Make Your Own Tree

Ollie had a play date after school yesterday so it was a good chance for some 1 to 1 time with Phoebe to do our own little project - making a tree!

   

I picked up this branch in the woods at the weekend as I thought it would make a lovely tree. This project also gave me the chance to use up some stickers and sequin shapes that had been laid about in the craft box for ages as well as letting Phoebe have another practice with my glue gun whilst I could give her my full attention, as she'd really enjoyed using it to make her own aquarium. Whilst I was getting all the bits together Phoebe decided she would draw a 'plan' for her tree and laid some of the flowers, leaves, butterflies and pom poms on her drawing to work out where she'd like them to go.

   

Phoebe could help with the whole process which was great. We put the branch into a glass jar and then she packed sand around it tightly to make it stand up, pressing it down with her fingers to make it as secure as possible.

She then made a new label for the jar to cover the jalapeño label! She asked me to help her spell 'Our Family Tree' and then stuck it around the jar with a glue stick.

      

Next came the decorating! I only got pictures of her putting the stickers on as I had to focus on supervising whilst she was using the glue gun. She loved this part of the project - we made the butterflies speak and she would ask them what their favourite colours were so that they could have a pom pom 'blossom' or leaf of that colour next to them. She lined up butterfly stickers back to back really carefully so that you could see them on both sides of the branch and she made sure the decorations were all spread out right across the tree. So much learning going on at the same time as having fun - fine motor skills, observational skills, colour recognition and of course creativity & imagination!

She was delighted with her final artwork and couldn't wait to show Daddy when he got home. It now has pride of place on the kitchen windowsill!