Grade Level : From kindergarten to 5th grade .It can easily be adapted for any grade level . With the smaller children , you may want to precut the pieces of felt for them . For the older kids , measuring and cutting the felt themselves can be fun and a math exercice ! See what your students are capable of .
Material needed : for this project you will need the following :
* toilet paper rolls (or paper towel rolls cut in smaller sizes )
* felt of different colors
* a ruler
* pencils
* scissors
* fabric glue
* paper plates
* toothpicks
* cotton balls
Activity : (1) The students will start by measuring , tracing and cutting a piece of felt that will be seen as the face of their little garden gnome . So they should choose a felt color accordingly . This piece of felt , even though it will be the face of the little guy , will cover the entire toilet paper roll . (It is just easier that way .) Which means the length should be 4 inches and the width should be about 6.75 inches .
(2) Each student should now pour a little bit of fabric glue into a paper plate . Using a toothpick they should apply the glue onto the felt rectangle and glue it neatly to the toilet paper roll .
(3) Now they should use a different color of felt . This piece will be the jacket of the little garden gnome . This new rectangle should be slightly shorter than the previous one . It will be 2.25 inches long and still 6.75 inches wide .
(4) The students should glue this new piece of felt on the top of the previous one , so it will look like this ,
(5) At this time our little gnomes are slowly taking shape . We are going to need to add some details . The students are going to choose a new piece of felt of another color. They will measure it , trace it and cut it . This one will be 0.5 inches by 6.75 inches . It will serve as a belt . It will be glued about the middle of the jacket . They will also need a small square (or rectangle or oval ) that will serve as a belt buckle .Mine measure about 0.5 inches by 0.5 inches . They should glue it on the top of their belt .
This is what we have so far ....
(6) Now your students will need to trace two circles (for the eyes ) and one oval (for the nose) .They can choose any color of felt they want to .
(7) Before gluing the eyes and nose however , you want your students to start working on the hat of the little gnome . They can choose the same color of felt than the belt , as it will be a neat match . It should be a rectangle of 3 inches (height) by 6.75 inches (width) . They should once again trace it , cut it and glue the base of the hat on the top of our toilet paper roll . And this is what it should look like now :
(8) Now the students can glue the eyes and the nose of their garden gnome .
(9) They should now try to pinch the top of the hat . This part is a little bit more tricky for the littler students and they may need some help . Once they like what they see , they should add a little bit of glue on the inside top of the hat and pinch it together , just like this :
(10) Perfect ! Now we are almost done . It is time for your students to add the hair and the beard on the little guy . For that they will simply need to take some cotton balls , tear them apart gently and glue it onto the gnome .And here will be the result ...
(11) Here is the finished project . Doesn't it look nice next to paper flowers ? This is a sweet indoor garden gnome !
Hope you will all having some fun making them ! See you soon for another project ! Thanks for stopping by :)
