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Pine Cone Christmas Trees
Preschoolers will love making these open ended pine cone Christmas trees. Let preschoolers use their imagination and decorate their Christmas trees using a variety of leftover sequins, beads, and other craft supplies.What You Need
Green PaintPaper Plates
Glue
Extra Play dough - I like to use leftover Gingerbread Playdough that is scented using holiday spices such as cinnamon and cloves
Large Pine cones - You can either collect these on a nature walk with the preschoolers or purchase them at the store. Most craft stores have pine-cones in stock during the holiday season for decorating purposes but they could easily be used for this craft project.
Assorted Craft Supplies - You can use any leftover craft supplies for this project. Sequins, beads, buttons and pom poms work well as Christmas tree decorations. Extra yarn or string could be draped around the Christmas tree to create a garland. Foam shapes in a holiday theme would make a wonderful addition and a foam star would be a nice touch for the top of the tree.
What To Do
Pine cone Christmas trees are a really simple to make and they allow preschoolers to be creative with this open-ended project. Start by giving each preschooler a small piece of left over play dough to form into a ball. Give each preschooler a pine cone and instruct them to turn it upside down and gently push it into the play dough to form a base. As they push, the play dough will form a flat base on the bottom that will allow it to stand up and will adhere to the wide end of the pine cone. The upside down pine cone will resemble the shape of a Christmas tree.Give each preschooler a paper plate to set their pine cone Christmas tree on. Fill another paper plate with green paint and have preschoolers paint their pine cone green. This will need to dry for several hours or overnight before preschoolers are able to decorate their Christmas trees.
When the pine cone Christmas trees have dried assemble your assorted craft supplies in several bowls for the preschoolers to choose from. Give each preschooler a bottle of glue and have them decorate their pine cone Christmas tree in any way they want. Give preschoolers free reign and allow them to be creative as they decorate their Christmas trees.
When the pine cone Christmas trees are completely dry you can either send them home for the preschoolers to share with their families or use them to decorate your preschool classroom in a festive Christmas theme.
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