The holiday season is a great time for doing craft projects with your kids. With the weather growing colder, keeping your children entertained indoors can become a priority. Not only will this project help keep your kids busy, it will also be something you can display for years to come. Your children will get the chance to reflect on what they are thankful for. There is also the option of continuing to add to this project every year.
Gather up the kids and materials for some crafting fun.
This simple craft project will result in a Thanksgiving wall hanging that you can display every year. The idea came from a Girl Scout craft project that my daughter’s troop did one year. It is a slight revision of the original project. The troop leader had found foam tree kits that included the bare tree trunk and fall colored tree leaves that were all pre-cut. This project involves making your own foam tree and leaves that you will glue to a poster board. You can find these materials at Walmart or a craft store. Here are the materials you will need:
White poster board- 22″ x 28″ One brown foam sheet- 12″ x 18″ Foam sheets, any size in red, orange and yellow Black permanent marker or Sharpie Glue Scissors Pencil Glitter glue-optional
How to make the “Tree of Thanks”
Use the brown foam sheet to make your bare tree. Try to draw the tree as tall as you can on the brown foam sheet, using the longest side. You can use a simple tree pattern like this one at Craftscope.com (you may need to make it bigger) or you can trace your hand and forearm all the way to the elbow for a basic tree figure. Carefully cut the tree form out of the brown foam sheet. Center the tree on the poster board and glue it. Draw a simple leaf pattern on one of the colored foam sheets and cut it out. Hold the leaf against the bare tree to make sure the size is appropriate. If the leaf is too small or too big, adjust the size and cut out another leaf. Use this leaf as a pattern to draw more leaves on the other foam sheets and carefully cut those out. Once all the leaves are cut, have your children write what they are thankful for on each leaf. Keep it simple, such as, my dog, my cat, my mom, my school, my teacher, etc. They can also use names of friends, pets and family. You might want to have them pencil in the name or item first in case they make a mistake. Use a permanent black magic marker or Sharpie over the penciled in letters and be sure to closely supervise the writing. Carefully glue the leaves all around the tree branches until the tree appears full. If you have a few leftover leaves, you can add those to the ground around the tree, as if they have fallen off. You can use glitter glue in fall colors such as brown, red, orange and yellow to create a decorative border around the edges of the poster board. Just be careful not to overdo it. Small colored dots in a random pattern or tiny leaf shapes would make a nice border.
Add to the display each year.
Another option for this project is adding an extra leaf or two each year as your children get older or your family grows bigger. You can leave some room around the tree branches to add a few leaves each year or you can add foam leaves around the border each year.
Have fun spending quality time with your kids while you do this project. The memories you will share while creating your family’s “Tree of Thanks” will be one more thing you can be thankful for.