Happy New Year Hat

As the new year dawns, it’s a great time to celebrate the year that just passed. Even if there were rough times, it’s important for all of us to remember good stuff, to share our gratitude with our children, and to help them look forward with us.

Here is a silly celebration hat to make with your second grader this New Year’s Eve. All you need is a few simple materials…and a sense of humor!

What You Need:

• Silver metallic pipe cleaners (pack of 10-12)
• Two 9x12 sheets of black craft foam, trimmed to 7x12” size
• Craft glue
• Multicolor flat, glue-on round “jewels”
• Scissors, ruler, and pencil
• Silver glitter glue paint, in a squeeze-on bottle or tube
• Tape Measure
• Duct tape

What You Do:

1. Explain to your child that together, you’ll be making a New Year’s party hat to fit her head. Use the tape measure to see how many inches go around the widest part of her head. (Psst: go ahead and make a big deal out of this measuring process. It’s a classic part of second grade curriculum!)
2. Now place the foam sheets horizontally on a table, end to end. Cut a strip of duct tape, 4” long, and use it to connect the two sheets at the seam, starting at the bottom and reaching just to the middle of the two sheets. The last three inches won’t be connected—but that’s okay!
3. Lay the tape measure across the two connected sheets, and use the ruler and pencil to mark the end point. Cut off the last few inches of foam--your child won’t need them for this “custom made” hat.
4. Now, invite your child to cut a “fringe” across the top of the long black foam sheet you have made.  Start by marking parallel, 3” vertical lines, about ¾” apart, across the top of the foam. Then invite your child to cut along the lines.
5. Take one silver pipe cleaner, and wrap it around a pencil.  Remove the pencil, and you’ll see that you’ve made a coiled, squiggly shape.  Repeat this with the remaining pipe cleaners.
6. Now you’re ready to assemble the hat. Lay the squiggly pipe cleaners along cuts in the fringe, so that one end sticks up and at least one inch overlaps the solid, uncut foam section that holds the fringe below and will circle your child’s head. Use more duct tape to secure them to the foam. Fasten the ends of the foam together with duct tape, making sure that the duct tape is inside. The outside will be a black celebration hat with silver squiggles “exploding” from the fringed top.
7. Finally, help your second grader mark the new year in pencil on the front of the hat, and then trace it out by gluing down bright jewels.
8. As you go, talk talk talk about the parts of this year past that you will all be celebrating. If you’ve got twelve silver pipe cleaners, what are twelve things you want to remember and treasure?  Make them part of this goofy “thinking cap”—and part of your New Year's, too.