Pinecone Christmas Trees

Here's another fun holiday craft for you to get creative with! We went for a walk and collected pine cones and gumballs one day (gumball craft coming soon). That in itself was a great activity and the girls had fun just exploring and digging around looking for them. The next day I got out tons of supplies...you pretty much can't go wrong. Green paint, glitter, glitter glue, puff balls, cotton (for snow), sequins, etc.

I used some small plastic containers, filled some w/ glue, some w/ paint, and passed out paintbrushes, cotton swabs, and Popsicle sticks to paint and decorate with. I showed them how to pull the cotton to make it look like snow (which neither were interested in). Again, you'll see I contained the mess with my lunch trays from Oriental Trading. I love those things. :) Once they dry I'll tie some ribbon to the top and hang them on the tree as ornaments!

Have fun!!

Ordering Objects

For math homework, Brayden was supposed to do some ordering games. The goal here was to teach about sizes and positional words. I decided our three little Christmas trees would work well for this game.

Supplies

Three items of distinct sizes.

Vocabulary to Practice

• biggest
• middle-sized
• smallest
• first
• between
• last
• next to

Activity

Have your child do different activities ordering the objects. Be sure to use your target vocabulary. "Put the trees in a line from biggest to smallest." 

Line the items up. Have your child describe what he sees. "The biggest tree is first. The smallest tree is last. The middle-sized tree is in between the biggest and smallest trees."

Fun and simple math!

Christmas Tree Art

Pictured: Kaitlyn's tree (2.5) and Brayden's tree (4.5)

This week, we are learning about Trees, Evergreens, the color Green, and Triangles. For our "green/triangle" day, we made these tree pictures. My kids are old enough to recognize that a tree is in a triangle shape. If your child is just learning shapes, you might want to make it an actual triangle.

AGE RANGE
I would say two and up for sure. 18-24 months is possible. You might be able to modify for younger.

SKILLS TAUGHT

• Fine motor skills
• Colors
• Shapes
• Option for focus on numbers or letters

SUPPLIES

• Green paper (or you could color a white paper green)
• Hole punch
• Yarn/string/ribbon/etc.
• Tape
• Scissors (if your child will do the cutting, child-safe)
• Glue
• Q-tip
• Sequins

PREP

1. Draw tree on paper
2. If your child is too young to cut, cut it out
3. If your child will not be cutting out the tree, punch holes in it
4. Cut piece of string/yarn/ribbon/etc to go through holes on tree
5. Put a piece of tape on the end of the yarn so it can easily fit through the hole
6. I put a small amount of glue in the lid of a plastic baby food container

ACTIVITY

1. Give your child the tree. For Kaitlyn, I cut it out. I let Brayden cut his out himself.
2. Once tree is cut out, punch holes.
3. While Brayden cut out his tree, I helped Kaitlyn put the yarn through the holes on her tree. Tape one end to the back of the tree at your starting point. When you are done, tape the other end at your finishing point on the back of the tree.
4. I had the idea after we did this that you could put a number or letter of the alphabet by each hole to create a "dot-to-dot" type of activity for your child and get some extra learning in :)
5. Have your child use the Q-tip to put a dab of glue where she wants a sequin.
6. Have her place her sequin on the glue
7. Decorate the tree as desired
8. Dry and hang!

Christmas Tree Rice Krispy Treats

This is a fun activity to add to your "tree" week. You can do this any time of the year. We are learning about trees during the month of December, and talking about evergreen trees.

AGE RANGE: as soon as you start allowing them to help cook. I would say most 15-18 month olds and older can do this.

SUPPLIES:

• Saucepan. You could use as small as a 3 quart, but I like to use a 6 quart so you can stir without spilling. Helpful for me and the children :)
• Rice Krispies: 5 cups. I always buy the inexpensive rice krispies in the bags (like Malt-O-Meal).
• Marshmallows: 4 cups miniature (which equals about half a bag) or 40 regular.
• Butter: 1/4 cup.
• Green food coloring.
• Candies to decorate tree (like red candies or string liquorice)--optional.
• Regular size marshmallows for base of tree--optional.
• Toothpicks--optional.
• Cookie sheet.

ACTIVITY:

1. Get cookie sheet out and grease or spray with non-cooking spray.
2. Melt butter in saucepan.
3. Add marshmallows. As you are measuring, be sure to incorporate math skills. For the younger toddler, it might just be saying "We need to fill this up 5 times. Can you help me count?" As your child gets older, you can increase the difficulty of this. Brayden (4.5) is quite good at math and can do simple addition in his head. He has also started learning about fractions (thanks to my husband the engineer). When we made these, I used a Pyrex measuring cup that measures up to 2 cups. I told him we needed 4 cups of marshmallows. I then told him our measuring cup held two cups and showed him where the two cup mark was. I also showed him where the 1 cup mark was. I asked him how many times we needed to fill it up, and to what, to reach five cups.
4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth and all marshmallows have melted.
5. Add food coloring, continuing to stir constantly.
6. Remove from heat.
7. Measure out Rice Krispies. Do the same for measuring this as you did with the marshmallows. Use this as a teaching opportunity.
8. Add Rice Krispies. Stir until well coated.
9. Butter hands. I just sprayed cooking spray on our hands.
10. Put a spoonful of the mixture on the cookie sheet and have your child form into the shape of a Christmas tree. You might want to show him how first. Also, it might be hot, so check to make sure it is cool enough before letting your child touch it. This is a good opportunity to talk about three dimensional shapes.
11. Continue until mixture is gone. Re-butter hands as needed.
12. Decorate trees if desired.
13. Once formed, you can add the tree base by sticking a toothipick in a large marshmallow and then into the base of the tree.
14. Eat and enjoy!

Please note that these are not gooey rice krispie treats. These have less butter and less marshmallows to help the tree stay up, but it has less fat, right? Right? :)