Saturday, December 5, 2015

A Week of Christmas Trees

'Tis the season for nonstop Christmas activities! For the first week in December we decided to work our way through one week of The Kidsperts Holiday Activity Guide. The theme: Christmas Trees. Not only did we do my recommended activities for the week but we threw in a few extras as I thought about them. 
Here's a look at our busy tree filled week:



 Princess Little People found their way into our Christmas tree town (small trees and miniature houses purchased at Walmart for around $1 each). The "snow" is our Flour "Sand" recipe that the kids love and it cleans up easily.



 A veggie Christmas tree for afternoon snack one day.


 Christmas tree pancakes with strawberry syrup for breakfast one morning. We also had Christmas tree grilled cheese for lunch at the beginning of the week, but no picture was taken.


 Christmas Tree Christmas Lists. Learn how to have your kids make one here. This year we used the ornament cut outs that comes with the Activity Guide and the kids broke out the glitter glue to add a bit more color to it.


The kids colored Christmas trees. The older kids got to practice their cutting skills and then we hung them on the wall to display.


                              Paper plate Christmas wreath. Learn how to easily make one here.


 Our Christmas tree cookie cutters got A LOT of use this week! One way was with our tree cookie cutter paintings.


First we made salt dough, then the kids played with it, then we cut out tree shapes, baked them, and turned them into Christmas tree ornaments.


We played a few rounds of Christmas tree ring toss. We used an empty Coke bottle as our tree (we put some green paint in the bottom and shook it around to make it seem more like a tree) and I decorated 3 paper plates for them to toss around the "tree." The kids didn't seem to understand (or care) that the line means to stand behind the line to toss it. Most kids just leaned reeeaaallllyyy far forward and dropped the plates on the tree, declaring "I did it!"



Finger painted Christmas trees. I drew Christmas trees and the school age kids cut them out for me.


The highlight of the week for my minis was cutting down our Christmas tree at a local tree farm!

We also read books that have to do with Christmas trees. Some of the favorites were: The Berenstain Bears Trim the TreeThe Biggest Christmas Tree Ever, and The Littlest Christmas Tree.
One idea that we didn't get around to was feeling different types of pine trees. I didn't have time to collect samples of all different kinds, but this is something the kids definitely would have loved to examine....and more than likely paint with when we were done (check outPainting With Pinecones for a look at how that would work).


Interested in these activities or more like these? Check out our Holiday Activity in the 'Shop' section.