Large room made into Xmas grotto

[306235388]

I need help!

We have a large room at nuraery to turn into a grotto - does anyone have any cheap but effective ideas? We have zero budget really tbh but obviously have out Xmas decorations to use ....

Well you can go crazy with paper snowflakes for starters! Hang them on strings from the ceiling, but make sure they're not banging into your face all the time.

How about really cheap wrapping paper? Could be effective to cover a wall in a sparkly silvery colour?

Cotton wool balls on thread also looks like snow.

Buy cheap netting fabric (maybe the charity shop has some) (is it tulle I mean?) and cut it into long jaggedy icicle shapes - they can hang down over the windows and doors.

Fairy lights, obviously. You could use your own and just take them home over Christmas (depends how committed you are to the decorating I suppose!)

White sheets on the ground to look like snow? (Don't know if that would be a safety issue though - suppose you could tape them down?)

Could you do something with the lighting... you can get a pack of 30 odd LED tea lights, which are really safe, that you could dot around the room? You can even get ones that flicker, you could put them in lanterns? (if you happen to already have lanterns, or you can make paper lanterns pretty easily).

Large boxes wrapped up as presents? Or would the children get excited and think they were actual presents?

Paper chains made out of old magazines= free and pretty easy to make.

If you're feeling fancy you could get a snowflake cutter and make salt-dough snowflakes and then cover them with glitter glue and hang them up... or different shapes... gingerbread men?

Pine cones are free! Plus holly, although you'd have to de-berry it to make it safe for little ones...

All the 'polar-themed' teddies you can find? Penguins, white teddies, etc?

Thanks.

Yes definitely using fairy lights from home.

Will try the cotton wool on thread thing too. Definitely doing the big boxes as fake presents!

Any ideas how I can make a big throne type chair for Santa to sit on??

We did that at work once
Our departments area of a large open plan office...
We had lots and lots of paper chains and those snow stars from paper, which we made from printing paper, white mainly but some odd colours we happened to have.
Big cardboard (from empty boxes) cut out of snow man on sleigh, reindeer, and tree stuck to filing cupboards. (Paper on it and decorated)
Snow flakes and icicles on windows
Lots if surfaces wrapped in wrapping paper. All office plants became trees with decorations. And nativity scene made out of random things on people's desks. Joseph was an action man type thing, baby Jesus a little thing from kinder egg. Little stable made of a box. And lots of cotton wool as snow.
It took a lot of time, and we were not allowed fairy lights etc due to health and safety police, but we did win the first price
It was way over the top, but that's what made it I think.

A nursery is very different obviously, but hope this will give you some ideas

I've got a cardboard colour in playhouse from lidl for about £7 that I'm turning into a mini grotto for home, but you could use one as an elf house/ office or something. I've got battery powered fairy lights to put inside, then I'll let DS1 colour it in (should keep him entertained for a bit!) - DS2 is a bit young to be let loose with crayons without trying to eat them but he'll love crawling in and out anyway.

In my class I use one of those polythene greenhouses for the Christmas Grotto. I got it in b&m for £12 but don't know if they would have them at this time if year?
-cardboard boxes wrapped up in paper & stacked to look like huge presents.
-inside roll of wrapping paper & newspaper & masking tape-fashion newspaper on end of roll to make into candy cane shape. Cover with red paper & wrap white ribbon around for stripe effect.
-cover a toy slide in white wadding & put toy penguins on it to look like they are sliding.

Loving the penguin slide! Problem with a mini grotto is we are having more than one kid in at a time so more need to decorate the whole room iyswim?

Do supermarkets etc give you large cardboard boxes if you ask?

I helped do this at school a couple if years ago and we put a gazebo up in the room and made a decorated pathway through to it. This meant the whole room didn't need decorating. Amongst other things we used packing boxes wrapped in Christmas paper and tree branches / big twigs sprayed silver in pots as decoration, and lots if fairy lights, of course.

That sounds fab abear. Don't suppose you have a pic?