Just to add another thought to your Oriental Trading Company idea-
If you contact the fundraising department (under Carnivals on the website), they will let you return any unopened kits within 30 days after the event. No matter when you order. Plus you can use any discount codes for the order.
They have a lot more than just the foam stuff. They have a very respectable line of children's beads.
You can make shoe string style necklaces for the kindergarteners and more sophisticated and complicated necklaces with the older kids.
They also have a good selection of sand art kits. (Probably a huge mess, but the kids love it.)
We did the pine cone thing a few years back and what a scene it caused. There was a child there with a nut allergy, swelled up so badly he had to be taken to the hospital. He stayed there for 2 days!
The poor boy never even touched the peanut butter but just the smell of it got to him. Now we stay away from anything with nuts.
What about making a frame, decorating it with hard candies. We did ornaments last year. Not the glass ones, they glued it and glittered it. They came out nice.
Two years ago we did make-a-plate. There's a company that sends you the patterns, the kids color them, you send them back to the company and two weeks later you get your plate with that childs picture on it. Everyone loved the plates!
A couple years ago we make homemade playdough and the kids make ornaments with the dough during a Kindergarden party. Or I love using a material called paper clay to do the same thing, it dries a little faster but is fun to work with.
I do have to give you snaps....pancakes AND crafts! I know what the mess would be at my home!
We did a cute one where you buy a bunch of puzzles from a thrift store and spray paint the pieces green. Then you cout out cirles out of cardboard and then cut the middle of the circle out. Then let them glue the puzzle pieces all around and add a ribbon, sequence, etc. Take a picture of the child and put it on the inside. They come out looking like little wreaths.
Crystal
Love this one....Gather large pinecones before hand. Have kids tie yarn around the pine cone then coat the pine cone with peanut butter. Then roll it in birdseed. They can take it home, hang from a tree to feed the birds.
A card making station is always fun. Then you just need construction paper, markers, stickers, scissors, and glue.
One of the crafts our school had at the Santa Breakfast was making ornaments from die cut paper. A table was set up with hundereds of die cuts from thick stock paper of Christmas trees, snowmen, wreaths, etc. Each had been hole punched at the top. The table had plenty of glue and decorating items like glitter, sequins, etc. Cute and inexpensive. We provided ziplocks for the decorated ornaments to go home in.
