My daughter filled in the sentence, “During the Holidays, my family likes to _____” with “decorate the Christmas tree”. Eep! With my husband on National Guard duty last week, we haven’t gotten ours, yet!
So, here’s are mini trees my kids made from a paper plate and two coffee filters and decorated with a chocolate wrapper. Plus, they got an extra chocolate treat…so it is an all around win!
How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Personally, I would go with small, white lights and themed decorations with a few handmade ones thrown in. But my husband and kids have won me over and we’re a multi-color light, ecclectic decoration family!
Materials:
- foil wrappers
- 1 paper plate
- 2 pieces of green paper or 2 coffee filters
- green tempera paint
- green watercolor paint
- gold metallic chenille stem
- glue
- stapler
- scissors
Directions:
1. Cut a radius line (from edge to center) of your paper plate.
2. Roll into a cone and staple.
3. Fringe cut the cone.
4. Paint the cone green.
5. If you are using green paper, cut two circles, one smaller than your paper plate and the third smaller than the second. If you are using coffee filters, trim one to be smaller than the other and then watercolor both of them green.
6. Follow steps 1-3 for each of the other paper or coffee filter circles and glue, nesting, on top of the paper plate cone in size order.
7. Tear up foil and roll into small balls (these are the ornaments). Glue these onto the tree.
8. Cut the chenille stem into three small pieces and twist at the center to form a 6-point star. (I was able to make two stars from one stem.)
9. Put the bottom stem of the star into the top of the cone.
Educational Connections:
- History / Culture: Research the origin of the Christmas tree. Go to a Christmas tree lighting in your community.
- Readiness Skills: This is an opportunity for scissor practice. Rolling the foil into tiny balls is great fine motor work.
- Mathematics: For older children who are ready, you can introduce the terms: radius, circumference, concentric circles. You can also show children how you make two folds (diameters) to find the center of the circle (where they intersect).
Those are sooo cute. I love the determined looks on the kids faces, priceless!
that is so cute! And they look like they had a blast decorating. We haven’t gotten our tree either..this weekend for sure!
So, I am thinking if we do this craft and eat the chocolates, this will count as having a Christmas tree (or two)??? Love the craft, can’t wait to do this one!
These are adorable! They look like they had so much fun making them too!
that is such a cute project! I do NOT do enough projects with my 4yo little boy- I think partly it’s because he gets bored easily but I think if he got to paint that he’d enjoy it longer!
Hi Nikki thanks for the comment. It’s great to get feedback and know that the info is helping families across Cape Town! If you find any other good free outings be sure to come back and leave a comment!
the chocolate wrapper ornaments are cracking me up! thank you for sharing!
such cute christmas tree kids going to love to make this crafts thank you god bless you