Kid-Made Christmas Star Ornament

Making crafts with children creates an opportunity for spending this oh, so important and special one-on-one time with them. Creating a Christmas ornament inspired by a book is even more fun and meaningful. Our Christmas kid-made ornament was inspired by “The Story of Three Wise Kings” retold and illustrated by Tomie dePaola.

My daughter absolutely fell in love with this book, more so with its absolutely authentic, gorgeous illustrations. His illustrations are very different and unique. Tomie dePaola has got a whole series of books retelling Bible stories.
When making crafts and art it is essential to allow access to all sorts of different media and textures.

Every time when we make something new, we go for materials we haven’t used before. This time, after reading the book, we decide to make our version of the Christmas star using:

cardboard,
glue,
scissors,
hole punch,
pieces of fabrics,
ribbons

When working on art and craft I aim to make it a 100% child-led experience. Before beginning the process, I ask a series of questions, for example:

“What is the most interesting part of this illustration?”
“How can we make one that looks similar?”
“What materials shall we use?”
“What colors would you like to use?” etc.

This is fantastic for training their problem solving skills and creativity.

Here is how to make Kid-Made Christmas Star Ornament:

cut a star shape out of cardboard/cardstock
make holes with a hole punch for ribbons
invite the child to thread the ribbon and tie it in the middle
invite him or her to glue pieces of fabrics onto the star

Once the ornament was complete, before finding a perfect spot of the ornament on our tree, we read the story once again with the help of the Christmas Star my daughter just made.