Starry Night and Factor Flowers

This year I decided to do something different for their parent gifts.  I had them create Van Gogh's Starry Night on an 8 x 10 construction paper.  I've done the project in the past using pastels, sometimes with watercolors, but this time I chose this mixed-media design by Deep Space Sparkle.  It involved tempera paint, pastels, and construction paper - all completed in about one hour.  I liked how she broke down the steps and made it super easy for students to visualize the project.  

When completed the projects were put into Dollar Tree frames, and wrapped up for parents.  The Dollar Tree cashier just looked at my cart with 34 frames and said that I must be a teacher... I guess it showed.  :)  

The week before break we started our Fraction unit... which starts with a lesson on Factors.  We've been doing Factors for a while, so it wasn't anything new... to make it a little special I had them create poinsettias (or their version of poinsettias).  I gave them either a piece of pink or red construction paper and a piece of black.  They folded up the pink/red into smaller rectangles and cut out the petals, then had to create 4 petal flowers that were glued onto the black background.  Each petal had one factor number pair.  For example if they chose the main number of 24 - the petals had 1 x 24, 2 x 16, 3 x 8, and 4 x 6 written on them.  So many main numbers had exactly 4 factor pairs, so these flowers have a lot of variety.  It also makes my classroom look extra happy.  :)  Just a little thing to combine math with art... and that makes my students a little more engaged the week before break.  

What parent gifts did you give this year?  How do you solidify the factor concept?  Please share!