Happy Thanksgiving from Arbordale! We hope you are celebrating with family and friends (if you can’t make it home for the holiday, maybe consider hosting a fun “Friendsgiving” instead!). This is a time to reflect and count our blessings, so we wanted to give you an idea for a for a 3 –D Thanksgiving Tree craft that will help get the “what are you thankful for” conversation started with the kids in your family.
This could be a fun project to lead up to Thanksgiving Day that could be used as a centerpiece on the table, or if you have lots of little ones visiting for dinner, it could be set out as an activity to keep everyone happy while the big kids (adults) eat their turkey. The great part about the 3 – D Thanksgiving tree is that you can do as little or as much prep work ahead of time as you like…you can let the kids make everything at once or you could make the tree and leaves before hand and just write what you are thankful for the day of the craft. It’s up to you!
Our Arbordale Thanksgiving Tree!
What you’ll need:
-2 thin pieces of cardboard or sturdy brown paper, like cardstock, about 8” x 12” a piece
– Colored paper for leaves (we had green, brown, orange and tan)
-String
-Pencil or marker for tracing and writing
-Clear tape
-Scissors
Directions:
Draw or trace a simple tree onto both pieces of your cardboard or sturdy paper (I used this stencil on thin cardboard because my scissors wouldn’t cut through regular cardboard). Because the tree is going to be 3 – D, you want to make sure both side of the paper are plain. Cut the trees out.
Make a cut down the middle of one tree, starting from the top and ending about an inch from the bottom. Be sure NOT to cut all the way through! Make another cut on the second tree, starting from the bottom and ending about an inch away from the top. Again, do NOT cut all the way through. You can see examples of the cuts in the picture: the left tree is cut from the top and the right tree is cut from the bottom.
Slid the two pieces together and adjust the cuts (if needed) so the base of the tree forms an X and it can stand on a table on its own. Tape the inside corners where the two pieces come together at the base and the top of the tree to make it more stable.
Cut out different colors of leaves and punch a small hole in the top with a pencil. Feed the string through the hole to make a loop to hang on the tree. ( I used these leaves but you may need bigger ones if you have early writers crafting with you).
Pass out leaves and write something you are thankful for! When everyone is done, hang your leaves on the tree and tell everyone what you wrote and why.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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