Fine Motor Christmas Tree

I was inspired by one of the amazing teachers I work with to try this Christmas tree craft. I love how many skills can be addressed with this craft: hand strengthening, scissor skills, motor planning, visual motor skills, tactile exploration, etc.


All you need is some construction paper, scissors, glue, a hole punch and red yarn. 

• Make segments of a tree by cutting a large green triangle into three or four pieces. You can vary this step by drawing wavy or zig zag lines for the child to cut depending on the child's skill level.
• Glue the segments on a paper. Younger children may benefit from having a completed Christmas tree to use as a visual model.
• Use a hole punch to make colored dots. Decorate the tree by gluing the dots on your tree.
• Squeeze glue between the tree segments. Some children may benefit from having a line to trace with the glue.
• Glue a piece of yarn between the tree segments. (I didn't have any yarn on hand, so I used a pipe cleaner in the picture above. I would not recommend using a pipe cleaner, as it doesn't stick very well!)

I did this with a preschool age child, and as you can probably tell from the photo, she lost interest a little early. She loved the cutting and gluing part at the beginning, but using the hole punch and manipulating the tiny dots to decorate the tree turned out to be a little too challenging for this particular child. I recommend this for kindergarten age or up. Might be a fun activity for preschoolers with good fine motor skills (but I generally don't see those kiddos :)