Tag Archives: star

Pop-stick Christmas Decorations

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Pop-sticks are so versatile, and they can be used to make simple and fun Christmas decorations. We made stars and trees using the regular sized pop-sticks, and some small stars with mini pop-sticks.

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Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

For the larger stars, we made two triangles with the pop-sticks by gluing the ends together. Then we placed one of the triangles on top of the other one, so that one triangle was point up, and the other one was point down. We glued the triangles together like this, and got our star. To finish them off we added glitter glue and once they were dry, I tied a loop of string to one of the points so it could be hung on the tree.

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Christmas trees.

Christmas trees.

Adding glitter glue.

Adding glitter glue.

The Christmas trees were made with a triangle of green pop-sticks, and a natural coloured pop-stick glued behind the triangle to form the trunk. We had coloured pop-sticks, but natural pop-sticks could be easily painted green before construction. Glitter glue finished off the trees. Later, a loop of string was added so the tree could be hung up.

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Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

The little stars were made by stacking the mini pop-sticks at different angles to produce eight points. A small dab of glue was all that was necessary to keep the pop-sticks together. Once dry, we tied some string around the stars to hang them from.

These decorations all look great hanging on our Christmas tree!

 

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There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Star! by P. Crumble and Louis Shea

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IMG_2545There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Star! by P. Crumble and Louis Shea, paperback picture book, published by Scholastic Australia in 2012.

Yet again, P. Crumble and Louis Shea has made us laugh with a wonderful twist on the tale of the Old Lady who swallowed some things that really couldn’t be good for her. In this wonderful Christmas themed story the Old Lady is up to her old trick of swallowing larger and larger items, including an elf and a whole tree!

Hilarious illustrations complement the funny text, and make this an excellent book for sharing. My kids like to spot things in the pictures, like the little mice that are hoarding lollies and having a ride on the reindeer. My favourite illustration was of the bookshelf when she swallows the elf, the names on the spines of the books are parodies of real books. The kids didn’t appreciate this as much as me, and preferred the scene with all the Christmas lights.

This edition has a very cool lenticular cover. When you tilt the book, the Old Lady goes from the bottom of the tree, up the tree into a position of eating the star. My preschooler loves to do this over and over.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Star! is a fun Christmas read for children in preschool and primary school.