Friday morning found students at Eldersburg Elementary School laboriously writing, coloring and painting cards and presents for Christmas instead of studying science and social studies.
Parent volunteers wandered around the four open space suites helping students sponge paint brown paper bags that would hold their Christmas present to their parents and making sure gifts had names on them. Little hands were colored red, green, yellow and blue from the paint.
Students who had finished decorating a craft sat at their desks coloring and writing cheery messages to area nursing home residents using marking pens provided by a parent volunteer.
"It was our guidance counselor's idea to send the cards to a nursing home," said 9 1/2 -year-old Breanna Tivvis, whose card sported a snowman and other holiday pictures.
Using green construction paper, the 9-year-old students made their own designs and loving messages on the cards. At least one student was already familiar with nursing homes.
"I was in a nursing home, my aunt was there," said Michael Kane.
His card wished the nursing home residents happy holidays and Merry Christmas, with a big heart in the middle.
After decorating the front of his card, Joe Currie also wished the nursing home a Merry Christmas on the inside.
Megan Bettis thought the nursing home residents would be cheered up by a snowman with balloons floating over his head, while Erik Vollmerhausen neatly printed a more lengthy message on his card.
Carol Arbaugh, guidance counselor, said this is the third year for the nursing home greeting card project.
"One of the students has a mother who is a nurse and she visits nursing homes," Mrs. Arbaugh said.
"The whole school is invited to make cards, then Nancy Du-- takes them to different nursing homes in the Eldersburg area."
The students have received thank you notes from some of the nursing home residents, she added.
The holiday workshop made the rounds of every grade Friday, courtesy of the PTA and a group of almost 100 parent volunteers.
All students had the chance to make a craft for Christmas during a one-hour class period.
"What we do is buy the raw materials and we might do some decorating on the craft, but the kids do the design," said Faye Worley, parent coordinator for the holiday workshop.
"Each grade is doing a different craft to take home as a gift for their families or someone they love," she said.
"We have 75 to 100 parent volunteers that make it work."
The make-it-yourself holiday workshop replaced the Santa workshop that the PTA used to have every year at Eldersburg.
Starting early in the school year, parents would be asked to donate time, talents and materials to make thousands of inexpensive crafts.
Then, over several days, students would be allowed to purchase a limited number of gifts for family and friends.
The project, while popular, was time-consuming and created some problems.
"We were losing a lot of volunteers with so many parents working and some children wouldn't have the money or would forget their money," said Cathy Brown, school secretary.
"This way the kids can make their own craft at their level and it doesn't cost them anything," she said.
About three years ago, the school switched from having the zTC parents do the crafts to letting the children make their personal gifts.
"This is a better way of teaching the children that they can make something just as pretty as they can buy," Mrs. Worley said.
That's exactly what the students did.
The fourth-grade projects were colorfully decorated with snowmen, Christmas trees, bells, stars, candy canes, apples, hearts and teddy bears in the brightest colors.
Students made glitter wreaths, stenciled ceramic tiles, glitter ornament balls, holiday banners, stenciled plaques and snowmen door hangers to take home.
Combining their efforts in a community project, students also collected food for Carroll County Food Sunday to be distributed to the needy for the holidays, Mrs. Arbaugh said.