School Christmas Gifts...

At Christmas time each year it is customary to make a gift for parents. In the past we've made ornaments and picture frames. The items that I've used to make the ornaments you can no longer from from Oriental Trading. I know, I know... I thought you could get anything from that place also, but no. The frames that we've made in the past are kind of cheesy. So this year, my partner teacher and I found these really neat frames that are black. When students scratched away a design on them the background is all different colors. I thought this was a lot cooler than the other frames, but no. They are even cheesier. (Is that even a word?) So right before Christmas we were scrounging around trying to find something to do that was easy enough for students to make, cheap enough because I'm not made of money, and something that would not drive me CRAZY in the making process. I decided - candy! What is better at Christmas time than some homemade candy and snacks. We divided our classes into smaller groups. We've got pretzel dipper groups, pretzel wrapper groups, ribbon cutter groups, puppy chow making groups, puppy chow bagging groups, and pass out candy groups. I tried to think of a group for everything so I didn't have 12 people trying to make each thing. The kids are excited. The pretzels turned out great. I only burnt the chocolate in the microwave twice - smelly!! Today we are going to wrap them and make the puppy chow. Wish us luck. I've already taken extra headache meds to get me through.