Three Religious Christmas Crafts for Preschoolers: Star of Bethlehem, Angel & Baby Jesus

Three Religious Christmas Crafts for Preschoolers: Star of Bethlehem, Angel & Baby Jesus
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Keep Religion in the Holiday

Religious craft projects are popular among church-based programs for young children. Teachers can use these directions for three types of Christmas ornaments when helping their students create special mementos of the holiday season.

Star of Bethlehem Ornament

Materials needed:

  • Posterboard cut into star shapes (one per child)
  • Yellow craft paint
  • Paintbrushes
  • Gold or silver glitter
  • Glue
  • White or yellow yarn (one six-inch piece per child)

Directions:

  1. Give each student a posterboard star, and instruct the class to paint their stars yellow. (The children should paint one side of the star first, wait until the craft paint dries, then paint the other side.)

  2. Show the preschoolers how to squeeze tiny dots of glue across one side of their stars. Sprinkle gold glitter onto the drops of glue and shake off the excess. When the glitter has dried, have the children repeat the process on the other side of their stars.

  3. When the star ornaments have dried completely, use a hole punch to make a small hole in one of the points on their stars. Thread yellow yarn through the hole and knot the ends together so that the ornament can be hung on a Christmas tree.

Angel Ornament

Materials needed:

  • Clothespins with rounded tops (one per child)
  • Small squares of white felt (one per child)
  • Markers
  • Yarn for angel hair (yellow, brown, or white)
  • Muffin pan liners cut in half lengthwise (two halves per child)
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. Give each preschooler some markers that they can use to draw a face on the rounded part of their clothespins. Assist the children in making angel hair by gluing small pieces of yarn to the tops of the clothespins.

  2. Instruct the children to wrap a square of white felt around the length of the clothespin; this is the angel’s “robe”. Cut the felt to fit as needed, and glue the edges of the felt to the back of the clothespins.

  3. Give each child two halves of a muffin pan liner, and show the class how to make “wings” by gluing the liners onto the back of the angels. (The rounded edges of the liners should meet at the middle of the angels’ backs, and the flat edges should be facing outward.) When you buy the muffin pan liners, look for holiday-decorated liners or even plain silver foil liners.

Baby Jesus Ornament

Materials needed:

  • Green construction paper cut into oval shapes (one per child)
  • Yellow construction paper cut into rectangles and “fringed” at the edges (one per child)
  • Pale orange construction paper (cut into larger circles for babies’ heads and smaller circles for babies’ hands)
  • White construction paper cut into shape of infant dressing gown with sleeves (one per child)
  • Crayons or markers
  • Glue
  • Yarn cut into six-inch pieces (any color)

Directions:

  1. Hand each child all of the paper pieces that are needed for this project. Ask the students to glue the fringed yellow rectangles (the “manger”) to the center of the oval background.

  2. Instruct the preschoolers to glue the Baby Jesus pieces (head, dressing gown, hands) to the center of the manger. After the paper has dried, the children can use crayons or fine-point markers to draw faces on their babies.

  3. Use a hole punch to create one small hole at the top of each ornament. Thread yarn through the hole and tie the ends together so that this Christmas religious preschool craft ornament can be displayed on the tree.

The Reason for the Season

Christian parents will enjoy seeing the ornaments that their preschool children have made in honor of the holiday. These Christian crafts give children the opportunity to work with several types of art supplies while creating Biblical ornaments. You can also use the lesson as a way to teach children the idea of giving–parents will love receiving these ornaments as presents!