O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Remember the pine cone craft I mentioned earlier in the month? Well last Monday we started this craft and it exceeded any expectations I had.


After employing Mark to help finish cutting those Mardi Gras necklaces, we finally had everything ready to start. First on our list..we had to paint the pine cones green. I made sure to have newspaper on hand to cover every inch of the students' desks and floors. When I announced that we would be using paint, the children's eyes enlarged. "But Ms. V you HATE paint," they all exclaimed. I don't loathe paint.... well only if it gets on my carpet and stains my desks, but who's watching for all that?


They swore up and down that they would keep the paint on the newspaper and pine cones and they did a great job doing so.


This is what the pine cones looked like during the painting process...

So after painting them, we let them dry. Of course my kiddos were restless during this step. They were DYING to put the "ornaments" on the tree. So after a snack break, we hit the ground running. Each group got 5 bowls containing the different colored beads and a bowl of Tacky Glue (A STAPLE FOR ANY CLASSROOM). It comes in a gold bottle and it's awesome!


Naturally my students suffer from "Too Much Glue" syndrome, which shows in the pictures below but after a night of drying, the glue turned clear.

After 40 minutes, the trees looked BEAUTIFUL. I was so thrilled!

Please excuse the orange mini Post Its. They are not part of the Christmas decor, they simply have the students' names on them to prevent confusion.


Aren't these trees charming? I really fell in love with this craft.


Here is a video too because I felt as though the pictures were not doing justice for these amazing Christmas trees....

Lastly, we took blank CD's and hot glued them to the bottom of the trees to make a tree skirt and glued mini present ornaments on the skirt.

Finished products:

I will for sure do this craft next year. It was relatively inexpensive and a lot of fun. :)


Well I'm off to get some cleaning done. Take care.