Holiday Family Forest

My kids are SO excited about Santa coming next week! I asked my 4yo daughter to whom Santa was going to bring gifts and she started naming some family members, so I thought I would use this opportunity to make another fun family-focused holiday craft. 

I call this our Holiday Family Forest. (Click for larger image.)

Holiday Family Forest

Items used:

- 12" x 21" piece of white poster board.
- Assortment of green scrapbook paper
- 12" x 12" piece of dark blue or black paper
- Glue
- Green and brown crayons
- Ruler
- Scissors
- Pencil or pen for measuring
- Light-colored or metallic paint pen
- Small pieces of red, yellow, and beige paper (for Santa, sleigh, and reindeer)

So, my basic idea was that we would make a 'forest' of evergreen trees by cutting simple triangles out of green patterned scrapbook paper. 

Assorted green papers

I asked my daughter to choose a paper, cut off a smaller section of the sheet, and then I used a ruler and pen to trace out triangle shapes on the back. You can create trees of any triangle size, but, just for reference, I measured out triangles with a 3" base and 4" sides.

My daughter took her kiddie scissors and started cutting out the triangles. Remember, practice with using scissors is a great way for preschoolers and early elementary students to develop their fine motor skills. Her cut triangles weren't perfect, but that's okay because we talked about how each tree is different from others (just like people).

Next, my daughter used green crayons to color the white poster board where we would be gluing our triangle trees. (I drew a line in pencil and told her only to color below that line.) I thought a little greenish background would look better behind the trees than just the plain white. When she was done coloring, we took a dark blue piece of 12" x 12" scrapbook card stock and glued it to the top of the poster board (above the green scribbles).

Next, we glued on the triangle trees. Here is where the family learning aspect enters into this activity. After we glued down all the trees, I again asked her to whom Santa was going to bring presents. Using a shiny metallic-color paint pen, I wrote each family member's name on a tree. Remember, if you want a child to learn all of her family members' names and relationships, you need to talk about them frequently with the child, especially if you live far from family members and don't seem them that often. During this activity, we used terms like Grandma and Grandpa, but we then also talked about their different first names and surnames in addition to the 'relationship' names. And always try to define relationship words in terms they understand: Aunt Kara is Daddy's sister, Great-Grandpa is Grandpa's Daddy, etc.

Gluing Trees

Close-up of our family trees

Next, my daughter took a break while I made Santa, his sleigh, and his reindeer out of yellow, red, and beige paper.

Santa and his reindeer

And, finally, my daughter used our silver metallic paint pen to add stars to the night sky all around Santa and his reindeer.

Making stars

You don't have to use patterned scrapbook paper for this activity - plain green construction paper will do just fine for the trees. Also, if you don't feel like cutting out the Santa and reindeer shapes, search around online for some cute little clip art images that your child can color and glue on. Happy crafting!

©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder. 

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