I Need a Holiday Craft That Will Interest 3Rd Grade BOYS

The trick is to have something simple, fast drying AND interesting.. hmm.

decorating sugar cookies - premake or buy large sugar cookies in general winter shapes - star, snowmen, reindeer. LOTS of frosting. food coloring.

snowmen out of marshmellows

How about making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers? They can add the frosting and sprinkles themselves. We're having 2nd grade boys to our house for Christmas cookie decorating and they're very enthusiastic about it. Just let them do whatever they want when they decorate the houses and I think they'd be happy. Just don't call it a craft, though. :) The word craft sends my seven-year-old running!

I agree with CAWriter Mom...I used to teach 3rd grade and we always made other things, although for the life of me, I can't recall what they are right now...I'll have to get back to you...BUT, my 'neighbor' was a 4th grade room and she used to have the kids save their milk cartons from lunch and then use that as the base for their houses. They used graham crackers and frosting and candy, etc. All the kids loved it, even the boys! I will say most of my boys liked painting and glitter as much as the girls. OH...I remember, we made cinnamon ornaments (the kind with cinnamon and glue) and all the kids liked it. We used it as a gift for their parents and they got to roll out the dough and use cookie cutters, all of them liked it. You could also make snowman out of modeling clay or something and use pipe cleaners, felt, buttons, etc. to decorate.

My boys pretty much like most crafts, but they love paper bag puppets and making anything out of craft sticks.

I was going to do baby jar luminaries for my boys. Use a tea light candle, tissue paper and some christmas shapes out of reg paper so it blocks the light. I was going to use homemade papier mache paste as glue. The sugar makes it glossy.

You could also do melted crayon luminaries with paper bags as well. Cut out a rectange hole in bag, Construction paper cut out for leading lines, and wax paper and crayon shavings for the "stained glass". I've also just had them color nice on simple copy paper and rubbed mineral oil on the paper to make it translucent.

I think it is in the way you describe it--at that age "crafts" are "girly" to them, and they are "BOYS!" (lol!).

I don't have any great ideas per se, but maybe describing the activity more, rather than less, would make it more appealing: Do you want to do some wood etching with a hot iron? (that was one my brothers did in Boy Scouts).

You might try googling "simple science projects for boys" or something like, and/or adding the age range. Good luck!

Take a picture of each kid. Let them make a picture frame.
My son's teachers have bought puzzles and let the kids paint the plain side to glue onto posterboard pre-cut with a back and a "mat" frame for the front.
Also, frozen juice can lids can be decorated with glitter, a photo, buttons. Glue a magnet strip on the back and mom has a refrigerator magnet.
Boys this age don't like "crafting", but they like making things for their moms.
I hope you get some great ideas.

Best wishes!

How about cutting paper snowflakes? Cheap and always fun!

I need to add making reindeer food.

Really simple just mix oatmeal, red crystal sugar and green crystal sugar (Glitter can be harmful to birds and other animals so avoid adding that)
Place ingredients in a baggie and attach this poem to it (kids can write this down on an index card)

Sprinkle on the lawn at night
The moon will make it sparkle bright
As Santa's reindeer fly and roam
This will guide them to your home.

First, good for you! How wonderful that you are so involved in your children's classes, scout troops, etc.

Next, I don't have specific craft advice for you
but wanted to bring up some components,
items you may not have thought of.

Pine bark, pine cones, little branches, acorns;
artificial twigs, ferns, etc., from a craft store;
dry cereal, elbow macaroni;
the rings from the tops of milk and juice bottles;
I may think of more later.

Good luck!

When my boys were in third grade we made up plastic and/or glass clear ornaments. I purchased these products at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. We purchased glitter paints at Walmart and festive ribbons and dodads and such to stuff and ooze into the ornament. We had colored paper to wrap them in and placed them in brown holiday bags the kids decorated like a reindeer or white bags to look like snow men. You can make this out of construction paper or purchase foam with glue dots from Oriental Trading Company. On the outside of the ornament, before I brought this project to school I took silver and gold paint pens and wrote the date and grade for a keepsake that will last a life time. I purchased these pens at Michaels.

Another craft we did one year was bird food pine cones for outside. We got large open pine cones, then you tie a string at the top to long enough to hang it outside on a tree branch. You fill each opened area of the pine cone with peanut butter and then rolled it in bird seed. Place it in a ziplock bag for them to take home with the string slightly hanging outside the baggie.

How about making Christmas gifts? You can make a paperweight by painting a rock and gluing a piece of felt on the bottom, or one of those popsicle stick bowls, or a bird feeder from pine cones (use peanut butter and bird seed and a ribbon or yarn holder to hang it up). Good luck - you're brave!

I liked all of the other ideas but have a different type of idea I thought I would throw out. I agree with the one mom who mentioned that boys hear the word "craft" and it sounds too "girly" so it might be good to use the word "build" or "make" - - let's build or make something together. (I have 2 daughters and 2 sons so have learned from experience it is all in the presentation to the different genders as to how well received the idea is!!) Anyway, for boys you might want to check out the Lowes website (the home improvement chain). They now have a project each month offered for free (or you can purchase the supplies and instructions to take home) for kids to come in and build neat projects. Right before school the project was to build a wooden bus that was actually a pencil box. It was really gool. They have also had race cars and other things. A neat teaching moment especially for boys and a neat "toy" to take home or to give as a gift to someone else!! Good luck!

I love the idea of making some kind of luminaries. Maybe do a search online for craft luminaries? And you can even get 2 packs of the battery operated tea light candles to put in them at the Dollar Tree ($1 for 2). And if you could do one that actually involved TOOLS, well that wouldn't be a craft, now, would it? That would be like manly wood or metal crafting! LOL I'm envisioning the metal kind, maybe made of aluminum soup cans? with the holes punched in them in a design they'd choose? I've also seem luminaries made out of plastic milk or juice containers... they could still use "tools" per se, to punch the holes... I don't have a particular set of steps for these, but I'd bet you could find something online...

I'm always surprised at how "into:" the crafts most of the boys in my son's 2nd grade class are! What about those black scratch off ornaments they have at Oriental Trading? They love those and they are fast, no mess and can be as simple or as complicated as they want them to be.