Christmas Card. Project for kids.

 I volunteered in my son's class yesterday as an art teacher. I decided to show them how to make a greeting card. This is an  easy project and with your help and a little story, your kids will have fun making it.

 The first greeting cards, is believed, were used in China in 1400s. Chinese people celebrated the Traditional Chinese New Year and loved to exchange the greetings written on a small cards. The European travelers loved the idea of giving cards and brought it with them to Europe. Germans , of course took the whole idea to a new level and decided to print greeting cards. They used carved wood blocks to make copies of the same card. I showed kids stamps and we made some nice small stamped cards. 

 One of the oldest Valentine card is kept in British Museum . The card is more than 600 years old. I asked children when do we use cards and why do we need them. We also discussed the meaning of the tradition word. They decided that giving and receiving card was a beautiful tradition that made people happy. 

 I told them that very real artist needs an INSPIRATION. We discussed the inspiration meaning and they shared their favorite inspiration with me. I baked some gingerbread man cookies at home and brought them for children as an inspiration for their project. They learned that the gingerbread cookies recipe came from Germany and that Germans brought it with them to America. Germans loved the beautiful state Pennsylvania and built their houses in Lancaster county. We discussed the ways of decoration of the house and trees and learned that the same ornaments and decorations were not available at that time. That's why children loved the decorated gingerbread cookies. The used them to hang on the Christmas trees and used to put them on the windows. The passing by people saw the little smiley faces of the cookies and that cheered them up in  cold, winter days.

 CARD.

You will need

1 RED or GREEN cardstock paper folded in half for the card.
1 BROWN paper for the gingerbread man
1 Strip of some colorful paper (you can look in your wrapping paper collection)
1 BLUE cardstock paper
Construction paper for buttons and decoration of the gingerbread man
Hole Puncher
Glue stick or glue dots
Scissors
Christmas themed stamps and Ink pad

For children I made templates of the Ginger man out of Cereal boxes. They had to just trace the figure on the brown paper and cut it out. If you have little kids, then precut all the "ingredients" of the card, and then simply assembly them on the card. Decorate it with some stamping or color it with a white pencil.

Have Fun!!!