Kindergartners create Nativity gifts for parents
Jennifer Friel has taught first, second, fourth and fifth grades while at Butler Catholic School. Throughout the years, she has always had her students recreate the Nativity project.
Despite the rambunctious room of kindergartners struggling to stay in their seats and listen, Friel and Traci Ritson decided to try the craft activity with their students.
“We hope this project will be a keepsake for the families for many years to come. It is done by spreading chalk on canvas. This project is near and dear to our hearts. The kids present a Christmas pageant every year and this gift is a reminder of why we celebrate Christmas. After all, Jesus is the reason for the season,” Friel said.
The idea for the Christmas craft project is simple: the students use chalk to draw rainbow colors on a small, blank white canvas. They then blend in the colors by spreading it out gently with paper towels. After the canvass, they glue two black cutouts of Mary and Joseph, standing alongside the manger of baby Jesus.
Ritson said kindergartners always do something Nativity related. But this was her first year taking on Friel’s chalk Nativity project.
“I’ve never done this. I’ve taught kindergarten for 24 years. She used to teach kindergarten, then she went to first grade, and then second, then fourth and fifth, now she’s back down to kindergarten. And she used to do this with her older kids. And she said ‘I think kindergarten can do this, let’s give it a whirl.’”
The children opened boxes of chalk to color the canvass in varying shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple before smearing the chalk to get the right pattern for the background of their artwork.
“Don’t go to thick with the chalk or you won’t be able to do all the colors of the rainbow!” Friel said to the kindergartners.
Friel and Ritson made sure the students didn’t wipe the canvass too hard, or the students would have wiped all the color off. But by this point, the students were eager to show off what they had created thus far. “Look at mine! Mine turned out the best,” several students shouted out.
By the time the children finished their work with the chalk, shades of color were all over their hands, arms and their nice school clothes. Friel and Ritson lined the students up in front of two buckets of water and soap while they used rags to try and clean off their shirts and arms. The students were then sent to the bathroom to wash their hands.
They came back to glue the paper cutouts to the decorated canvasses, and while their shirts and pants were still dusty with chalk, the students clearly enjoyed the Nativity projects they created. Friel said they wouldn’t send the Nativities home yet, but would wait until closer to Christmas to gift them to the parents.
Despite the mess, the teachers smiled widely at their students’ enjoyment.
“They have the chalk everywhere,” Ritson said with laughter. “Don’t worry, it’ll wash out.”
