Another new and popular activity on my art shelf last week was snowflake punching. I spontaneously pulled this together after seeing a snowflake punch in a cardboard box on the floor of my office when I was putting my purse away. My cousin had lent me a bunch of punches this fall and they have been sitting in the same spot by my desk for months. For some reason my eyes landed on a snowflake punch with a lever and I had a lightbulb moment. I quickly put together this work which the children have really enjoyed. Luckily, I have a bunch of leftover pieces of construction paper that are about 3 X 6 inches. This is the size of what is left after I cut 6 inch square pieces to trace shapes for pin-punching. I always save them and now I guess I know why!
I used a divided holder to contain the various colors of paper, a small basket with little ziploc baggies (in the jewelry section of Hobby Lobby), and a basket to hold the punch. Later on I added a small pair of tongs to use when the snowflake gets stuck in the punch. Those are not shown in the photo.
At line time I demonstrated this activity to the entire group, pointing out how to insert the paper and how to use two hands to punch the snowflake. One hand goes on top of the snowflake and one pushes on the lever. I also told the children that they may need to stand up to get a stronger push on the lever. This suggestion has helped all children be successful with this activity. Below is a photo of my youngest son doing this activity. Please note that his hand are not in the "proper" position in this photo. He was trying this out before school and before Miss Laura had given him (and his classmates) a lesson. :-)
After the child has punched out their snowflakes (they may use one or two pieces of paper) they place them into a ziploc baggie to take home. They may either keep the remaining paper (which many want to do) or throw it in the trash.
My children do something similar at school, but rather than throwing anything away it goes into the pasting/glueing scraps for someone else to use.
Posted by: christina | January 18, 2010 at 08:06 AM