The children are out of school and full of Christmas energy. Here is an idea for a Christmas craft that involves creativity, engineering, and lots of imagination. The school where I work is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) school. We do lots of projects that involve the students in coming up with solutions using skills in these four areas. The project assignment for December was to build a free-standing Christmas tree using only recycled items. To be completely honest, new green paper was provided to help out with the look of the tree. Otherwise, classes used everything from soda cans to pizza boxes to old math papers to construct their trees.
Students’ Tree Creations
A fifth grade class made their own cards with Christmas messages and covered an old tomato cage.
This star was made using old math worksheets!
Here are some more uses for recycled paper — turned into tree ornaments!
Our Family Tree Creation
I brought this idea home. At our family Christmas party, young and old alike joined in to create a tree for Grandma’s apartment at an assisted living facility.
First some of my nieces and nephews pulled up you-tube videos and made origami bows and flowers out of paper scraps.
Meanwhile, my son made this long paper chain. We used a tomato cage as the base and I found some gold tulle, paper scraps, pipe cleaners, beads, and wrapping paper to decorate. We all wrote personal notes to Grandma and attached them to the tree.
Last our finished project was delivered to Grandma’s apartment to bring her some love this Christmas.
Turn your kids loose this week with some recycled items and see what they can create!
Tilly
Wednesday 23rd of December 2015
Love these :)) Thanks for the ideas!