Holiday Fair preparations

Each year for the Hartsbrook Holiday Fair, the early childhood/kindergarten families create, staff, and provide crafts for the Treasures in a Haystack and Children's Bazaar activities for the youngest visitors to the fair. This work is organized by a parent each year, who works with the Director of Development who orchestrates the whole fair, and each kindergarten class has a Fair Representative to facilitates the process for that class.

Each family, regardless how many children, is asked to contribute about 20 small, simple, handcrafted items. Some craft-loving parents want to make more, and other families don't have the time or just find this opportunity stressful and overwhelming, and we balance each other out.

In Fall 2018, as we have done in previous years, we are spending October Thursday morning craft sessions making crafts for the fair to augment what kindergarten families are making on their own, and to have an abundance for the fair. Kindergarten parents are encouraged to join us to make their crafts! We have some supplies, ideas, and encouragement. Please bring your supplies too!

We have a sample box of crafts to look at and get ideas for what kinds of things you could make. Class fair reps will likely have sample boxes out at drop-off and pick-up times near the Early Childhood classes in October. In case you don't see the items in the box, below are photos of many items that have been made in the past, to give you ideas!

October 2018: Sample crafts are in the display window at the front entrance to Hartsbrook Hall.

We strive to make these crafts by hand, with natural materials, but that is not a requirement. We want a variety of items and we want you to have fun making them! We look to include dolls/gnomes/angels with skin tones of varying race or ethnicity, and invite items that reflect many traditions.

As all our community work is woven together to form the fabric of our lives, you may also be interested in school efforts to expand inclusion, diversity, and equity consciousness and efforts at Hartsbrook. If you are interested in participating in this work, contact the school. 

The crafts offered in the Childrens Bazaar do not all have to be treasures specifically for kids! It is lovely to have some items that are more useful for the home or as decoration. Sets of small cloth napkins like are used in the kindergartens have been quite popular; wall hangings, sun catchers, small beeswax candles, dish clothes or pot holders or the like would be lovely. It is wonderful to encourage the children to pick out treasures as gifts for others, not just choosing things for themselves, and opening up the crafting to include items other than those for kids is a good way to make this happen.

Tip: See the Hartsbrook SmugMug site for photos of these activities at the fair in previous years.