Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Freebie

One of my favorite holiday crafts is to make Rudolph.  My aunt actually came up with the idea and she was kind enough to share with me.  This is what we make:

Now, I know that we have to base all that we do on our curriculum.  In Virginia, it is the S.O.L.s.  There are LOTS of ways that you could fit this in.  Patterns.  Shapes.  Cutting correctly.  Coloring in the lines.  Using glue neatly.  Okay, okay, it's a stretch.  But come on.  It's so cute!

Preparing for the activity.

You will need brown, green, red, and white construction paper.  I also use red felt for the nose.

I am kind of OCD.  You wouldn't necessarily know it to look at my desk/table, but I am with certain things.  Therefore, I cut out the background for the head, background for the ears/antlers, the holly leaves, holly berries, eyes and nose for each child.  I know what you're thinking.  The point of art is for all the creations to look different.  Trust me.  Even with me cutting out all of those pieces, they STILL all look different.

Background ears and head:  Trace the large head and ears/antlers pattern onto brown construction paper.

    

Holly leaves: trace the leaf onto green.  Two leaves per student.

Holly berries:  trace the soda bottle top (can you tell that I am very high tech?) onto red.  Three berries per student.

Eyes:  trace the oval onto white paper.  Two per child.

Nose:  trace the large round circle onto red felt.

Copy each child a checkerboard head and checkerboard ears/antlers page.

ACTIVITY TIME!
We start with a pattern.  See?  Educational!  You can even talk about the AB rule. In a checkerboard pattern of tan, brown, tan, brown, etc.  I usually do it with them.  Some of your kids will be able to take off and keep the pattern going.  Others will need the visual.

Next, give each child a copy of the checkerboard ears/antlers.


Pattern time:  tan, brown, tan, brown, etc.


Have your students cut out the checkerboard head and ears/antlers.  They will then need to glue the checkerboard head to the brown head background and the checkerboard ears to the brown ears background.

Next.  We do the eyes.  I show the kids on mine how to outline the eyes in black and give the eyes color.  Glue them on.

Outline the holly leaves.  Glue near one of the ears/antlers.  Outline the holly berries and glue as a cluster to cover where the leaves overlap.

Last but not least, the beautiful red felt nose.  Isn't he cute?     

One of the ladies that I used to teach with in third grade has used this craft and she brought in small pine branches that they actually glued on with the paper holly leaves.  Just another twist to the activity.

I'll be honest.  Depending on your group, it can take a bit of time to finish.  But I always think it is worth the end result. 

Happy Creating!