Craft : Christmas Tree Ornament

Guest Post by    Today, a Christmas craft is shared by Kristina at Toddler Approved.  A simple tree ornament to start decorating!  The possibilities really are endless with this ornament!

Hi hands on : as we grow readers! I am so excited to be visting from Toddler Approved! I have a simple, but special little project to share with you today.

At our house we get a small Christmas tree each year for the kids and decorate it solely with homemade ornaments. Last year I had a newborn and this was a really special activity for my 3-yr-old son and I to work on together since he was feeling a little worried about his new little sister.

We just started making ornaments for this year and this button tree was our first one. 

Here's how we made it...

Materials Needed: 

• green felt
• foam sheet
• ribbon
• various sized/colored buttons
• glue gun
• Elmer's glue.

Directions:

1. Print out a tree template or draw your own. Cut it out.

2. Trace it onto foam and felt and cut it out.

3. Use the glue gun to attach the felt to the foam back [this part is for adults only unless you have older kids that can be supervised with the glue gun].

4. Sort through your buttons and choose your favorites and then use Elmer's glue to decorate the tree with buttons or other colorful items.

5. Use an awl or the edge of scissors to make a hole through the top of the tree.

6. Thread a piece of ribbon through the hole and tie a knot to make a loop.

7. Have your little one hang this on your Christmas tree... and then make a few more!

You could also decorate the tree with puffy paint or fuzzy or sparkly pom poms... the possibilities are endless.

Simple crafts like this are perfect for ornaments because we usually want to make more than one for our tree. 

Skills you can work on during this activity:

• button sorting by shape, color, and size
• counting buttons [How many blue buttons do you have? How about red?]
• creating patterns
• expanding sentences [if your child says, "I see blue' you could model how to expand the sentence to add more description- "I see a blue button with four holes"]
• describing colors, shapes, and sizes

What other simple items could you use

to decorate your tree ornament?

Do you have a favorite homemade ornament? 

These are a few of ours from last year:

Stained Glass Cookie/Ornament

Foam Present Ornament

Foam Santa Ornament

Come share the link or your ornament idea over on the hands on: as we grow or Toddler Approved Facebook page today. We can't wait to see your ideas! 

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I’m Kristina, a mom of two [a preschooler and baby] and a former Special Education teacher for children with communication disabilities. I write about our creative explorations over at Toddler Approved. I blog alongside one of my best friends and we love sharing ideas with each other and our readers. My main interest is to find ways to make life a little more fun and creative. I also love to embed language learning into everything that we do. 

More Christmas Ornaments:

• 30 Homemade Ornaments for the Kids
• 3 Homemade Christmas Ornaments

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