Christmas garland

For a Christmas craft lesson, we created garlands with second graders. The more traditional garland takes the form of an angel, but I decided to attempt to make a Mikuláš option as well.

In the Czech Republic, there is a famous advent tradition called Svatý Mikuláš that takes place before Christmas on the night of December 5th. Mikuláš (we would know him as Nicholas) walks through the town with an angel ('andel') and the devil ('čert'). To incorporate English into this class, we counted how many students wanted to make an 'angel' garland, how many wanted to make a 'devil' garland, and how many went for 'Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas'.

Here's how to make a garland, if anyone is interested.

To begin with, fold a paper into a concertina shape. This involves first folding it in half, then in half again to create four equal sections.

Next, fold the paper in half between the four lines, alternating between the sides of the paper to create a fan shape.

Flatten it down.

Trace the template along the fold (the arm connecting piece should be along the edge of the paper - this is important!)

Carefully cut the template out along the outer sides. 

Decorate your garland! If you would like to make a longer garland, connect two strands of four with tape or glue.

Here is an example of the angel garland option:

At the back you can also see some examples of our devil garland. This one is a bit more fiddly to cut out, particularly due to the horns.

Apologies if this tutorial is a bit unclear. I can recommend this very nice video from English Heritage that shows the process of creating an angel garland:

The angel template can be found here.

Merry Christmas!