *